Volunteer or Scrounger?

Grrrrann
Please be assured this does not happen in all charity shops.
I volunteer in a local hospice charity shop. The majority of volunteers are there as they've chosen to give back to a charity a loved one received excellent care from.
Purchases are made after an item has been priced by the Shop Supervisor who puts the sale through the till. Volunteers are motivated to best benefit the charity not themselves.

I really hope that none of the thousands of kind volunteers who work in these shops read the vitriol and accusations in this post.
Why? I rather hope they don't, but those who do will realise that none of the comments about self-serving (I don't see vitriol) are addressed to them, and that the only people accused of anything are those who take advantage.

It is understood that those who help out get a discount - but not freebies. In return, they sort / wash /mend / clean items, and keep the shop clean. This is only fair, I think a barter system of sorts, because they could have stayed home and watched television...

I volunteer at a NT second hand bookshop. We all price up new donations according to our shop rules/guidelines. However, I rarely will price vintage books as there are more expert volunteers who will do a better job than me.
If I spot a book I fancy, I always pay for it and then bring it back once read so win win for the shop. The volunteer who trained me said he used it like a lending library but I prefer to pay £1 or £2 as it is for a good cause.

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About five+ years ago a friend applied for a job as Manager at a leading Charity Shop (paid position). She was well qualified as she had been the Manager of a leading Ladies clothes store but wanted to work more locally. I can’t recall the name of the Charity now, but a major one not local.

During the course of the interview she queried whether the Manager would have flexibility on pricing and was told emphatically “No. The listed price for garments is the price”.

She asked - “So, if a man came in who was obviously quite poor but needed smart clothes for an interview and was interested in a suit that you price at £25 but could only afford £15, I couldn’t use my judgement and sell it to him for £15 to help him?”
“No”. she was told.

She stopped the interview and said she wasn’t interested as she might just as well work in a high-street clothes shop that would offer better conditions, pay and benefits. So that’s what she did and where she still is.

I don’t know if all major Charities operate in this uncharitable way.

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oodles

dogsmother

Doodledog, I actually do agree on a fair price properly set, but after that so what if Gladys has 20 of the coats? Sorry but I really couldn’t get in a tizz about something I had discarded.

Agreed so what if Gladys has 20 coats. Would anyone police Edna a non volunteer who actually has 30 coats who comes in and buys a 31st. Still same outcome, a coat not available to someone who might need it more.
I don't buy the assumption that every good quality donation will be bought by volunteers. Garments or footwear have to be your size, no point in getting the most expensive biggest brand items if they don't fit. I see things in charity shops that are big brand items, that were very expensive to buy and are hardly used, but I don't need one, think the expensive ornament is ugly and tacky, the high beans cosmetics are no good for my skin colour, that sort of thing.
I have seen people in charity shops though, not volunteers, going through the stuff, buying up things for their business or to otherwise sell on. I've heard what they are saying to their companion or the person on the end of the phone. Like Gladys they are paying what the shop are asking. Why demonise Gladys who is putting in her shifts for free?
I don't believe she already has 20 coats by the way, think how many wardrobes she would need to store all those. She probably does what I do and if for example she manages to find a black coat that fits her well she will donate the one that is a little bit tight, but she has kept asking it was useful for funerals etc.ive done that, and before anyone sucks their teeth I'm not a shop volunteer and the nicer black coat was actually an end of season reduction, so I got a bargain, a coat that fits me much better and (another) shop got a lovely coat that was just a bit tight across my back.
As long as a volunteer or member of the public pays the price for an item, I see no problem.

For goodness sake!

Nobody is 'in a tizz'. And nobody is 'demonising' anyone.

All we are saying is that someone giving items to some shops might find that instead of their being sold to raise money for the charity, or going to someone who needs a cheap coat in a cost of living crisis they might instead go to Gladys, who already has numerous coats, and that instead of joining the coats on sale to the public at a tenner has gone for 80p because Maureen priced it at mates' rates at £1 and Gladys claimed her 20% discount.

