Goodwill Southern California Outlet Store — Attraction in Los Angeles

A few weeks ago, on a Thursday evening, left this store feeling bullied, humiliated, and ganged up on by employees. It was the worst experience in that it has left me traumatized and still reliving it… Had been a customer of this store for years spending thousands of dollars and mostly for charity. Some of the other managers and employees working there on other days can testify to that. Please take the time to read the below horror story.

A new checkout clerk, a young woman shown in the 1st picture, smiling to make fun of the situation, started to ring up the person behind me because his items were placed by her register. When I reminded her that it was my turn, she simply ignored me and rolled her eyes. When she started ringing my things, she looked up at me and said “what are you staring at?” agitated but not loud. I thought I had misheard and asked her to repeat, and again she said the same thing. That’s when I paused and asked her louder if she had a problem with me. The manager on duty, who was helping the other cashier for at least 30 minutes with a customer with 5 gigantic bags of clothes to exchange, and while already frustrated, without knowledge of the situation jumped in and told me to not talk to the cashier in that tone. I told her what had happened, and she had a stone cold look and did not care at all.

Next thing I know, a very aggressive security woman comes over and tells me to “step outside” so she can match my energy implying she will get physical, very eager to show her power in front of everyone without a care about the incident itself. Then the customer exchanging her and her children’s entire closet, pulls out her camera to film it all as if it’s entertainment (see her pic with the camera) while the security guard asks her to film it and pass it along to her for TikTok and is laughing. That’s when I started taking the pictures and was irreparably upset, Unfortunately, did not catch a pic of the very aggressive and loud security guard. Her picture in an animated pose would be very telling…

Have to date left several messages for the retail customer service POC, and a couple of messages for their head of security. Have not received a callback. Is Goodwill going down the drain?

Where did this Goodwill branch find these unbelievably unprofessional, aggressive, and trigger happy employees that I had an encounter with? Especially, the guard whom I said I will file a complaint against but whose name was refused to be given to me. These employees seemed to hate their jobs and only wanted to escalate the situation to feel powerful. Nobody cared about the rudeness of the cashier to me. And they acted confident that there would be no consequences for them which makes me all the more determined to pursue this.

The manager is the one flashing her badge for the camera in one of the pics attached. She had all the confidence being sure that it was 4 against 1, so I won’t be able to do anything. Whenever I have come across her in this store, she acts very cold and unhappy and seems to despise her job and the people in the store. What is she doing there?

This group of employees can all gang up and lie if questioned, I will simply produce my receipts of huge amounts spent here to prove a history of a great mutual benefit with goodwill, and a great past relationship with the other employees, once I get a hold of someone at the headquarter. Just this particular bunch of people working on Thursday nights should be fired. They were the WORST! Bored and hateful, and have no business dealing...

BEWARE of the return policy!!! You can not try on clothes due to COVID, which is not bad. The hustle is that when you take it home to try on and it doesn't fit, you CAN NOT get a refund or store credit, only exchange and only for MORE MONEY THAN YOU ORIGINALLY SPENT! I have never heard of any store forcing you to pay more money to return items that you can't use and would not have bought to begin with if you could try them on. I would have given it 5 stars because you can find very good quality items when you're lucky but after about 10 trips in a short amount of time, trying to break even or being forced to pay more, I'm done with this parasitic cycle. For example, if you find a top for $10 you're told that you have to buy and try it on at home. If it doesn't fit and you try to return it, you're told to look for something else that is $10 or more (you can't get an $8 top and the change). If you don't find anything, you're stuck with the top. If you find something for $9.99 you have to buy another item so it reaches $10, meaning in all likelihood, you've now spent more than the intended $10 because it's nearly impossible to find an exact item (that you actually want) that is the exact same price. Shop at your own risk. Unless you have a lot of time to make multiple trips and a lot of money to burn (which people who rely on Goodwill usually do not) save yourself the headache. I literally bought a cheap item yesterday that I didn't want, trying to break even, just to donate it back to them...

one of the bigger Goodwill's I've been to as I usually shop on Sunday mornings in the bulk section. They usually have a good selection of used books brought out in bins, but if you actually get to see what's in those bins is anyone's guess as the countless book re-sellers that are there scavanging through those bins to find the pricier books to sell on EBAY and don't let the other customers that actually read books see what's in those bins then by all means, try to find something that you might like and good luck. Some of the loudmouth employees, who seem to have just been discharged from the Navy, with the amount of cussing and endless personal chatter lends to the ambience of the shopping experience, and one girl that works there, that has her teeth hanging out of her mouth, yelled at me one morning as I was going to buy some adult magazines that were mixed in those bins, as if i was a ten year old child instead of the fifty-year old man that I am. I still love shopping here though and will continue to, I love bizzare Sunday morning shopping experiences and joining all the low-life book sellers on that never ending hunt for that million-dollar used book. The actual retail store that's on the opposite end of the building, is mostly good for window shopping as some of the items there seem a little high-priced for used goods but sometimes you might come out of there with something that was...