Value Village — Attraction in Toronto

Awful customer service by managers Tony and Mark. They mishandle simple retail situations. A lady was fighting with other customers in the line to checkout. I was standing far by the door, looking outside the window. While she passed by me, she started to yell and swear at me as well. She kept causing scene for good 5 mins. And Mark and Tony seemed unbothered. Since I wasnt getting any support,  eventually, I told her myself a couple times not to yell and swear at me as I'm just minding my own bussiness.  This is when both the managers Tony and Mark came in to the scene and started to tell me to be quiet. I was confused, yet got quiet. However the lady was not stopping and started bringing her hands close to my face. I told her to not get too close to me. Managers; Tony and Mark also started to bring their hands very close to my face in gesture and started to tell me to "calm down" , when i was only telling the yelling lady verbally to back off as she was way too close to me. By now, there were 3 people yelling at me and way too many hands close to my face. Not even a single person telling the yelling lady to stop with the nonsense. Seeing that the yelling lady had all the unjust support from managers as well,  that lady yelled and swore at me till she was satisfied. I felt disturbed and disrespected  by the behaviour of the managers and the yelling lady; as all three of them were yelling at me with confidence and keeping me quiet. I complied, turned my face away and stayed quiet till the yelling lady eventually left. After she had left, I asked the managers why did they only tell me to stay quiet and let the yelling lady say and do whatever she wanted, as she disrespected me in numerous ways. They denied straight up and told me away. Now the security lady of the store had also arrived but couldn't do anything as two male managers were yelling at me and telling me to stop talking. The amount of confidence and satisfcation on Tony and Mark' face to get away with anything and everything told me they wont get any consequences even if someone complained. Because they run the show and there seems to be no one higher then them with a sense of responsibility and accountability. The fact that both male managers allowed the yelling lady to swear at me by keeping me quiet is very unfair and disrespectful on the store' part. Having no customer service skills is one thing but 'allowing' an oppressor to oppress the victim even more while the victim is trying to stand up for themselves alone; is completely awful. I had done nothing wrong, I was minding my own bussiness looking out the window while this KAREN picked a fight all by herself and both TONY and MARK let her. I dont know if this was done because I was the only coloured person in the situation or if value village' manual teaches and allows the managers to be corrupt with confidence. The date and time it happened was July 20, 2023 at 2:30pm. Anyone with access to the instore cameras at value village at 605 Roger's road can check this incident and verify it. Eventually the security lady helped me find the valuevillage website to send them a message and inform them of all the situation. Apology from managarial staff was a far cry, but security lady was very empathetic and understanding. Extremely poor customer service skills and below average problem solving skills on managers; Tony and Mark' part. They should have deescalated the situation by telling off the yelling lady as she was the one yelling and using profound language, not me. In my experience, I was extremely disappointed, dissatisfied and disrespected!  At the end of this storm; the yelling lady left the store after taking out all her frustration on me. Tony and Mark controlled, manipulated and silenced me to keep their store quiet for the rest of the customers; at the cost of my respect, emotions and dignity. As it made their job easier to silence me rather than professionally descalating the situation. Whereas I left the store emotionally hurt,...

This is the best one in the city for quality. The clothes are good (not ratty), and the homeware section is usually packed with finds. The main problem is the PRICES! They are absolutely outrageous here. Dresses for $30+, children’s picture books for $5+ (they price them as chapter books, which seems like a huge grift to me - does corporate know about this?), the whole book section is way overpriced. SHEIN and forever 21 clothes are $10+, when they definitely did not cost that much originally.

The bottom line is that profit-hungry stores like this aren’t going anywhere, and ultimately reusing is better than not. But, they are eliminating other stores like this in the area, and monopolizing donations. After Christmas the donation centre is overrun with stuff but they lack the capacity to deal with it. I’m sure most of the stuff that is given to them FOR FREE gets trashed while other, smaller thrift stores have to buy second hand items to stock their shelves. I hate this company. If I could find the same quality elsewhere and for more reasonable prices, I would never shop here again. But, good luck to any small thrift store trying to compete with...

Absolute scam of a return/exchange policy. No change rooms since the pandemic and they will never reopen them I was told. I spent a significant amount of time here recently selecting items to try on, and after being frustrated that I could not, purchased a large number of things after being reassured I could exchange them. I thought I’d be able to get credit if I wanted to exchange and thought “well, I’m sure I’ll be able to use that amount of money eventually and can casually browse anytime I’m near a Value Village.” Upon my return I was told that their exchange policy is for “item exchange only” within two weeks, meaning you can’t get store credit and have to select another item with that time frame, or exchange for more items you don’t want to get another two weeks to then repeat the cycle. This was not made clear from the employee who helped me, on the receipt, or on the checkout signage.

And don’t even get me started on their prices, but this has been the case for ages.

Capitalism...