It beggars believe just how low some people will sink when they choose to steal from a charity shop, and it transpires that thieves and swindlers really do come in all shapes and sizes. For example, the ‘quaint’ little old lady who spent the best part of five minutes picking at a price label on a jigsaw with her thumbnail so that it now read 99p. When she was told at the tills that the true price for the puzzle was £1.99 she had a strop, saying that was far too much to pay for something which was originally given for free and that we’d deliberately put misleading price labels on our goods in order to fleece people! Needless to say, she left empty handed.
It was a similar story when a smartly dressed, well-spoken lady asked if she could try on a good quality, heavy winter coat in the changing rooms. When she brought the item to the till she wanted a £5 discount because the lining was torn. Those coats were put out that morning, all had been cleaned and checked and none of them had any rips in them….. not until she’d been behind a curtain for 5 minutes in our changing room in any case. The manageress called her bluff, saying that it was the shop’s policy not to sell damaged goods and therefore the coat would be removed from sale immediately. Funny how the woman was suddenly happy to pay the original price once she realised she was going to lose the coat.
