The official thrift/discount store bragging thread - Page 3690

Yes.

 

What if you found a t-shirt in the suit pocket — would that be theft? What if you found a registered promisory note in the pocket, still unredeemed and valid, for $50,000? What if you found a box with a bunch of cameras inside the box? Could you open the box, pocket the cameras, and then walk out of the store guilt-free since the box wasn't purchased? (Bottom line is that I agree with Dig: Whatever is in the store shouldn't walk out of the store without being purchased.)

I haven't been to their web site but last holiday season I received a catalog in the mail. Lots of clothes and other gear (pocket knives, chess sets, outdoorsy stuff) but it also listed a replica Steve McQueen motorcycle like the one in the Great Escape as well as some sort of Ranger Rover that a National Geographic photographer used. I'm not sured how those work via mail order.

Eh, I have no problem with taking cash. They're selling the jacket, and the jacket is still there for them to sell. You're not taking their product, you're taking something that the goodwill never even knew about the existence of. In my mind, it's just abandoned property, not part of the jacket, same as if it had been dropped on the floor.

+1

But now we can debate what one would do if one found it on the floor.

I agree that money on the floor is a gray area. But it seems to me that the store owns the item and anything in it until you pay for it. But more fundamentally: if the jacket is less than $20, it's still found money. BUY THE JACKET, keep the money. Sure, you only keep the difference now, BUT IT'S STILL FREE MONEY. And you have a jacket you can either redonate, sell, use, trade.... You're still making out like a bandit.

In cases of abandoned property, whoever finds it first, wins. Goodwill didn't find it, you did. If Goodwill had laid a claim to it, I'd agree, it's theirs. But the fact that it's there at all means that they didn't claim it.

Wow, a lot of debate about finding cash in a suit pocket. In the spirit of full disclosure, I did make purchase several items at the store that evening (just nothing brag worthy) and my thought regarding the orphan is that if the pants are put out in another day or so, some other enterprising thrifted should have the option of reuniting them into a full suit. It's a store that I don't get to visit often, so picking up the coat would have done me no good and possibly prevented someone else from getting it.

I see that no one has suggested that I should have left the cash for someone else that just wanted to buy that particular suit coat. Are we at least agreed that the found, unclaimed cash should have left the store with me?

I found three 20s about two months ago while walking out of a small restaurant. They were literally right by the door and nobody else was there, so I picked them up, and continued on my way. My wife made me turn around and give them to one of the people at the counter, with the understanding that she would ask around about the lost money. I'm pretty sure she got a big tip that night. 

This.

Money on the floor is not as much a gray area, I think--it's OK to take a dropped bill. Absolutely not OK to take the money and not buy the coat. That's stealing in my book. It would be stealing if an employee did that in the sorting room. If you as a customer were caught on camera doing that (and they do have cameras in the GW's around here), I suspect you'd get detained and have some 'splaining to do. Even in the event it wasn't ultimately deemed a crime, how comfortable would you feel in a back room with a store manager and cop making that argument? You'd feel like a cheap-ass sleazeball, and that's exactly what you would be.

In a perfect world, you'd summon the manager and turn the found money over. GW is, after all, a charity that does good works--it can certainly use the money. That's in a perfect world, and few of us, including me, are that perfect, so we compromise and buy the coat.

I literally just woke up in work...fell asleep in the middle of grading things and woke up cartoon style with papers stuck to my face. Anyway, I've been trying to keep up here and haven't had any time to really hit the stores, but reading posts on here is keeping my sanity.

I found a €50 note at the grocery store and turned it in to customer service. I had imagined an old woman that had lost it and so I followed up with it every week for over a month. Every time they claimed that it was turned in to their manager, but he was never around...pretty sure the same thing happened, someone took an opportunity to make an extra €50.

I've lost a number of things in my life, sometimes they were turned in, sometimes not. One of the most surprising was that I left my wallet at a beach bar in Italy. I was with my then-girlfriend (now wife) and a couple of friends late one night. I realized it the next day and thankfully my wife speaks Italian. She called the bar, they turned it into the police. She then called the police while I'm remarking about the corrupt Italian police and they'd probably already sold my IDs when she said that they had it, my credit cards and cash and that they'd meet me next to the beach. Sure enough, two Italian police officers with white leather holsters met me with my wallet and stayed while I bought them a drink. I was beyond impressed


Finally, big shout out to Ken P! He sent a tie out here on the cheap and it just arrived today. Thanks a lot!

Proves too much; would justify (as others have observed) opening a Rolex box and taking the watch out on the theory that the store didn't "find" the watch, only the box. Or stripping the lining out of a jacket on the theory that they still have the jacket. That can't be the right result.

More fundamentally, this is a stupid argument, and dangerously close to the vortex of the "morality of thrifting" argument we've gotten mired in too many times. Let's stop and get back to posting pictures.

It's not abandoned property unless some customer after Goodwill bought the jacket accidentally dropped the bill in (matching the money on the floor market). If the money was in the jacket when Goodwill got the jacket, it's Goodwill's.

To argue otherwise would be like suggesting that you can drill oil on someone else's land if they haven't noticed they have oil underneath yet. Your property rights are complete, not just what you notice you possess.

EDIT - Oil is actually a terrible example, since some states do have (or have had) systems where whoever gets it first gets it (Eiliff v. Texon Drilling Co., 146 Tex. 575, stupid first year property) but you get my point.

I had about 15 minutes to hit a store today. I grabbed a couple of things for my wife, but I left a couple of things if anyone wants a proxy.

A bit rare here (only the second Orivs thing I've seen), Orvis jumper. It's bright red and is a combination cotton/silk/cashmere. Size L and they wanted €7.50. Maybe a Christmas party jumper, though I'm not sure it would arrive in time :

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
I thought this was pretty cool, though too big for me. It's a wool Pringle zippered jumper with an argyle front. I'm sorry, but I don't remember the exact size, either L or XL. It's €13.50.

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)
If anyone is interested in these, let me know and I'll proxy them your way.