Complaint Review: Deseret Industries - Provo Utah

 Just wanted to let you know that unsold items such as books, cds, and movies are not always destroyed or recycled. In fact there are companies that pay literally nothing for these items as third party recyclers and guess what they do? They sell them online and make millions. The shady part of this is that only a select few companies are allowed to have these items and higher up management refuses to sell the items to anyone else willing to actually pay for them.

Could the increased prices be a means to prevent these items from being sold by the DI and end up "recycled" and given to these companies for free to make profit? Would be interesting to see what kind of relationship "agreements" DI management has with these companies.

 As a once frequent customer at the Provo Deseret Industries I believe the previous complaints filed here are 100% accurate, and I know I am not the only one who is angry and fed up. 1- I know for an absolute fact that employees will hold items in the back for their friends and customers who go in on a daily basis. The items held are items they believe friends and favored customers would be interested in or items that have been specifically requested they watch out for. I know this because there was a woman who regularly brought dozens and dozens of items she'd get at Deseret industries into the consignment store where I worked. She never pulled the price tags off before bringing them in so we always knew exactly what she'd paid for them which was a fraction of what she wanted us to price them for.

I didnt have a problem with her making a profit on things, but I did have a problem with the unfair advantage she was being given over other customers by the employees at DI who would hold items in the back for her to look at first before putting them out on the sales floor. To me this gave one person the ability to profit from the very best items while everyone else would have to hunt and hope to get lucky. 2- I once heard an employee of the Provo DI tell a co worker that he needed to get "back out there" to see what had been donated because he'd made $3,000 the previous month by taking donated items and selling them on KSL. Savers has a policy that employees are not allowed to buy anything that comes into the donation center until it has been on the sales floor for at least seven days. This prevents employees from price fixing items to their advantage so they can buy it themselves and they are under surveillance to ensure they don't steal donations.

The Provo DI is so badly managed it's as if they don't want to enforce employee regulations so they can get away with doing the very same thing themselves. 3- Prices make no sense at all. You might find a pair of matching candle sticks where one is priced at $1.00 while the other is priced at $3.00, or a small clear glass vase is priced at $4.00 while a bigger nicer one is priced at $2.00. There's no rhyme or reason, just prices randomly chosen by whoever happens to be wielding the pricing gun that day. Prices are more reflective of mood swings than a fair value. 4- People are allowed to hang out on the furniture all day and wait for the carts to bring out new items. This just annoys the blazes out of me. 5- THEY COLLECT ITEMS OFF THE SHELVES AND THROW THEM IN THE TRASH ALMOST AS SOON AS IT IS PUT OUT. No one even has a chance to see some items before they are chucked so why do they care if someone swaps a price tag? Sell the stuff! It was free to you so it's always all profit!! I used to love going to DI but I've gotten too fed up to give them any business. I don't donate or shop there anymore and neither will my family.

Douglas,

I am sorry to hear that the Deseret Industries (D.I.) raising their prices because they have discovered that you and others come in, buy items for super cheap, and the turn around and resale them on Ebay or in your used items shop with a large markup, so they want to get in on the money to be made ...   so THEY can use that money to help those in need has upset you.   Everything else on earth has gone up in price why shouldn't the prices at the D.I.?  

The second you stop being so greedy and accept a smaller margin on your profits (you will have to work a little harder instead of sitting around and watching the money come in) the sooner you will realize you can still make money AND you are helping the Deseret Industries have more to help those in need.  Think of it as everyone being successful (instead of the Walmart model of crush the competition).  Or D.I. could use your model and go out of business and then you have no resource at all.

By the way, there are many other locations for used items besides the DI stores and your house, other states, many things are shipped over seas, sent to recycle places, and re-purposed for other uses, and the finally the landfill.  

As a regular donor to the D.I. I have NEVER thought, I am going to be mad if this gets thrown away.  I am greatful I have a place to take somethng I can no longer use, I get a tiny tax write off, and they will make it available to someone who might have a use for it.  If not they can do what they want with it.  Is it really a donations if it has "conditions" that come with it? 

The Nonprofit status is for the whole organization not for each store so if they make a little money in a store that money can be used elsewhere, pay the employees a little bit more, pay for rising store maintaince costs, or buy new items or help in other ways.  

The world is a big place with lots of other people besides you.  You know that at some level because buying DI books as long as you have you are either up tp your chin in books or re-SELLING them(which requires others).  If you want CHEAO books there is a place for all of us it called the Library.  

