Or was she? Charity shop purchase.

[JiggleJiggleFold]

I went in a charity shop yesterday and saw a set of figurines, 6 of them for £20.

I asked if I could buy 2 of them separately and the lady said no, they're a set. Fair enough. I had a few other bits to get from other shops, so left without them.

Whilst shopping I googled the figures hoping to get them from ebay or somewhere, as I only liked 2 of them. Turns out they end up at around 10/12 quid individually with postage anyways so 20 for 6 was very good.

I went back in and asked for the set. I paid the £20 and said to the lady "I only really want these 2, you can keep the other 4"

She told me they come as a set and you cannot but them individually.
I said I'm not asking to buy them individually, I'm paying the full price but only taking 2.

She told me I wasn't allowed to do that.

I said I'm keeping 2 and donating back the other 4 and that she could sell them as a set of 4.

She was adamant I want allowed to do that and made me take all 6 of them :s

I walked into the charity shop 2 doors down and donated the 4 I didn't want.

AIBU to think the whole things was just ridiculous?

She was really huffy and abrupt with me about it, like I was trying to rip them off or break the sacred rules or something!

Books are a bugger to get rid of - to the extent that some charities request no nook donations (without prior agreement)

i dont spose she had the authority
or the confidence to make the decision

I've just relived that scene in my mind 😂

Gosh. First World problems, ay 😅

I'm amused the remainders ended back in the same shop. Maybe the other doesn't do ornaments.

I am disappointed that we don't know what the things look like.

You may be right in as such she donated or know who donated the set. Bless her

Where I live a lot of the charity shop volunteers have either mental health problems, or varying degrees of Down's Syndrome - volunteering is suggested by SS's as a way of keeping them active/involved in the community. I wonder if she had some sort of personality disorder or learning disability?

@Emotionalsupportviper I love it. You rock. 😉

I absolutely think this is very likely - also someone with autism for eg would be very likely to have trouble separating the set and lots of people with even mild learning disabilities might not want to deviate from what they see as the ‘rules’ - ‘don’t break up the set’ And very often people with LDs etc volunteer in charity shops. I can see it was frustrating for you but I’d not worry about it, it definitely wasn’t intended to annoy you, don’t let it :) You are good though OP - 100% I’d have bought all of them and stuck the rest on eBay!!

This is too funny. It reminds me of a time I was getting coffee somewhere and they only did a large size. I said I wanted a smaller coffee could they just not fill the cup all the way? And they said...no! (I had said I'd pay full price too!)

Another time I went somewhere with my mom and there was a special on a large coffee drink. She said can I have that but smaller? They said yes but you won't get the special price so she paid more for less coffee 😂

Surely when the staff have a disability there should be an able bodied senior/manager/supervisor as much for the protection of said disabled volunteers?

An unscrupulous collector could take advantage of a staff member who may not be aware of the actual value of a donated item of value.

There can be a fine line between bringing your experience to a thread and projecting. I think you’re projecting.

OP explained why it’s not a good analogy. She was effectively trying to donate back 4 of the figures. She wouldn’t do that in JL because JL don’t accept donations. You’re making unfair assumptions about the OP’s attitude towards charity shop workers in general. She might have been a bit silly to push the point but she didn’t ‘treat them like crap’.

This thread is BATSHIT!

OP did absolutely nothing wrong!! She was told they couldn’t split the set so she accepted that and bought the full set. Then all she wanted to do essentially was make a donation of items to the shop but wasn’t allowed to?

It’s in no way the same as leaving four eggs on the counter at Asda or a couple of wine glasses at JL because those stores don’t only exist to sell donated items.

Every single person telling OP she was in the wrong is BU. Fact. Never seen such strange responses to a thread.

This sounds hilarious, personally I would have taken them all and put the ones I didn't want on eBay!

If I wanted to be really charitable I would have donated the money made on them back to the charity.

I still think the assistant was annoyed because OP tried haggling and getting the figures for less than the advertised price. Asking for two for £5 was CF behaviour, I bet if OP had initially asked for the two for £10 then it would have been fine.

The items had already been priced, though? The staff member was also adhering to the (apparent) rule that the set be sold as is and not split, so I'm not sure how anyone could use that to their advantage.

OP did absolutely nothing wrong!
Well, if you discount her initially trying to haggle the price as if she was in a Turkish bazaar rather than a charity shop...

