So we landed a sweet deal with a thrift store that called us to haul off their broken/unwanted electronics. The guy asks me on the phone, "how do you handle tvs?" so I told him since they help with the community that we would take them for free, but if we take the tvs I want all of the rest of their electronics that they don't want or that don't work. Well he tells me they have about one hundred tvs and it would be awesome if we would take them, and that we would have exclusive rights to the rest of their junk electronics and scrap metal. Well Mechanic and I went and met with the guy, he showed us around his 100,000 sq.ft. warehouse that is so crammed full of crap that you can hardly walk through the place, and we talked about business.
A few days later, last Wednesday, I was on my way through town in my truck and decided to stop by and grab a small load of tvs, they had started a small pile outside because they have no more room inside, so I show up and start loading up these tubes. Thats when I noticed something odd. None of these tvs or the microwaves had any cords on them. I figured some scrapper drove by and just grabbed the gravy money and left. I know they are outside and in my book they might as well be free game, at this point I am a little frustrated but not too upset about the deal. As I'm strapping down my load an old man who volunteers at this place walks up and asks me what I'm doing, I explained, and mentioned something about the wires being cut. He looked at me and says, "yea i cut the wires, I get all the copper here." Now is when I'm starting to get upset because this guy works for the place and should have been told that we get all of the scrap. So I left and came back on Friday and talked to the people that run the place again. I told them that if they want us to take their tvs we need to have them intact because we make very little profit on them and have to pay to get rid of the tubes. "Ok," they said, "not a problem."
So I go and rent me a 26' uHaul and recruit my little brother to help me load these tubes. When I got there with the truck to load there were about 100 tvs now sitting outside with the cords cut off...ugh. I load these up, whatever. Go into the warehouse and start looking at the best way to get these other tubes out. This other volunteer, who runs the warehouse for two hours a day, comes out and asks me what I'm doing. I explain that I'm here to take these old tube tvs. He tells me that I'm not supposed to be taking the ones from inside the warehouse...Ugh. I tell him he is wrong and that this will not work out for the best if I don't leave with a full truck. He tells me that I'm only to take the tvs outside. Now I'm getting a little pissed off, and told him to get a hold of someone who runs the place and figure it out because I'm either leaving with a full 26' truck or unloading whats in there back onto the road and leaving with an empty truck.
Just a quick mention this is one of the wannabe scrappers of the place. I'm assuming another one of the guys who cut some of the wires.
He finally had someone call him back to inform him that I was correct and possibly all knowing of there little operation out back. So I get no more grief from this joker.
Here is the good part. Garrett, my lil bro, and I start carting these tvs outside. Mainly 27"-40" tubes. Every time we carted out 4-5 tvs another ten showed up. You could spit 10' in any direction and hit a tv. They had a small area where about 70% were but the rest you had to dig and climb and crawl and swing on vines to get to. Finally, 4 hours later, I have a full truck. Well it was as full as I wanted it to be because we still had to unload yet that day. Here are some pictures. I'll put the rest of the story below as it has nothing to do with the TV's. Also the camera I used on Friday has the wrong date set because it is not the camera I usually have.
http://s1135.photobucket.com/albums/...ad%2006-24-11/
A little side note of why this guy who runs the operation out back is an idiot. This warehouse is a big place, but also a big run down leaky, musty, moldy, place with standing water every ten feet. I mean, I left that place with soaking wet shoes Friday. Well anyways, the full operation for this place is in a building in front of the warehouse where they feed people meals and have the actual thrift store that's fairly nice, the warehouse for the thrift store is only open for 2-3 hrs a day and is where they keep all of the stuff that needs sorting and the big stuff like furniture. We were loading these tvs while they were briefly open, and I got to hearing some of the prices this guy was telling people. They were outrageous, I mean if the stuff was in an actual store or a nice place maybe, but this is a run down factory with holes in the roof, no organization, and stuff piled so high my 6'6" brother couldn't reach it. This is all donated to them, and they don't turn any donation down. He was telling people $25 for a dang kitchen chair, One kitchen chair, used, sitting in water, covered in dust, scratched, moldy, and prolly rotten at the feet. no one bought a kitchen chair. Actually there are about 300 kitchen chairs there, I wonder why. He wanted $300 for a non tested projection screen tv like the smallest size before it goes back to tube tv. $100 for a tube tv, prolly why I had to pick up so many. The one that gets me is Some one came in and asked how much for a used mattress...$100 That is wrong in soo many ways. When you get into this place you would expect garage sale prices, ad they should very well be. This place is supposed to be a non profit organization that helps people. Just like the salvation army and other places. I was infuriated at the pricing that this guy was telling people.
I had asked the people that run the place if they had any computers and perifs out back. They told me they had piles of the stuff. When I was out there loading tubes. I was able to grab one printer out of two, a scanner, and one computer. I asked this guy out back what happened to all of the computer equipment. He tells me that they threw it all out. Then later on asks me how I get all of the gold out of the computers, and off of the boards. I told him as far as getting the gold off of the boards he wouldn't want to play that game unless he wanted to kill himself. Then he asks me who I sell my stuff to. I told him he didn't have enough money for the information that I have, and that it take a whole bunch to make an kind of decent money. I have a feeling that he ended up with that pile of computers because he knew that we were coming to take them and now he wants to know where to sell the stuff.
I'm going to talk to the family that runs this place today and figure out whats going on with this guy out back and if they know what he is charging people for this junk crap. This is supposed to be a place to help people in need and to find a good deal on something. You can go into the front and ask for a voucher to get a free couch or fridge or something you need if you are hard up and don't have anything, but need a place to sit or something to cook with or keep things cold. From what I heard from my Mom is that her neighbors went in to get a voucher on a couch and every one they picked out that guy told them they couldn't have that one. They left with out a couch because the only ones that he would give them were so soiled and nasty that they couldn't even give them away.
This whole situation has put a bad taste in my mouth. We as a family are never going to donate anything to this place again if its going to be sold for these kinda prices and not going to be used to actually help someone in need. This place gets state funding for being a non-profit. They don't pay for any labor, they don't pay for anything. All the food that they have for meals is donated daily, the food bank they run is all donations, the thrift store they run is all donated stuff, but where is all of this money that comes from out back going? I think its going right into the guy out backs pocket and maybe a little is going up front to actually help.
Anyways I'm done ranting. It is daylight outside now, and I have around 200+ tvs to tear down haha.
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Originally Posted by parrothead
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