The rest of us are concerned about your success, but it sounds like it might surprise you to hear that we are concerned about ourselves and possibly those in need, first.  I know it was a surprise to my 2 yr old granddaughter that there might be times when something/someone else needed our attention more than her...  sometimes it was important enough it needed her attention too.       

If we all give a little then we end up with a lot and no one carries the whole burden.  

Joann

I am a former employee at the Deseret Industries up in Murray, UT., and am currently applying for a job at the location referred to in the report. The person who wrote the report I feel is very incorrect in his accusations and I call upon a quote from his own document to outline this. Toward the end of the report the author asked the following question: "Why can't management at this store get in touch with reality and be fair to the public?" To which I respond and ask the question: What country are you living in? At present I don't see the nation in an economic boom of any kind, but what I do see is a fuel crisis strong at hand. I understand as a consumer you would not want to purchase items for an inflated price, but at the same time the Deseret Industries employees hundreds, if not thousands, of under-educated, disabled, or foreign personal in an attempt to offer them an education as well as a place where they can be of benefit to themselves and others. I'm sure that the Deseret Industries has the same managerial issues facing most of the country with employees needing better pay in this ever increasing world of cost. At the same time do your comments on the price of books take into account the act of inflation of the dollar? What used to pay for a movie? Five cents, then a dollar, then five and now have grown from 5-10 dollars at the low end of admittance into a theater. I'm sorry if you feel that a specific Deseret Industries has in some way offended you and your pocket book, but in being in touch with reality... I feel the management there is perfectly in line. (((4 links redacted))) CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report.

The PROVO DI still has many problems that plaque it's walls. Before I talk about those, let me mention some GOOD NEWS about the Provo, Utah store. The prices on some things have gotten better like the records going down to .25 and the videos down to .50. The demand is keeping up a lot better with the supply now that those prices have been lowered. The prices have stabilized to some degree on books. Many are still marked at $6.00 and above which is generally TOO high for MOST EVERYONE that shops at a thrift store. Now here is the bad news concerning the PROVO Deseret Industries store: 1- Management continues to ignore corruption among some of the employees which leads to unfair practices for the customers and shrinkage (theft). Corruption also makes the training program FAIL. 2-Some employees will call their friends and notify them once fresh carts of merchandise are ready to come out, they will hold them until their friends arrive. This is totally unethical and is breaking several Desert Industries policies. Those same employees will HIDE merchandise in the store for their friends to pick up. They will try EVERYTHING possible to help out their "friends". 3-Some employees work together with their friends to give GENEROUS discounts at the checkout once the FRIENDS have removed the price tags. 4-Management either is ignoring those corruption issues or doesn't catch them. I guess it is kind of hard when the store manager's WIFE comes in the store before it opens to buy the REALLY REALLY nice stuff before anyone else, what kind of example is that Devon? I am speaking only facts that have been happening on a daily basis at the PROVO store and these same unethical tactics are employed in most every store to some degree. I URGE the management of Deseret Industries to crack down on employees who use their cell phone during work to tip off their friends of new merchandise and prepare the "good" stuff for their friends. To also crack down on those who change price tags, use their friends to get DEEP DISCOUNTS at the cashier by taking the tags off in the store and using their FRIENDS to check out. Crack down on those who HIDE merchandise for their friends and those who ultimately put their FRIENDS ahead of their JOB and ahead of all the other customers who shop there.

As an update, the management at the PROVO Deseret Industries has decided to rip off all the subject tags in the book department and scatter all the books with no organization. The softcover books are on one side, and hardbound on the other. This tedious task is making it a lot harder for customers to find books they want to buy. This decision takes a lot more time from the customer and ultimately will result in lower sales. More abuse of the donations by the management at this store. More books will be destroyed becuase of this decision. The impact on the employees is even worse, they are being trained that dis-organization is better. EXTREMELY poor training is being taught to the employees. The employees are being taught that the customer is LAST priority!!!! Unbelievable! A non-profit place that is supposed to be helping people and they are actually making them worse off by training them with worthless philosophies like the customer is last priority and dis-organization is best. What a joke, will someone please do something about the abusive management at the Provo location? The community wants a fair non-profit organization that respects donations and makes better decisions! The mission and values of the Deseret Industries organization is great, however it is slowly being eroded by management at the Provo store.