Complaint Review: Goodwill Industries - Port Angeles Washington

The Goodwill here is the strangest non profit second hand store I have ever shopped at. They are rude to the customers and treat everyone like they are doing them a favor by letting them spend their money in the store.

They refuse to let anyone try on the clothing for one full hour before they close. Like wise looking at anything in a display case.If they are scheduled to close at 8:00pm the dressing rooms are locked at 7:00pm.At 5:00 pm they lock alll the dressing rooms but two. No matter how many people are waitng to try on clothing they will not reopen the other dressing rooms If the customers are not aware of this odd Company policy and have a cart full of clothes... well thats just to **** bad.

The manager was a loss prevention person for Kmart and assumes all the customers are thieves. The first time I shopped there my backpack was taken from me and stored behind a counter. I mistakenly thought someone would be watching it. I was in the middle of moving and it had all the kids birth certificiates, $7,000.00 in travelers checks, perscription narcotic medication.Jewelry, Insurance policies etc...Imagine my suprise when my backpack(small kids Book Bag) was left unattended.I can well understand why they were suspicious of me being a fat middle aged housewife type buying emergency bathing suits for two hot sweaty girls to go swimming at the lake in.

The final straw was when I went in and asked to look at a piece of Jewelery in their display counter.They usually have hundreds of pieces of jewelry for sale. There are many pieces over $100.00. The ring I wanted to look at was pretty but didn't appear to be anything but inexpensive costume jewelry to me. I I asked to see a ring .It was priced at $149.00. I have a jewelry loop I use to see any marks on the jewelry. I used to be able to see the makers marks without a loop but lost a lot of my vision when I had a bad neck injury 2 years ago.

The sales person informed me that it was against the store policy to look at the jewelry with a magnifying device!!! They have a huge sign on the Jewelery case that says "Absoultly no refunds or exchanges on Jewelry" I asked her if she really expected someone to purchase a ring for 149.00 with out seeing what it was made of? She told me I could look all I wanted without a magnifying device. I asked if that included glasses. Nope Its ok to look at it with your glasses on. Aparently If you can see well with your naked eye or your glasses you are allowed to know what it is your buying otherwise your just out of luck.

I couldnt believe that a store that claims to provide jobs for the handicapped would discriminate against handicapped shoppers so I went in the next day and asked the store manager in front of the store jewelry case with a bunch of customers standing around listening, if this was really their store policy. She said it was the policy in all the stores. I have shopped in a lot of goodwills and never been treated like this any place else.I taped this conversation and called the regional sales manager and left a message asking him what the heck was going on. He never bothered to return the call made by this handicapped customer.

I was a regional manager,store manager and appraiser for Salvation Army stores,Value Village stores and have raised money for ARC,Boys and Girls clubs and Hospital guilds buy running and training second hand store staff before I was injured. I have never ever seen anything like this in my 25 years of non profit work. If I was running the place and listened to the employees tone and attitude towards the very customers providing them their jobs.There's only about three employees in the whole place who would still have jobs.

Liz

port angeles, Washington
U.S.A.