Police stopped donations after hours

illmonkey

I went to drop off a big black bag of clothes to my local charity shop last night on the way home from work, only to find a notice issued by the local bobby station infoming me to not leave clothes outside the shop while it wasnt open as thiefs operate in the area.

I was quite taken back by 2 things.

1, it was being stopped
2, there is low life scum who are happy to steal from charity shops to (proberly) flog the gear on ebay.

There was some expensive branded stuff in there too (diesel, FCUK etc). It doesnt fit me, and never will so its useless to me, it doesnt matter of the initial cost to me, its useless to me now.

Thing is, im not going to take time off work to deliver clothes to a charity shop, and my weekends are fairly busy so dont have time.

I can imagine the ammount of donations has gone down quite a bit! I used to see so many bags mounted on top of each other at night times a year ago, now nothing.

Revenge_of_the_Red_Devil

Its a shame . Maybe if you could flog them on eBay yourself (if you hae spare time) and give some of the money to charity?

firespire

samgoffe wrote:

Thing is, im not going to take time off work to deliver clothes to a charity shop, and my weekends are fairly busy so dont have time.

Maybe go first thing on a weekend before you get busy or wait until a charity is collecting in you area but make sure it is for a real charity you have heard of.

CM86_2

I'd be sceptical about leaving it for some charities, as the bags are collected by registered companies who give some of the proceeds to the charity (I saw one bag that said it donated 40% of its profits to the charity)... Best to do it direct! I think this applies to the charity recycling banks as well.

littlemissfrugal

think of it this way you leave bag of goodies in good faith for said charity at the door that night the local yobs decide to urinate into the bag as a bit of "fun" and the next moring charity shopworker gets covered in it - not nice

lisyloo

im not going to take time off work to deliver clothes to a charity shop

I take mine to work and then drop it off at the nearest charity shop in my lunch hour.

Are there any charity shops within walking distance of where you work that you could go to on a lunch time or break time?

If I have a lot then I have to take in in smaller chunks so that I can carry it, but I don't mind going back there a few times.

DaisyNelson

If you have ever dropped off stuff at a charity shop outside of their trading hours, it has almost certainly been stolen, damaged, suffered the effects of the weather or if near a residential area- hada local cat 'check it out'. In other words your generous donation did not reach the cause it was intended for. In fact you may have added to their costs if they have to pay to have unuseable stuff taken away. Some charities will make a special collection from your home or put it out when they are collecting in your area. You can check by phone if it is a genuine collection or not.

lamb7994

The charity shops i run often have items left outside and most of the time someone has been through it and if there's anything breakable in their it normally gets smashed which then is a hazard for us when we have got to clear it up.

As far as the council and environment agency is concerned it is actually classed as fly tipping which they can proscecute over because until it is in our shop it is not classed as our property so really it has been "dumped" and not donated they say they will check for people "dumping" stuff and warn or fine them .

We have tried putting notices up saying it will be stolen and also the environment agency have provided us with notices to tell people it is flytipping and the consequences if they are caught.

If anyone has any more ideas to stop it let me know please

Thanks

James

Contains_Mild_Peril

It's a real shame that people would steal charity donations.
Do you have the chance to drop stuff off on your way to work in the morning? It might still be unattended for a short while before the shop opens, but if it's just an hour or two rather than all night, there's much less risk of something happening to it. As has been mentioned, as well as thieves, there are also vandals and animals which might foul the bags to worry about, so leaving stuff overnight is a bad idea. Do any of your local supermarkets have a charity clothes bank where you can put stuff in when you go to shop? There's a big Oxfam one at Tesco about a minute from my front door (though it occasionally overflows, and then I finish up taking stuff home in the dead of night, washing it and handing it into the shop rather than see it ruined in the rain).

Bennifred

One of our local charity shops was recently burnt out when the clothes left outside were set alight:mad: . The fire also spread to other shops near by. So even though I agree that it is a nuisance not being able to leave stuff at your convenience, it's just not worth the risk of antisocial morons destroying other people's property for fun - undoes the good you intend!

illmonkey

I cant take it to work with me, its a car journey, then sitting on a train then a walk. And its not light. I suppose i could spread it out.

It sounds horrible, but it doesnt seem worth my while. I want to help, but to have to lug things to work seems silly.

Why cant they have a "bin" in places i can just throw it in? OH YES, so !!!! will dump something horrible in and ruin it all