to think that charity shop workers should not take all the best stuff for themselves?

[gramercy]

I admired dd's friend's coat. Her mother duly informed me it was a Boden coat which her mother had got from the charity shop in which she volunteers. "I gave mum a list of the brands to look out for - so she can pick them out when stuff comes in. I've got loads of good things."

I know this goes on, but I really don't think it's on. Even if the volunteer pays a nominal price, it means the shop is deprived of stock, and if the shop only stocks horrible old tat then people won't bother to go in. You can't imagine a boutique, say, allowing its staff to buy all the prime stuff first so there's nothing left to attract customers.

1st too the sweet tin gets all the choc

Fri 15-Jan-10 12:18:48 ZOMBIE THREAD

It goes on all the time! I know the people who work in my local charity shop and i have watched the till on a few occasions while they have gone to the toilet etc. They both told me that they get first pick and never pay as its a perk of the job. I always see them at closing time loaded up with bags. They even said to me that if i wanted to come and help sorting bags i can take what i wanted. My mum used to clean in Oxfam years ago and she was told the same. My Grandad's brother died about 8 years ago and he was quite posh. My Grandad was given a lot of his brand new clothes, hats etc but it was all too big. There were some Burberry items brand new and other names on new stuff like suits etc. We took it to a charity shop in town and their eyes lit up. I thought i would be nosey two days later and i never saw any of it in there. Didn't think i would to be honest. There was also a new Burberry coat which i said to sell on ebay, which we did, and gave Grandad the money.

yeah im sad to say that it happens less in poor areas an there is less voulteers ,
yet in the posh places they are swamped with middle class ladys that act like vultures
with the stuff an only stuff there not intrested in or dont know its worth makes it to the shop floor
its sad really an if you notice some poor towns have just a few shops that are really honest
but in some places there are lots of shops with posh staff who cream the best an fill the shop with crusty books old lps an only clothes that smell to bad get on the shelf/hanger

CHARITY CORRUPTION IN ANY FORM IS DISGUSTING IT SHOULD BE A CRIME!

YABU. If the volunteers weren't there then the shop wouldn't be there either.

I volunteer in a greengrocers now but have volunteered in a normal charity shop in the past, the 'siphoning off' doesn't happen as frequently as you'd think. For a start, every volunteer is after something different, and they all work different days of the week. Usually volunteers can't take things that are on the shop floor for a certain amount of time. If we had a bag with a good amount of good stock in it we weren't allowed to touch it until the manager had seenw hat was in it, then we could choose one or two items from it. Those taking the piss wrt to buying things were warned and their buying limited.

Also, do realise that volunteers, on occasion, have to sift through bags of material soaked in piss (this was my Monday morning job as the bags had been there over the weekend and drunks would piss on them), bags which may have sharps in, or fecal matter/blood stains on the clothes/sheets, etc.

Also, stuff you donate may not make it onto the rails because they've gone into long term storage for a better time of year. We once had a woman complain at the top of her voice about the bag of amazing clothes she'd donated the week before and why weren't they on the rails? They weren't on the rails as she'd donated winter wear and it was April, so it had gone straight into our massive storage room to be sifted through nearer to winter!

In the greengrocers I get to take home veg for free. This being the veg that hasn't sold and needs to go or it will get binned at the end of the day. My boss is very generous and tries to give me other things (like pear crisps) for free but I avoid shopping whilst she is there or put the money into the charity tin!

Oh dammit, I knew I'd seen this thread before

as i have stated alot of folk are honest an decent, but these rag wags as i call them also exist and give the good people a bad name there only in it for the cheap goods an the ebay sales an not the cause
which is down right selfish cruel an in some cases EVIL.

Charitys lose money because of it not gain it happens across the uk more so in England
it can amount to millions in lost sales , the odd thing is one thing but multi items often week in week out = millions of lost pounds an hundredsc of thousands of poor people miss out on a bargin from rich house wifes disgusting greed thats a fact not fiction i praise all honest staff they are the gems in the crown but the dirty cheats need outing an shown the door

another key loss is the charitys lack of penetration in north wales there are more charity shops in most english towns then the whole of northwales which is mostly takeaway city an little else.
its these areas that should be looked at good day to all an have a nice new years eve :)

Evil? You are really putting volunteers getting first pick (if and when they do) of charity shop donations down as evil?

What planet are you on?

Evil is children starving whilst those that can help, don't. It is murder for murders sake, it is Baby P, it's turning a blind eye whilst atrocities are committed.

Get a grip of yourself.

THIS IS A GODDAMN FUCKING ZOMBIE THREAD

I too have witnessed this 'perk' in practice. A girl I went to school with volunteers at a local British Heart Foundation shop. I have seen her coming out with bags of clothes and then selling them on herself at a very popular car boot sale nearby. Needless to say, any donations I have will not be going to that shop.

Nixea I know, I remember this from the first time around, but I couldn't let that foolishness stand...

S'ok Tapir. Wasn't having a go at all, just fed up with this one keep coming back.

It's no different to other shops. I had a temp Christmas job and the ataff were given first pick of the sale stuff and they had a staff sale rail where you could get sale clothes with an extra staff discount.

