Taking from charity shop steps..

Zaphan58

Zaphan58

Zaphan58

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30 Nov 2003
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I live on a high street and was just parking up outside. I looked over the road at one of the charity shops to see a woman rooting through the bags of clothes that someone had left on the steps to donate while her kids kicked snow about. I started to doubt myself a little thinking surely nobody would take from a charity. But when I got home and looked out the window I see her marching down the street with a few of the bags.

Now part of me feels its a little sad that someone is that hard up they need to take from charity. The other part of me is saying this is steeling and that charity has just lost stock. Would you have told her to do one?
 
Yeah I'm sure it happens all the time. People go through the stuff to take anything valuable. Same with the staff, they take home all the good items and sell them on eBay.
 
My local council does bags that you put your old clothes/shoes/bags/textiles in. They are collected as part of the weekly recycling collection, sent to a clothes recycling company, and that company contributes to charity for how every many tonnes of clothes they get. However, without fail I see at least one (often two or three) vans go down my road stealing these bags early in the morning. Presumably the people taking them to sell textiles recyclers and pocket the money.
 
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Caged said:
I think people using charity shops as a way to avoid a trip to the dump is also pretty bad
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Yep we get that, as well. We don't want to turn donations away and are very grateful when people drop off items, but it does take the shine off when it's obvious when the shop is closer than the tip.
 
Happens a a lot around here too, but they usually pull up in a van and just throw all the bags in. The same people also go around all those donation bins that are dotted about the place, picking the locks and stealing the bags from inside. It's almost exclusively Eastern Europeans doing it too. It's that prolific that one of my mates, who is a copper, has actually become rather proficient in a few Eastern European languages to the point where he can ask questions, understand replies and read the police caution. He's also learned some damn good insults from that part of the World too. :D
 
Rroff said:
Some people steal entire clothes banks :(

Human race really is a large part scum.
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Saw that on the news recently. Don't know if they're stealing them for scrap value, to steal the contents or to use them fraudulently.
 
Some people just don't deserve to live tbh. It's also why I refuse to give to charity unless it's face to face. Many charities are full of greedy scumbags sadly.
 
Malevolence said:
Happens a a lot around here too, but they usually pull up in a van and just throw all the bags in. The same people also go around all those donation bins that are dotted about the place, picking the locks and stealing the bags from inside.
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And you can guarantee that after they've filtered out anything of value, the rest gets fly tipped!
 
it isn't just the small bags, they also have problems with people stealing the massive donation bins you see in supermarket carparks etc... then placing them elsewhere with their logo on - it's a competitive business. Also the door to door collections, bags left out for a specific charity, will sometimes be stolen by collectors working for private companies.

The private companies annoy me a lot, lots of people presumably assume that they're giving to a charity when they're actually just giving to a business that often just gives a small % of donations to whatever charity they've managed to persuade to let them make use of a logo. Some of the beneficiary charity are pretty crap anyway.

Best thing to do perhaps is to find a charity you think is worth supporting, go to their shop, ask them what sort of things they'd like to have, then take your old clothes there directly.
 
Derail
My Mum has a helper (early 50s) and last week she was bragging that everything she was wearing, including coat & shoes, hadn't come to more than £5.
She said she goes up to Longton (local town with quite a few charity shops) at least twice a week and buys her clothes only from them.
Good, bad, weird - I don't know what to think but she's on to a winner for her.
 
rebel rebel said:
Yeah I'm sure it happens all the time. People go through the stuff to take anything valuable. Same with the staff, they take home all the good items and sell them on eBay.
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Colour me naïve, I can certainly buy the staff siphoning off any
desirable items for themselves, but selling them on E-Bay, really?
 
"Registered" charities means there is always a CEO at the top taking a big salary, usually the founder, and mostly a celebrity.
I say let them have the clothes, they might genuinely need them more than a charity shop.
 
Jean-F said:
Colour me naïve, I can certainly buy the staff siphoning off any
desirable items for themselves, but selling them on E-Bay, really?
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If they pay the price on the tag then they should be able to do what they like.
Back in the late 80s I worked in a record shop and second hand vinyl albums were bought in at £1.
I had to pay £1 + VAT and then I could do what I wanted with them.
 
Depends if she was so hard up that she actually needs charity.
Some people do take the **** though. Some people whip round collecting up charity bags people leave outside their houses, take the good stuff then pass the rest on to charity. Sometimes thats what the people that give you the bags intend on doing.
 
stopper said:
"Registered" charities means there is always a CEO at the top taking a big salary, usually the founder, and mostly a celebrity.
I say let them have the clothes, they might genuinely need them more than a charity shop.
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So what that there is a CEO earning a deserved salary? just because you work for a charity doesn't mean you have to work for free.
 
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