Thief @ charity shop

Kite2010

Stealing must have been high in one of my local Oxfams as now for CDs and DVDs they remove the discs from the cases and keep them behind the till, so if anybody tries to steal the disc from the case they are !!!!!!ed!

Willowx

I volunteer in a charity shop and I must say that we are an atypical charity shop in that only three of our volunteers are over 60 and most are under forty and we have a fair few men in as well and I can assure that stealing is rife in charity shops and they do seem to think that we are stupid. All the CD/DVD cases are empty and we have a nice set of strategically positioned mirrors but it is the regular thieves who get so annoyed when some one goes and stands near them. We have to put any money given on the till out of reach of customers and no money goes into the till until the customer has accepted their item, receipt and change so it is obvious what they have given us. Also the number of people who pick up receipts off of the ground in the street (if you don't want them don't take them and we will destroy them or at least don't litter) and take something of a shelf or rail for a refund, but have a receipt dated today for an item they claimed to buy earlier in the week from a different category and price.

thepedestrian

soolin wrote: »

I saw someone cheat the till lady out of £10 the other day at the hospice shop. I did grab a spare sales person and she basically said they were all so old that they just let them get away with it as they were fearful what would happen if they stood up to the customer.

In this instance the customer gave over £10 for a 30p item, the customer took the £9.70 change and sort said oh, and I'll take the rest of the change back as well, took the £10 note and left.

what !!! :mad::mad::mad:

iieee

When I was a teenager I worked in a charity shop in East London and theft was depressingly common. There were people who came in regularly to do it, they would wait until I was alone on the shop floor and then as soon as I was busy serving someone they grabbed stuff and ran. It was right near a busy shopping centre with tons of clothes shops, I don't know why they picked on a charity.

We also had people who would come in (well dressed etc) pick up some designer item or other and then demand we sell for peanuts because like everything else it cost us nothing and it was outrageous that we would rip people off by charging more for something just because it had a label on. *rolls eyes*

You think it would be a feelgood job but really you just seem to end up seeing the worst of people!

jasmineswhiskers

At my local scout jumble sale they sell all the larger household items outside the church hall. I spotted some really nice tiled pictures, was about to go over when some woman got there before me. That's the way it goes, but then she just walked off with them without paying and put them in her car! I informed one of the scout leaders (6ft bloke) who just shrugged and said 'yes they know of her'!?!?!? Why don't you do something then? Unbelievable.

Strapped

theonlywayisup wrote: »

Its not 30p.

Its a well known trick called 'ringing the change'.

http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Totnes-shop-worker-falls-victim-money-scam/article-1966928-detail/article.html

http://www.kirriemuirherald.co.uk/news/SCAM-WARNING-TO-LOCAL-SHOP.6338990.jp

As the first link says, there's been a spate of it around here lately. Someone tried it on my friend who has a market stall but fortunately he found out that market traders tend to be a bit sharper and came away empty handed.

imajica

I've worked for years in a Help the Aged/Age UK, then a Scope and now a Barnardos in three very different areas and I have dealt with more thieves than I could possibly ever hope to remember. Lots of 'regulars' in each shop as well as people you see once and never again. If you work there full-time you just have to brush it off otherwise you'd get really upset. We used to try and see the humour in it - follow them around and be over-friendly, strike up a nice chatty conversation about a thief we'd caught that morning, that sort of thing, because you can never 'win' as such.

One lady would come in and squat down behind a clothing rail and you'd just see the ends of trousers flying around as she shoved as many in her bag as she could before I spotted her. In the end I'd see her coming in and and jokingly call out 'hello!' with a big smile on my face, go up to her, give her a hug, say how lovely it had been to see her, spin her round and push her back out the door

Once a guy tried to steal the coffee and tea canisters from a Hornsey set and they were sticking out of his bag. I waited until he was about to leave the door and blocked his way, showed him the sugar one and asked if he wanted to steal that as well nice and loud. He gave them back very embarrassed and ran off.

The oddest one was a woman who bought £60 worth of curtains and then stole an item out of a 30p basket while I was bagging it for her. I was so bemused I didn't want to say anything to risk the £60 sale!

imajica

One more thing that I've always noted - in all three charity shops i've been a part of and all the hundreds of occasions when I've seen things go, or noticed they have gone too late, I have never noticed or caught ANYBODY stealing something that could possibly be a necessity. Never everyday clothes, or a basic kiddie's toy, or ANYTHING that I could sit back and think "perhaps somebody with no money felt that had no option but to get one of these by theft". Ever. And it seems very unlikely that I've coincidentally never caught this particular kind of theft day in day out, year after year.

Scumbags.

amcluesent

Aren't the naughtiest peeps the volunteers who slip a 50p price on the good stuff when sorting, then buy it themselves?

iieee

amcluesent wrote: »

Aren't the naughtiest peeps the volunteers who slip a 50p price on the good stuff when sorting, then buy it themselves?

In the shop I worked (Scope) it was only the manager who did the pricing, and she was salaried, not a volunteer. She never let me have anything for 50p, I'm going to write and complain.:(