Helping Hands Inc. Thrift Store — Attraction in Bentonville

If you’re purchasing something for pick up within three days, don’t - there’s a good chance they will resell it

I purchased a chair on Thursday before closing for $25 - the employees were rushed to close out for the day, so they didn’t immediately tag the item as sold. When I paid for it up front, I asked them if they could ensure the item is tagged since I had to leave as the store was closing.

I came back to pick up the chair on Monday (within their 3 day policy, closed Sundays), to unfortunately find the chair was nowhere to be found. A super nice guy from the loading dock in a blue tshirt helped me look and continuously apologized for something that was not his fault, saying this happens more often than they’d like

When eventually he took me up front to process a refund, Bill Crawford, the Executive Director, at the checkout counter was quite tactless and rude about the manner. There was no ‘hello, how are you? what’s the issue?’ just, ‘cash or card?’. As I gave him the card I mentioned, that I was frustrated about the situation as I was excited to pick up the item I purchased and not expecting this confusion to have happened - he kept interrupting me and saying, do you want you money back or not? I was simply explaining that as feedback, I didn’t think this situation was best business practice and that given his colleague mentioned it happens often, they might want to check their internal systems to avoid it happening again.

At this point he became rude and defensive - after simply receiving some pretty reasonable feedback. He kept asking what it was that I wanted to which I responded some accountability and customer service. By then, he told me he was done talking to me and him and the middle aged woman cashier began pointing at the door saying “just leave! go! get out!” Two middle aged adults kicking a 20 year old girl out for pointing out a mistake they made, pretty ridiculous.

Some SERIOUSLY poor customer service and business practice when a simple apology would’ve sufficed - especially from the boss! Pretty disgusting to see this behavior towards a paying customer on behalf of an alleged non profit that seeks to do good for the community. We’ve donated and shopped for years but seeing what Bill stands for and how he talks to people doesn’t make me believe in the mission.

I think yall can do much better and work to...

I had a horrible experience for being my first time,i called a day ahead to get help with a bill a woman told be if i needed help i had to be there from 7 to 7:30 am so i got my 4 year old daughter ready and was there by 7 only for her to close the door on ma face very rudly and tell me there is no more tickets so i decided to stay there to see if i can speak to a supervisor and even told her i needed to see a supervisor,some other white woman came and she was after me but she decided to help her with the bill instead of me when i earned the spot before,she took her inside while me and my baby girl with another hispanic person waited cold outside only for her to come back out side with a tall skynni woman to try to hit me just because i opened my mouth to say that that was not an equal thing to do and that they where racist they gave the utility help to the other person meanwhile they called the cops on me with many lies just to get rid of my presence while i was begging for Help,the same exact lady they gave the help too was used to testify against me.i was escorted like a dog with my baby girl because the cops also did t want to listen to my version of events of what really happened,horribly and in a racist manner the cops and those 3 womans where against me,i never received the help when the woman who came out with the help, steped out the cops told me she testified against me,saying that the skinny tall woman said i was gonna kill her which was a big huge lie because in the first place she wasnt even scared at me when she was coming at me trying to hit me in front of my 4 year old.Im telling some of you who read this,arkansas has a lot of racism that ive seen with ma own eyes,me as a puertorican. Us citizen that comes from new york, knows my rights,at that point ma rights where all taken away from me causing me distress and humiliation and emotional abuse not only to me but to ma daughter,lucky the woman that got the help when i was waiting before her.i still managed to message the supervisor by email amd explained the events and still havent get not even an apology.This is sad white people just look after white people treating me like an imigrant .My rights where taken away from me including by authority's i was shoked wow this is the...

They had some okay stuff, but the prices were too expensive. The main reason for my 1-star was the service. I am 29 and the women at the front were much older, probably 65+ years old. I usually love interacting with people of this age group, I mean, the greatest generation, right? I walked in and asked if they had any sales going on. "The whole store is on sale..." is what the woman at the front told me, pretty condescendingly. It's ironic, because all of the other thrift stores in the area do weekly sales, so I don't think it was a dumb question. And their prices were about 2x what everyone else's are, so a sale would make sense. Anyways, as I was shopping, I saw two teenage girls walking towards the front, one with her hands on her stomach. She sat down in one of the THREE wheelchairs that were totally vacant at the front and her friend started pushing her around. They weren't playing or making a scene, just went back to shopping. The same woman who was rude to me walked up to them and said, "do y'all really think you should be using that wheelchair?" The girls then began to explain to her that the girl sitting down was pregnant and her doctor told her that if she needs to, she should sit down. Also, there were 2 open wheelchairs if someone needed one. The woman kept arguing with them saying she didn't believe them, and eventually told them off. They left, saying they'd never be back, and the woman, ever so proud of herself, started bragging to every other employee and patron in the store of her same age how she kicked them out. Having watched all this, I then see her and her fellow employees complain about my generation...yadayada...how we're the worst....you get the picture.

I think there's probably a 50/50 chance that the girl was actually pregnant, and they could have just been playing around, but if someone says they're pregnant, and there are TWO open wheelchairs, you let it go. The customer service was horrible here, and the prices were almost as bad. I won't be shopping here anymore, but unfortunately, the people who are the problem will probably never read this. Maybe my "horrible generation" will read this and stop...