Goodwill

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

So this evening walking by the goodwill store, there was at least 3 people picking through the donated items left outside to steal whatever they wanted. One guy even told his girlfriend/ wife to pull the car around because they had too much stuff to carry. Its not the first time that I have seen people taking things and I'm sure it happens every night.

This really annoys me because its not only stealing, but it is stealing from a charity. To me, it is analogous to palming money from the collection plate at Church. I know people aren't supposed to leave donated items outside, but that shouldn't give someone license to take things that don't belong to them.

So a couple of questions.

1) Is this illegal? It is outside and I guess it would be considered abandoned property. I don't know if what they are doing would be considered a crime.

2) Is there anything that can be done to stop this?

Comments

[sonofabish.livejournal.com]

Well, folks left the stuff outside of Goodwill to go to charity. Folks who are picking through the stuff are just cutting out the middleman.

[anomie666.livejournal.com]

People who leave stuff intended their items to be sold, so that money could fund the programs that the charity runs.

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

You're generalizing. I expect that many (if not most) of the people leaving things do not really care if their items get sold, they just want to be rid of them and are hoping someone else can get some use out of them. They clearly do not care enough to hand off the stuff during business hours, or just dump the clothes in planet aid boxes where they are secure. Goodwill clearly does not care enough about the donations to have a drop box, despite the hassle it must be for them to clean up every morning. If they are not upset about potential donations being "stolen", why on earth should anyone else be?

Thought experiment: assume some rich person funds the Goodwill store as a giveaway operation; all items dropped off are free, no money is raised for charity. Do you think they will see substantially fewer late night bags in front of their doors? I do not.

[on-reserve.livejournal.com]

I think you're giving people a bit more credit than I would. People are leaving their stuff there because a.) they want to get rid of it b.) in a hurry and c.) want to feel less guilty than if they just threw it in the trash.

If they were really invested in making sure that their donated stuff got put to good use, they would set aside the time to go when Goodwill was open. It's lousy that people pilfer but it's also lousy that people who donate are putting in such minimal effort but at the end of the day ... at least it's not in a landfill.