Am I being unreasonable to be mad as hell about a scam going on at this charity shop?

[Bunpea]

Am I being unreasonable to think there is a scam going on at a local charity shop?

I took three bags of things to my local charity shop for a well-known mental health charity. My OH took the bags in to the shop at the front. The bags contained ‘good’ stuff (mainly nice clothes, with some new bedding still in the cellophane wrappers). All good enough to have sold on eBay, but I want to support this charity.

The shop has a car park round the back you can pull in to. I drove round there to turn around and wait for OH.
In the car park was a man sorting through boxes and bags of goods, putting some things into three large zip-up shopping bags, and everything else he put in a skip.
Into the skip went lots of kids toys which looked in great condition - plastic ride-ons, a small dolls house, soft toys, toy cars, as well as books and other stuff. He kept testing the weight of the bags - presumably he was taking them somewhere.
He seemed uncomfortable that I was there, lit a cigarette, picked up a few random pieces of small litter (but did nothing about the bigger mess) and generally hung around.

Just as OH appeared at the side of the car, the shop manageress opened the back door of the shop and handed the man one of my bags.
I got out and asked her if the stuff I had donated was no use to them, that I was never sure what was useful to donate, and if it was no good would take it back and deal with it another way.
She hastily grabbed the bag back from the man, saying it was ‘being taken upstairs to be sorted’ (no it wasn’t), and that ‘we sell it all’.
Hmmmm.

I can understand that charity shops probably use dealers for disposing of some goods they can’t sell, and that some stuff goes for rags. Or that they move stock from shop to shop. But this didn’t look like that. And all the good stuff that had gone in that skip…
Am I being unreasonable to be mad as hell about a scam going on at this charity shop?

If you are donating good stuff, perhaps you could sell it yourself and donate the proceeds?

As a charity shop manager of many years I can tell you this. Much of the donations we are not allowed to sell. Seemingly perfect looking goods like baby equipment, horse riding helmets, car seats, may be harbouring a defect, or fitting instructions are missy so they are not safe. There is also the fear of litigation to consider. Most unsaleable cloth goes to the ragman for recycling. Shop managers are often worked to death, often working alone with no paid help or volunteers and can’t cope with the volume of donations. There is also the health snd safety aspect of tripping hazards in the workroom. I’ve known managers to dispose of bulky donations, that are often just dumped without asking. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can. I’d suggest talking to the manager, not head office. HO never visit the stores, have no. Lie how hard they are to run, and offer little support. There is much to consider before jumping to conclusions.

Actually it is. If you have registered for Gift Aid, the shop is legally acting as an agency on your behalf to sell the goods, and has to give you the option to claim the money they make (less about 20% commission) once they are sold.

Even if you then waive your right to claim the proceeds (as most people do), you would still be losing out on Gift Aid tax benefit if the shop decides to dispose of the goods rather than selling them.

If he was weighing the bags as he filled them, amybe he will be taking them to one of those cash for clothes places and pocketing the money?

100%! Call HQ and tell them exactly what.you saw. If it was legit they'll know immediately. If it wasn't you'll have stopped people literally scamming a charity which is disgusting.

I have heard of businesses that buy bags of second hand clothes by weight, maybe as it was good quality they were selling it on somehow. Which isn't so bad if they're keeping the money for the charity, but it's stealing if they're keeping it for themselves.

I had a skip recently, and I was gratified that this really nice man came to rummage and take stuff out to sell at a car boot sale. He went through, and even took out bits of mismatched Lego to bag up in little zip wallets to sell on. Apparently, adults mostly buy it. He took clothes - lots, and after I invited him to take it, furniture, crockery from inside the house - loads.( I wanted to streamline my existence). I was pleased he was recycling the stuff.

I think leaving things on the pavement for people to take might be as good as anything. Charity shops are fussy about furniture and it's a real shame to think of things being wasted.

Apparently, the charity shops in posh places like Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge are amazing for quality bargains.

This sounds a good option. How does the OP know the staff are not weighing the clothes in and pocketing the money!

I work in a charity shop snd that to me sounds dodgy !!!! I’d get in touch with head office and explain what you saw. We take everything into the back snd sort every bag appropriately . We get so many donations but good stuff will never be thrown . We sort into what our shop can sell , what goes to another store, but gets collected by a van once a week , rags, which get collected once a week and rubbish which goes in the bin. Believe me nothing sellable goes into the bin , only broken or things with bits missing etc and even some of that can be salvaged

Oh give over 🙄

I would contact the head office OP, I don’t blame you for feeling cross.

I used to use charity shops and would get excited to find something that was a bit special .

Basically nowadays after everyone of the staff and their friends and random guys out the back have looked through everything and creamed off the best stuff what is left is crap.

In the end it damages the charity because a lot of people like me don’t use them anymore as there isn’t anything left and what they got for the better stuff was a pittance compared to what they could have got if it was put out on the rail

One way you can get some idea of what happens to your donated stuff is to giftaid it. The charity can then claim from HMRC an an extra 25% of whatever they raise from the sale of your donated items. You have to supply your name and address and preferably your email address, and the charity is obliged to tell you (by post or email) what your donation raised in their shop. It does involve extra admin for their staff/volunteers, but it's still welcomed by most charities.

