To be annoyed the charity shop would not accept my donation

[Bearbehind]

I've had a bit of a clear out and had some stuff to take the the charity shop.

I checked on line it was open today then took the stuff into town.

You can't park right outside so I carried the stuff, in the snow, to the shop only to see a sign which said they no longer open on Sundays.

Oh well, I thought but, all the lights were on and I could see at least 3 people inside so I knocked the door and someone opened it.

He said they were shut and I explained I didn't want to come in, just drop these donations off.

He outright refused to accept them, because they were shut, and I'd have to go to another branch of theirs that was open today or come back tomorrow.

AIBU to think that if someone has made the effort to bring a donation to a charity shop and if there's are people there, they should accept them.

I'll be buggered if I'm taking stuff to them again.

Charity shops exist because of volunteers. Donors are aplenty. If you want to dump rather than donate just because they were closed then do it, your decision. But don’t you dare blame them.

It gives the staff time to clear stuff without manning the till and having to cope with a constant stream of stuff coming through the door

Exactly this. We sometimes go in the evenings 7 till 10 ish so that nobody actually 'expects' us to be open. And we don't get paid for that.

Our local charity shop has had to stick a sign in the window this week as they've had so many donations due to everyone having a post Christmas clear out. They haven't got infinite room to store donations that they haven't got time to go through and price etc.

Would someone like to regale me with stories of the fantastic bargains that they have picked up recently? I have never in all my years spotted all this rumoured splendour (and, believe me, I have in the past done specific post-Xmas charity shop visits. There is nothing there out of the ordinary, quality- or quantity-wise)

Right or wrong, I'd have been a bit irritated too.
I think given that they knew you'd had a bit of a struggle to get the stuff to them, they could have put the bags on one side until the shop opened the next day.
Are there other charity shops in the area that you can park in front of?

In my experience as a volunteer the post-Christmas time isn't great. I've seen lots of Baylis and Harding gift sets, scented candles, drawer liners. Socks, scarves.

It really depends what you're after, I sold a 1970s German coffee set to a woman on Friday and she was over the moon with it but it just wasn't my thing at all.

Perhaps last time they accepted stuff they didn't check til the next day, they got an infestation of mice or fleas, or found a severed hand or something... who knows? But you hardly showed them much consideration to ignore the "Closed" sign on the door, which clearly meant what it said. Try volunteering in a charity shop yourself and then you might well find a greater capacity to understand their point of view. If they no longer open on a Sunday, but atill go in to work, I suspect it's because they don't have enough volunteers and those they do have are peed off and overworked as it is, without you adding to their workload when they don't have time to deal with the stock they already have, let alone your donation.

Butterfly - do you get paid for volunteering at a charity shop? Genuine question. I thought it was all voluntary (i.e. non paid) work.

Senua you've been looking in the wrong charity shops

In the town I live in one is good for mens jumpers, the other for picture frames and handbags. But I have to travel a bit for clothes for me. But I have found a couple of charity shops that have supplied me most recently with an 80% wool, 20% mohair, tailored, double breasted swing coat for the grand sum of £14 and an East dress for £8.

From new the coat would have been about £300 and the dress £70. Both have hardy been worn

It took some effort to find the right shops, but I regularly pick up such bargains now!

Thought this was going to be a thread about how you'd taken unsellable stuff to the charity shop and they'd refused it, in which case YWBVU.

However, on this occasion, YANBU. I once walked out of a charity shop because I was trying to donate and was ignored for a good 5 minutes. Charity shop next door was much more polite about it

Truffalo - it varies. Some of the big national chains will have a paid manager. (And it's hardly highly paid, little more than minimum wage). Some will also have a paid, part time assistant.

In our chain volunteers are not paid. You can claim back travelling expenses, but nobody does. And they give us £10 per head towards the Christmas night out.

YABU

^^"It is extremely entitled to think that they need to just accept your items and be grateful."

at entitled.

