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!

No she was not bring unreasonable. She would have been following the shop's policy. They probably have the whole thing on that gift aid scheme so doing what you asked might have made that even more complicated.

Yes, more than likely this.

Hmm ... a bit odd if her badge said 'Manager'. I run a charity shop and some of my volunteers can be very nervous about doing the 'wrong' thing (often with good reason... we have a draconian unannounced Audit procedure which can be terrifying for volunteers).

Maybe she was a new manager who just wasn't confident about making her own decision, I wouldn't over dwell on it ... but maybe consider offering to volunteer yourself to see just how vast the range of tasks involved in working in a charity shop is. It's not just sorting stock and putting in an attractive widow display.

My point was that some people for a variety of reasons are unable to use what a lot of people would term “common sense”.

So don’t start with your “ableist” nonsense

Some people really cannot think outside the box! YANBU.

My point was that some people for a variety of reasons are unable to use what a lot of people would term “common sense”.

Your point did not come across as such.

So don’t start with your “ableist” nonsense

I'm sorry?

Disagree. Charity shops are shops, their staff are human. Comparing to middle-class Mecca John Lewis was precisely my point: you wouldn’t behave this awfully in JL because it’s “naice”, but you think it’s OK to behave this way in a charity shop because its model is selling old things, therefore it’s a bit “beneath”.

Many many people don’t view charity shops as real or their staff as real; they donate dirty, broken things – we have to sort through donations with gloved hands and have a sharps policy because people just offload their crap – and they treat staff as rudely as you did.

She probably thought they wouldn’t sell as other people wouldn’t want a partial set and didn’t want the faff of having to mark them down / waste them

I agree.

I'm sorry op, I think you were a bit sneaky here.

@stuntbubbles I agree. You wouldn't go into a supermarket and expect to buy just one can of coke out of the multipack, even if you offered to pay for the whole thing.
OP, I get you asked, but you were told no. Then you appear form your original post have have repeatedly asked again. Charity shops aren't JL of course, but they are also not a car boot sales and loads of them are run nationally and almost a corporate with lots of rules on how donations are treated and accepted, and how pricing is done. So, it may not have been straight forward for them to sell this item and then accept the donation. In fact my local charity shop don't take any donations over the counter, you have to prebook a drop off and full in forms and things. I actually think it then gets set off for centralised sorting and redistribution.

The 6 weren't a full set. They were 6 out of 25.

I have autism myself so please don't turn this into a SN/albleist thing :(

Would you find a set of something in John Lewis and take the couple of bits you wanted out of the box and try to buy those? Or buy the whole thing at the till then try to leave behind the parts you didn’t want? People treat charity shops and their workers like crap.

This is completely different, John Lewis do not take donations like charity shops do. The OP was donating the 4 back, the shop worker was being unreasonable. I understand that there could have been a reason for this, but the OP was not being unreasonable.

Charity shops attract weird...there is one branch of a group for the same hospice round here that refuses to take items from the window and sell them. Its a display that is open to the shop, you can just reach in but the manager won't allow it. I was told "we do the window once a month and nothing can be removed" Its not some huge Selfridges type diorama, just stuff arranged on tables. their sister shop in a much less snooty village will sell you anything they have to make a few bob for the charity.

I think donating them elsewhere was the best thing to do, otherwise she have to tell all the other volunteers that no one had pinched two of the figures, you only wanted two.

You wouldn't go into a supermarket and expect to buy just one can of coke out of the multipack, even if you offered to pay for the whole thing.

it's still a shit analogy because you could buy the multi pack and drop the other 5 in the food bank bin

I imagine it would cause a bit of an admin headache for the first shop to process the sale and yet still have the items on the shelves

Why would it be a problem? I can’t imagine they run electronic stock control linked to the till.

well yes but if the op had bought all six and paid for them, left the shop, dumped the unwanted 4 in a carrier bag, gone straight back in and donated them, then there wouldn't have been a problem?

Charity shops don't want to be landed with a load of junk they can't sell any more than you do.

If they're a set and you've taken the two best, what's the chances of them selling the rest? Then they're just rubbish, which as a business, they need to pay to dispose of.

I like this 😂

THE 6 ARE NOT A FULL COMPLETE SET! THEY'RE JUST 6 OUT OF 25 AVAILABLE.

THEY ARE NOT A FULL SET JUST 6 RANDOM FIGURINES OUT OF A MASSIVE COLLECTION.

Sorry but people keep saying they wanted to keep the set complete but it wasn't a set to start with.

Yeah of course you could. Which is exactly the equivalent of what OP ended up doing - donating it elsewhere. What you couldn't do is to give them to the cashier to resell - which is what the OP was trying to do and is shocked that she wasn't able to. My analogy is fine, yours not quite so much.

And they weren't the 2 best, they were the 2 that were my personal favourite animal, which is a rat... So hardly something people clamour for usually.

Totally different. You wouldn't expect the supermarket to put them back on the shelves and resell a pack with one missing.