This will at least indicate to you that your donation was sold for a reasonable amount while also benefitting the charity.

I used to manage an Imperial Cancer Research shop (I think they’re now called Caner Research U.K.). We had a rule which said nothing could be sorted and go down to the shop floor for 48 hours, in case anything had been donated by mistake, or maliciously. I’d assumed this was a blanket law for all donated items.

I had to let two volunteers go because of theft/underpricing for their own benefit. They thought that because they were volunteers, it was ok to steal.

I know that people get annoyed about people working for charities taking a wage, but it’s usually much less than in a similar, non charity role, and it stamps out people using charities for their own benefit (car boots/eBay etc).

And there were times I stalked shop lifters around time, whilst on the phone to the police too 🙄.

OP well I happen to know some one who works for a firm that takes unwanted clothes from charity shops for disposal and the drivers there regularly sort through the clothes and sell them at the car boot sales!

It is someone's business if they've donated to support a cause that it isn't!

It would be illegal to do a crowdfunder or gofundme for cancer treatment then spend it on lip filler and fake tan. It would be disingenuous as a scam. The police would take it seriously.

So no, it isn't "none of OPs business".

I managed a bunch of charity shops years ago and they all had weird little things going on including letting dodgy dealers pick through donations. I was particularly upset about one that had been selling designer handbags to a dealer for next to nothing for decades. I sorted it out but these things had been going on for many years, god knows how much the charity had missed out on. Definitely let the branch manager know. The shop shouldn’t be throwing away good quality donations particularly at the moment when there’s so much poverty and need for things.

Charity shops get money for selling bags of clothes and cloth which they sometimes do for for example worn items because it's better getting some money out of it than nothing. They also get charged for chucking things in general waste. The more waste they produce the more it costs them. This is why I get angry at people treating charity shops like a dump because it actually COSTS them money to get rid of it.

So I think this isn't as black and white as OP thinks and there's a reasonable explanation for some of this. I'm not sure what scam you think is going on.

I’m a volunteer in charity shop. I was in briefly today doing a bit of pricing, and some donations arrived. Old, worn clothes, fine thanks. They go to the ragman. Half a dozen polystyrene cups? A couple of heavily stained, chipped mugs? Partly used body lotion? An old cracked casserole, with no lid? We have to bin those, and commercial waste collections cost.

Without donations charity shops wouldn’t survive, and we do get some lovely items to sell, so there definitely are bargains to be had!

I’d imagine charity shops are rife with people who work there purely because they know there is money to be made for themselves from other people’s donations.

I'd imagine MN is rife with people who have never volunteered in a charity shop in their lives and really have no idea what goes on, yet think that their imaginings are relevant. 🙄

I am a charity shop volunteer. I am not a thief or a scammer.

A high percentage of clothing which we are given is not saleable. People do not want things which are very worn, misshapen, stained, ripped etc. So straight to recycling. Mens clothes do not sell for some reason, any "work shirts" we are given are immediately ragged because they will not sell, unless they are BNWT. Toys have to be CE marked, we can't sell things like bike helmets, lifejackets, high chairs, car seats, fake handbags/hoodies. And that's before you get to the donations of chipped mugs, DVD boxes without any DVDs in them and headless dolls.

Any decent charity will have audit procedures and ways of recording staff purchases. Where I volunteer there is a confidential whistleblowing helpline for anyone who is suspicious of the behaviour of another volunteer or member of staff. If the OP is at all suspicious about what is going on at the store she donated to, she will be easily able to find details online on how to contact the head office.

However, the main issue is that lots of the things we are given are NOT SELLABLE and have to be disposed of.

Not really, OP donated good quality stuff for the shop to sell and make money, not to slide out the back to someone there that was probably giving them a back hander to get stuff to sell.

So yes, I think it was a scam and I would be contacting the head office about it.

Yep, this is what we do. I was pleasantly surprised that my last donated items raised £142.59 for said charity!

This isn't a scam. Charity shops get rid of loads of things. They're humans working there with a limited amount of time on their hands. A family member volunteered at a charity shop and said that they're not as grateful for people's junk as people may think 😂😂 90% of stuff they get are binned off. They're inundated with donations and sometimes throw away stuff without looking

A friend of mine managed a charity shop. I can’t explain the toys in the skip, but she would always tell me to send my ‘rubbish’ clothes, anything with holes etc, as they would bag it and send it to a cash for clothes place and then give the money to the charity

Each shop will know what sells well and what to keep. A lot is recycled in various ways. Some clothes are sold by weight to companies that send the clothes abroad, some things not fit for sale will be sold as scrap fabric which can be recycled. If you have such clothes, bag and label them as scrap to make it easier. If there’s more than one branch some go to a central sorting point so that they’re not sold in the same neighbourhood or are sold online. Some send certain items to other charities. I work for a charity that recycles electrical goods and many charity shops pass their donated electricals as they can’t guarantee the safety of them

Nonsense, and legally incorrect. She has given it to the charity, not the shop assistant personally. The shop assistant holds it on trust for the shop and any proceeds from its sale belong to the charity.

Here, someone is clearly stealing OP’s gift to the charity, presumably in return for a bribe.

If you leave £10 on the cafe table as a tip for the waitress and instead I wander past and pocket it, surely you’d feel annoyed?