YBU

no i mean the people who take stuff without paying ie steeling, steeling from a charity is EVIL fact
That money could have gone to old people an disabled people who are struggling under this cruel governements cuts so yes it is evil its all well an good for those with rich husbands in posh areas to steal from charitys is it ? yet if a poor person steels from the till (which is wrong too)
it makes the pages of or horrid newspapers , i think rich people steeling from causes that aid the sick an poor is down right Evil, if you dont then thats fine but i think its gutter trash tactics sickiens me to my core

sorry for the type errors

It happens in almost every shop and business everywhere. YABU.

I have volunteered in a charity shop. If we saw something we liked we put it aside & paid full price for it. We didnt rake through the donations looking for things to buy.

I have also worked in a clothes shop and if i saw something that i liked in my size i would put it to one side and buy it when i finished my shift.

There is no difference between the two. A lot of places have their perks.

I think that as long as they pay the full price, it doesn't matter. And they should also be allowed a discount sometimes. If the discount is larger than 25% then no, and no volunteer should be able to decide the price for something they're buying, but money is, after all, money.

You can volunteer if you want to get bargains earlier. Or you could pay more money and not get bargains. Or you could work in a shop and get a perk of first (full price or some discount) dibs. Most people get perks. My sister works at Apple (she's a a technogenius) and gets App (but not tablet or phone) discounts. Cut price left over stock (which is rare, but can be found online), she'll pay the same price as a normal customer, she might be aware of them first. I think it's fair. My friend works at a clothing store and gets occasional 'perks', by buying bargains first- but she buys them, she works hard and as no one (in RL, not on MN clearly) minds, I don't see a problem.

I could not let this thread go without putting my twopenny worth in. I was a Charity shop manager. I cant speak for every charity or every manager BUT
myself and my volunteers did get first pick but we paid for the stuff we had. I saw it as a perk. We were doing nothing wrong. The shop would have had dire problems without the help of these wonderful people. They gave their time for nothing and helped the Charity to raise money. Yes there are people that steal stuff, pinch money from the till etc, but they are a small minority and if they are found out they are out of the door pretty damn quick! We all work very hard and often more hours than we are paid for.
As an another poster has said stock doesnt always go out straight away. It depends on the season for a start. If we are given "party clothes" they are often put away till around November and brought out for Christmas. Sometimes if you get a lot of donations(in a few days) the earlier stuff gets buried under the more recent donations so the earlier stuff may not go out for a while.
There is a lot more to working in a charity shop than people realise.
We get donated some great stuff but also some awful crap! Some stuff just makes you think WTF! People leave donations on your doorstep even though there is a notice asking them not to do it. Firstly it gets nicked, secondly its a fire hazard and thirdly it gets rained on/pissed on. Some people also tend to use the shop as a rubbish dump if the local tip is further away. I once had a fridge dumped outside the back door, I had to pay to get it disposed of by the council.
So it COST the charity money. Sorry im going on a bit but I felt I had to defend charity workers. Obviously some people do abuse the system but not all. And while Im at it, most charity shops these days are not smelly, disorganised dumps. The quality and amount of donations has gone down, due to people hanging on to their stuff longer and/or selling it on ebay. Those shops in depressed run down areas do tend to get "worse" stock but theres not a great deal you can do about that. Ok I'll shut up now! lol

As an aside, dd1(14) recently started work in a local branch of a national charity shop, as part of her Duke of Edinburgh thing. Yesterday she was given the job of sorting clothes. Now, I know it's a small shop, but she was given a list - as long as your arm, I tell you! - of labels that wouldn't be put out. And anything that was 'out of season' or had a thread dangling would be put in this pile that would be destined for 'elsewhere', too. I was ed, I can tell you, and I think she was a bit too!! Now, I'd love to have first (paid, of course!) dibs at that lot ..... An article I read recently said it all went abroad but of course I don't know how true that is.

It must be a horrible job sorting through all the stuff so it seems fair enough that if they come across good stuff they get first pick - as long as they pay the correct price, and the charity gets the money, I can't see that it matters.

dog the clothes that arent put out for sale are sold to the ragman. So we do get money for them. Not entirely sure what they do with them but I think they may go abroad. If its out of season I used to bag it up and keep it, but you have to have enough storage space to do that. Exotic it can be horrible at times but often its like Christmas morning when you open your pressies. You never know what youll get! I used to love sorting! Esp if it was a bag of designer gear. There would be lots of "oohs and aahs" lol

My Mum volunteers in the Sally Army and told me that they pay the price that it would have been put out for if they buy anything.

I volunteer for a small local animal rescue who has 4 shops. We do move stuff around the shops as some stuff sells better in some areas such a smart shirts and suits and for some reason one of our shops can't get enough picture frames.
We also put aside better quality bricabrac as we do a craft show twice a year and get better money for it. We have also had some awful people volunteer who basically ran an ebay business on our donations. Our income almost doubled after getting rid of them., we were lucky that one of the residents saw them letting themselves in the shop on a Sunday.

ZOMBIE THREAD

Thought I'd seen this before.