As I carefully pointed out, my examples were deliberately fictional, in case they 'outed' the people concerned, who, as I was also careful to point out do not see anything wrong with what they are doing. They are there to illustrate a point. Gladys doesn't exist, and if she did, she might not have 20 coats. You should see her collection of brooches though. . . . .

Sorry for the dreadful grammar and sentence structure in my post. I am not as good at multi-tasking as I used to be.

I know a chap in Cambridge who works 2 days a week in a charity shop ( he has ME supposedly and is on benefits) and he openly brags about sorting out the best items for himself and selling them on eBay. He says he makes a "tidy living" out of this so-called volunteering. It makes my blood boil!

I know some people who openly brag about knocking charity shops down in price - just dreadful as none of us are hard up!

No vitriol or offensive comments intended. I’m a heart on sleeve person who should be more aware of the power of the written word. So apologies as necessary.
But my thoughts remain unchanged. Let anyone have what I no longer need, and I will continue with my voluntary work and thank goodness it doesn’t involve making money.

In a slightly different vein, I volunteered for a branch of a national animal charity for 25 years. One of our perks was being able to order and pay for our own pet food at cost price. It was all done on a trust basis with volunteers popping a cheque in the cash box when they collected their food. Everyone, with one exception, was honest. I know this to be the case because I did the banking and ran a cursory eye over what people had bought and paid for. The one exception was the volunteer manager of the rescue centre who thought it was OK not to pay for her pet food. I never had the nerve to challenge her nor did I ever tell anyone else what she was up to. I left in 2009 and to this day I bitterly regret not pulling her up on it. She also thought it OK to help herself to donated goods that were brought in for fundraising events.

I agree with Barbadosbelle's friend. As the most junior volunteer there, I wouldn't have felt comfortable discounting things but I would certainly have fetched the paid manager who would certainly have exercised her discretion in those circumstances.

When I worked as a relief temporary PA to a lady with dementia her adult daughter lived in the flat above. The daughter was a volunteer at a charity shop. At least twice a week she washed a huge bundle of clothes and was always taking photos on a manikin in the conservatory. She was a very successful seller on EB as I found out her user name on parcels I dropped at the post office for her. Disgusting making money from donations and not giving to the charity. I expect quite a few others do this too.

Barbadosbelle

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About five+ years ago a friend applied for a job as Manager at a leading Charity Shop (paid position). She was well qualified as she had been the Manager of a leading Ladies clothes store but wanted to work more locally. I can’t recall the name of the Charity now, but a major one not local.

During the course of the interview she queried whether the Manager would have flexibility on pricing and was told emphatically “No. The listed price for garments is the price”.

She asked - “So, if a man came in who was obviously quite poor but needed smart clothes for an interview and was interested in a suit that you price at £25 but could only afford £15, I couldn’t use my judgement and sell it to him for £15 to help him?”
“No”. she was told.

She stopped the interview and said she wasn’t interested as she might just as well work in a high-street clothes shop that would offer better conditions, pay and benefits. So that’s what she did and where she still is.

I don’t know if all major Charities operate in this uncharitable way.

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That is a good point, charity shops rarely give clothes for free or discounted to those in need.

I'm not surprised at all by the reported goings-on in a subset of such shops. My friend helps run the local village hall, and at various times assorted items get pinched, or things get broken and not reported. Sadly, a certain proportion of the general public are just like that.

What I can't fathom is the people reporting that regrettable behaviour (like the OP), and it may have happened for years. HAVE YOU alerted the national management of those shops to what is happening?? If they don't know, they cannot do anything -- too logical?