I'll give you a fiver for two 😂

I've done similar, not asked for exactly the same but when away from home bought a lamp in a charity shop but couldn't manage the lampshade because of the size and even if I could have it was the wrong colour etc, absolutely nothing wrong with it so not tat. No bother at all, I bought the lamp and asked the lady behind the counter if she would like the lampshade back, and she was happy to take it back, had she not been I'd have taken it to one round the corner. There would have been someone who wanted a lampshade not a lampshade and lamp, or they probably get lamps without shades that it could be used for. From what OP has said it wasn't a set like say snow white and the 7 dwarves, and she only wanted grumpy and happy, but more like a collection of Wade animals, of which there are lots of different individual ones; people collect wade animals and the remaining ones would find a market, maybe more of a market if priced up separately, but for the OP she doesn't collect Wade animals but a certain sort of animal whatever make.

So not reasonable of the assistant to refuse to receive the ornaments back unless there was a sign no donations today, TBH
But had the set been snow white and the 7 dwarves, and the OP donated them back minus grumpy and happy, there may well have been someone who needed snow white and dozy. I buy odd china bits in charity shops of a certain couple of makes, and am really happy when I find odd bits that I haven't got, I'd not buy a large collection containing items I have already got and don't want to duplicate, but something different that I haven't got, great. And yes there are certain animals I will pick up regardless of the make of them
Those saying why did you not sell the others and made a bi of money for yourself and the charity, the hassle of ebaying them and the cost of ebaying them and the need to refund if the figure was broken in the post....she just wanted a couple to add to her collection of rats

I didn't offer a fiver for 2.

I asked if I could buy 2 separately. I didn't say a price. I just said that as an example on here. I would have happily paid 2 for a tenner.... In fact I paid £20 for 2 😂

I asked if I could buy 2 separately. I didn't offer a price. I would have asked her what she wnated if she agreed.

How was I haggling when I ended up paying £20 for 2 😂

Oh, right. Well posting this:
I asked if I could buy 2 separately for a reduced price. Ie... £5 maybe for 2.
has obviously caused some confusion.
Why would you use an "example" different to the actual offer you made?

Trust me.

I know this charity shop. I know these volunteers. (I didn't know the manager - they come and they go). There is nothing "vulnerable" about this lady. I would never knowingly be an arse towards someone who might have a problem. And I'm rarely so rude, either. You got the condensed version here - I got the full-on snotty even though I pointed out that I only wanted one, didn't want any others, couldn't physically carry 10 and was willing to pay a full quid.

I also appreciate that they need to get rid of books - but they could either choose not to accept so many (as one of the other charity shops does), or recycle them at the paperbank (easily done with paperbacks - just rip the covers off).

Unless someone has a spare shopping bag, and preferably a car, then carrying 10 books home (along with other shopping) isn't an easy task.

Plus - thesis how we end up with our homes full of unwanted crap - buying more than we want because of policies like this.

It's sometimes hard to get that single brain sell to stop rattling haha

My thought exactly. £20 for the 6 could have turned into £60 profit 🙄
Personally many of the staff at our local charity shops are in some way disabled & their minds work differently for a variety of reasons. For example if this staff member was told the items were to be sold as a set & they have ASD they may not have been able to change that information in a way that would not have triggered an episode for them as many with ASD are strict sticklers for rules & regulations.

I actually think the OP could have handled the initial situation better by asking to speak to a manager to see if they could purchase only the 2 they wanted & maybe they would have found out why they were being sold as a set.
Charity shops are usually ok about splitting stuff so it does seem unusual that they wouldn’t but without speaking to a manger none of us will even know the answer.

Maybe she was under instructions from another manager. Who knows.
Either way you could have made about £60 profit selling the other 4 on EBay but didn’t.
I think you’ve maybe just read to much into it as you only wanted 2 & had to buy 6. Some neurodiverse people are real sticklers for rules & regulations. I’d have felt obliged to keep them all if I bought them all so go you being able to donate the ones you didn’t want.

If she didnt understand or was a little confused their is always a manager or someone in charge. You weren't being ridiculous she was

Charity shops are not quite the commercial outlet that other shops may be. They value an item or set to be reasonable, and it is recorded as a separate item. A shop manager may feel that a set should not be broken up and expect you to purchase it as a set. It shifts the whole item at the registered price and respects the donation of the set, and removes the item record. You being picky may not impress. Take all 6 or do not purchase, as someone else will. YABU.