Rant: F**k the Salvation Army

Yep, gotten screwed by them a few times. Always on electronics/DVDs or (in the day) VHS tapes. I don't think they even test stuff prior to shelving it. I have had better luck with Goodwill, but I never expect much from any charity shop. Think of what you are buying- crap people got rid of prior to moving, leftovers from their garage sale, etc. Not the best quality stuff to begin with.

Ryan

Well I mainly look for the nicer audio gear, tube based electronics, and old analog synthesizer keyboards. Good thing is, the Goodwills seem fairly clueless as to any value the stuff may have. Example: I bought a mint condition Roland Juno-106 keyboard sans pwr cable for $19.99. Street value is at least 350$ in nice cond./working order. They regularly sell solid state organs you can't *give* away for 60-100$. Still waiting to find some old Moog or Sequential stuff....:-)

I've made decent money on Ebay scooping up the old Marantz stuff for a few bucks, cleaning it up and taking care of any issues. At least it ends up with someone who actually wants it and won't shove it into the garage to rot.

Sorry to seem cold, but you bought a piece of electronic gear for A TINY FRACTION of what YOU KNEW to be the purchase price on an item that was CLEARLY LABELLED "AS-IS". If you sell something AS-IS, you don't have to test it. You don't have to guarantee it. A designation of "AS-IS" puts the onus on the buyer to make sure he's happy with something BEFORE he buys it. I buy stuff regularly on eBay and "as-is" is the same as "for parts only". Next time you'll drag a car battery in and test the damn thing.

You should be pissed off at your own stupidity for buying something for next to nothing and then assuming it's going to work perfectly. Duh, why would someone sell a 300-dollar monitor for 35 bucks?

Oh, and by the way, the Salvation Army is a CHARITY. You just donated $35.. good for you!

Dave

I agree!

BH

Remember, they got it for FREE! How much could it be worth really?

When buying used, people should never pay more than they are willing to lose. Obviously this works against the seller, but then if they set things out for the buyer to actually plug it in, they could make more money off it.

But in this case, you could look at it as giving money to charity, and then getting a prize in return. These groups are trying to raise money, not for profit sake but to do other things that are likely good for the community. For the buyer, it is indeed better than a straight donation, since you see some sort of return on the item, but since the group is given the old items to sell, their overhead is low. (Of course, that overhead might go up if they had to test everything, and I should point out that one has to give thought to someone who knowingly gives a broken something to the Salvation Army.)

So when buying from some group doing a fundraiser, think of it as giving that group money, and anything you get in return is a bonus.

For years I've gone to one "Meals on Wheels" yard sale. One year they had an auction, and I bid on an old Mac laptop, and kept bidding even though it had gone more than I thought it was worth. It was fun, and I realized I'd much rather have that fun while giving the money than just giving the money. Turned out to be a more recent Powerbook than I thought, and was well worth the $40. But I'm not sure I'd have paid $40 for an old laptop if I couldn't actually try it out at some garage sale.

And I should point out that you seem to be profiteering off the items you buy there, so losing some money should be considered part of the business expence. You might turn around and offer to test the stuff for them, or to evaluate what they have, which would help them to raise more money. After all, that seems to be what you are doing, albeit keeping the profit for yourself.

Michael

My point was that the unit was completely useless and shouldn't have been there to begin with. What....now I should haul in test equipment, soldering station and wire, and power supplies to test stuff? Sure...I'll just set up a test bench on some furniture and soak in the puzzled looks. I don't mind repairing the stuff I get from thrift shops, so long as its possible.

If I wanted to just make a donation, I would have. The monitor was damaged, unrepairable, and just plain should have been trashed. Just for kicks I'm gonna go there tomorrow to see if its back on the shelf for sale.

Or do you want THEM to do that? Are you prepared to pay the price they will want for "tested-good" vs. "as-is"?

I think your expectations were competely unreasonable. Do you really think SA, or GW or any of those charities can afford to hire people who know a power prick from a toaster?

If it were me, I would have gone home and grabbed a PS to use to test it with.

But if YOU didn't know whether it was damaged until you plugged it into a 12V PS, how on earth do you expect THEM to know that? This is the very definition of a "pig in a poke".

I love scrounging for hidden treasures at GW, et.al., but when you buy stuff like that, untested, you gotta allow for a certain percentage of dissapointments. If you aren't willing to take the gamble, don't buy it.

You need to understand the concept of donating to the Salvation Army. People donate stuff for various reasons, and you can never be sure which one applies to that item. They may donated it because they want to help the charity, because they'll pad the price for a tax deduction, or because it's junk that they don't want and it saves them the expense of taking it to the dump (or hazardous waste site, in the case of computer electronics in many localities)!

Come on now! That's what it took for you to find out it didn't work???

You said that you knew that the sale was "as-is." When you buy AS IS, you factor the risk into the price. ...simple as that.

You needed a test bench to find out it was busted??? Why not just return with your own power supply and try it there, if you wanted a guaranteed "steal of a deal"? Heck, most of these stores have a bin full of wall warts, you might've found one there. You took your chances and this gamble didn't pay off. At least you have a store credit!

Now that's not a bad idea. If it is, you should talk with a manager. But I guess I just don't have much sympathy with this situation when you knew it was as-is and not refundable.

The IRS doesn't look at it that way. The only donation is the part of the purchase price that exceeds the fair market value.

Usually that means it's broken or there's something wrong with it..

I think you have a funny way of looking at things. You gotta be kinda naive to think every piece of electronic junk at the SA is in good working order. The Salvation Army doesn't have the resources to check everything. If it looks good they put it out there. Get over it!

BH

Sure is. Here is a greedy bargain hunter who is clueless about charitable organizations. He needs to get a liberal education and then a life.

Or perhaps thats his problem. His education was "liberal" to the point of expecting he was entitled to something from the SA.

Bottom line: You should have tested it before taking it, even if you had to take a transformer in to do that. Your problem is your own doing. Grow up and pretend you're a man.

Salvation Army good

You not so good

You'd be surprised at what those pricks can afford. They aren't nearly as poor as they make themselves out to be.

Non standard pwr connector I had to hack off. Then I would have needed a meter to determine pwr polarity since it wasn't marked. Then soldering stuff, wire, pwr supply, and connectors to get it powered up. Get my point? I doubt they would want anyone doing anything like that.....

Not 12vdc 3a wall warts. This probably had a little switcher supply that ran it.

Ok, so now I'm a "greedy bargain hunter" just looking to profit? I see....so my bench time isn't worth anything when I refurbish the stuff? I find things all grubby and neglected and spend hours disassembling, cleaning, and repairing them. Hell, I've even gone as far as to refinish the wooden enclosures. So that's bad. Putting items in the hands of those who will appreciate and enjoy them is a bad thing? Keeping lead out of landfills is a bad thing? Well I should stop doing that then 'cause I'm cheating the charities and fleecing consumers.

Yawn.....arguing about this is making me sleepy......

What does this have to do with guitars?

Well....nothing. Apparently I posted to 2 groups. Carry on.