I volunteer in a charity shop and my shop is nothing like the shop the op mentioned . We have to pay for any items we want , although we do get a small discount , many pay the full price.
We are allowed to buy things which haven’t gone on the shop floor yet. But aren’t allowed to keep things to one side for family or friends .
Any items bought by staff and volunteers goes through the till and is witnessed by other volunteers or staff .
Unsaleable items can be given to staff and most of us put a few quid in the charity box.
I certainly don’t agree with staff taking things without paying and I haven’t witnessed this in my shop .
The general public doesn’t realise that a lot of donations aren’t saleable . Until I worked in a charity shop , I didn’t realise the rubbish that people donate. People use charity shops as a dumping ground.
Donors come in with bags of donations and tell us that’s there’s lots of good stuff in there and there often isn’t . Items are dirty, worn, tatty or broken and go into the rag or book bag . So if you don’t see your donation in the shop it may not have been in decent condition. Or has been put in the beck room ready to go out at a later date . Or if it was out of season items, it would have gone into storage.
Your donation not being on the shop floor doesn’t necessarily mean a volunteer has snaffled it .

I helped out as a volunteer in a Salvation Army charity shop and happily saw no scrounging.

I did however see lots of very rude customers holding things up and asking in a demanding voice if I had this in a size 16 ?

Most volunteers are sincere I think.

Why are you shouting? No, I haven’t reported my mum’s friends for adhering to the system into which they were inducted when they started in their volunteer roles. Not do I intend to. Which is my prerogative I believe?

My son ha an obsession with trainers, hardly a week goes by the he doesn’t purchase a new pair. They’re all the latest editions but he refuses to wear them if or when they get even the tiniest amount of dirt on them. I regularly take bags full of shoes to one of our local charity shops and there is one volunteer in particular has called her own son to come down to the shop whilst I’m still there, which is fine as long as they’re paying the shop for them. I even bumped into them in a local shop and she asked if I had any new donations because her son was looking for a particular style, needless to say I take them to a different shop as I don’t believe the charity is getting the money for them as I got a letter from the charity stating a very small amount of money had been raised via my gift aid.

WonderBra

I really hope that none of the thousands of kind volunteers who work in these shops read the vitriol and accusations in this post. It may be that there are charity shops where some take advantage of getting first pick, but the people on here are so judgmental. Bearing in mind, if these people had to be paid rather than volunteer it would cost those charities huge amounts of money - even at minimum wage, the average working day would be £80.
As someone who has relied on grants from charities, I am so grateful to these people who give up their precious time to work for free in these places. I appreciate how hard they work, they're often treated in the same way that paid retail staff would be (in that they're expected to work a certain number of hours per week minimum, have to pay parking / transport etc, have to do the dull parts of the job as well as the more fun, social stuff).
Much of the research around cancer diagnosis, treatment and care, Heart disease, Alzheimer's disease is funded by charity grants - the government funding is very low, so we have to thank these people hugely for the time they give that allows the research to save our loved ones.
Maybe those of you complaining should look at wheat you do to help?

perfect awareness post, people have no idea how hard it is to get committed volunteers.

People who are complaining give away their clothes and bric a brac to help.

For me, it would be a lot easier to bin them, but I don't.

I don't really see an issue with volunteers having items and paying the same as a customer would pay. It's the same amount of money going to charity. I don't think the volunteers should get a discount.

I had a friend whose daughter bought named items e.g. white stuff, joules, from a local charity shop and then sold them online for much more than she paid for them.

I think the person marking the items up didn't appreciate the original value of the items.

Having said that, I have seen Asda t-shirts for sale (second hand) in charity shops for the same price as they are new.

Maybe they should take more care/do some research on the original value of items.

I don't see a problem with staff getting a small, preset discount, if they are too hard up to pay a couple of pounds more (!) but maybe only once items have been put out in the shop for a week or two.

I see nothing wrong in re-selling items bought in a charity shop if you have paid the asking price. When I was more mobile I often did a tour of the charity shops in my area and came away with a bag full of stuff. I paid the same price as everyone else. I just have a good eye for what will sell elsewhere. My stock comes from many different sources. The items have to be cleaned, photographed, priced and described. That takes time and effort and is a cost to me. They dont get onto Ebay of their own volition.

No problem with that, either.
If someone wants to put in the extra effort of reselling, then good for them.