Do you seriously think people have bagged up their 'dirty unsuitable' items just to dump them on a charity shop?

Unfortunately there are some who do. I've had the task of sorting and you'd be disgusted at what turns up in some of those bin bags.
Soiled sheets, dirty, soiled and torn clothing and towels. Even unwashed knickers. They are not pleasant to find, trust me.

Of course there are some sweet smelling beautifully ironed piles of clothes in there as well, but until you open the bag you just don't know. It is always with some trepidation that you take your scissors to the next bin bag. Sometimes you can use your nose as guidance as to which ones to avoid.
Not everyone has the same standards of cleanliness.

I would've left it outside too

They're not all volunteers either, especially in the bigger ones

I used to volunteer in a charity shop until very recently.

I would be annoyed too OP. If the reason was "because they were closed " and not that they weren't accepting donations at all at the moment then he was be g a right miserable git.
I would have accepted the bags and put them to one side with yesterday's donations were sitting waiting to be Vetted/sorted.

I really don't see the difference between if the OP had dropped the bags off 5 minutes before closing yesterday or 5 minutes after opening tommorrow morning. The reason I don't see it is because there isn't any difference. There will still be a pike of donations to get tomorrow and the next day and the next. A few more bags wouldn't hurt.

YABU

They were there doing something else that they had given up their Sunday for - paid or unpaid, whatever.

You should have checked before you set off. You have no-one to be annoyed with but yourself.

Yes YABU, you could have the face of innocence itself but they don't know that, they could've opened the door to you and five men run in to rob the place, yes it happens

Except they did open the door and had a full conversation where they told me they couldn't take my things because they were shut

but there’s the sorting out and despising of any junk
Yes, but isn’t that their job? It’s a charity shop so they have to sort through donations and sell the good stuff, why would it make any difference if they took it today or tomorrow? They can just leave it to be soerted tomorrow?

I agree with you OP, it wouldn’t have hurt for them to take the bags. I would take them to another shop tomorrow.

I agree with you Op when you said, "completely refusing to accept donations seems to fly in the face of giving up their time to volunteer." They have no idea what you were donating and it might have been much wanted items.

I think as the website said the shop was open they should have just graciously accepted it, it wouldn't really have hurt them, although then I suppose they couldn't have been able to make a point to you.

I don't think you expecting them to take the items is entitled at all.

I've heard of this type of thing before and judging from this thread there are a whole raft of angry charity shop workers, past and present who seem to see everyone else as inconsiderate, arrogant and entitled.

By the way, I've stopped taking things to charity shops now (no, I've never taken old or unwashed items, only ever new unwanted items) and I don't donate to any except Shelter and NSPCC anyway because such a huge proportion of the overseas charities income is misappropriated.

As someone who has also worked in a charity shop (and organised colelctions for refugees and homeless people) I guarantee you that LOADS of people treat it as a house clearance service and flytip bags of dirty sheets mixed with foodwrappers, half used up toiletries and old tupperware outside shops regularly.

Turning someone away shouldn't be thought of as them being ungrateful for your contribution. Just they came in on Sunday to stockcheck/reorganise/training.

TruffaloTree

I work 4 half days a week and some evenings when we get really behind with sorting and clearing. No I don't get paid, I volunteer.

We have one paid manager and one paid assistant manager, one of them is meant to be there at all times but it doesn't always work like that. If we closed the shop on Sunday to do some clearing and one of them had nipped out for a sandwich or something I'd have to turn away donations as well. As a pp has said, there are more people who donate than there are volunteers to deal with it.

I take mine to the local clothes bank, much easier. I buy quite a bit from charity shops and I do think what they do is great but I don’t want to lug bags of clothes around town often to be told they are not taking donations at the minute.

Do you expect other shops and businesses to serve you when they are closed?

Do you expect other shops and businesses to serve you when they are closed?

I'm not giving other shops and businesses things to sell .