The Charity Shop scam

"They only pay 10% of commercial council tax as they're registered charities. Isn't this a breach of [the] law, selling 'new' items?

"I really feel charity should begin at home and as they have millions in the bank they should at least pay full council tax and pay staff the minimum wages. They're taking advantage of old ladies by not paying them.

"I also think the reason for 'new' lines is ... the staff in the back shop are getting the goods before it gets to the shop floor and [are] selling it on eBay.

"This shop I went into today has Spaniards working there and it looked as if she had all her friends in the back shop having a great time [ransacking the] bags of donated goods.

I myself am personally aquainted with one such 'charity' shop where the two employed staff are both gypsy freeloaders and the volunteers are predominantly half-wits. The gypsies do deals with the owner of a furniture store to pocket the proceeds from expensive pieces of donated furniture. They also steal smaller items and sell them on eBay. The manager of the shop has even been known to take money from members of the public who fell for the "someone has stolen [whatever] from our shop, [it] being worth £80, what are we to do?" line.

One of the gypsies drives around in an expensive car and takes upwards of three or four foreign holidays per year. The other is a bit more discreet, preferring to stash away their ill-gotten gains. Most of the volunteers are non compos mentis and unable to understand what is going on, the rest are too frightened of losing their positions of unpaid servitude to say anything.

Items donated out of the kindness of the heart, are then priced up at hundreds of pounds.

Most payments are made in cash and the till is old and easily fleeced by the gypsies. On the odd occasion that Head Office becomes a little suspicious, a volunteer is singled out and sacrificed on the lie that it was the volunteer that was stealing money from the till.

In the main, though, head offices are only bothered about the millions in easy money that keeps rolling in for nothing (no expenditure, no transport fees, free labour, no taxes, no National Insurance contributions). The head office staff do not bother, or are too naive/stupid to realize what is going on in a store that is hundreds of miles away from them. There is little incentive for a distant area manager who has been provided with a new BMW as a company car to rid the shop of parasites.

Not all charity shops are infiltrated in this way, but those that are can easily be recognized from the liars and miscreants that hang around them, often from the time that the shop is first opened, this being a very easy way of stealing large sums of money while smiling at the idiots who patronize the shop. Once one thief and liar gets a foothold, their buddies are soon brought in to share in the spoils.

It is important to make a stand for decency and moral values and stop supporting such obvious scam operations.