The Council Shop — Local services in Los Angeles

I came here to donate things and decided to shop afterward. The first red flag was when I asked about two unpriced lamps without shades in the back room and the woman on the spot told me they were 50 bucks which I passed on. But then I saw an 1800s Italian iconography painting in a frame for $30. What?? This store had some cool/unique pieces but their prices are all over the place. A beat up, faded (not in a good way) Prada bag for $300, a cool but not especially unique glam leather coat for $300 and most of the expensive designer items are from the 90s and early 2000s (tacky). I found some really good art books but again the prices were kind of all over the place. I still got a good deal though. When I checked out, the clerk tried to tell me a soft fuzzy hoodie is actually a jacket because it has a zipper therefore it’s more $ (in 20 years of working in fashion I’ve never heard this. I looked it up later and there’s debate on that. If something has a hood and it’s made of leather, it’s a jacket but if it’s made of something soft and fuzzy it’s a sweater. That’s just absurd to say otherwise to get an extra few bucks off a customer). Also there are no dressing rooms, the staff run right into you with no regard for politeness so you have to jump out of the way. I might pop back here to see if I can get a good deal but it was such a strange experience I don’t know if it’s...

They accept donations without checking if the objects really belong to their real owners, then they do not even register them and they cannot even check if they were bought.

My flatmate donate a precious lamp that I had, by mistake yes, not in purpose, and when I came back to check if it was there, in less that 24 hours it was gone. No traces, no way to recover anything. I felt completely stolen by this place and how this charity's are organised. How can I know if the lamp was really sold?

How to know if any volunteer has it in their house instead of there?

I hope this kind of business are revamped in the sense that they can prevent these events or closed (inventories/ preventive time before putting an object to be sold, like a week) because this is absolutely unfair to people like me.

I want my lamp back, or at least any compensation, but all that they told me is that this is how it works.

Improve they way your charity works...

Nice and clean place. They put up some nice paintings/posters which adds to the classy factor. If you're looking for furniture, jewelry, or clothes this is probably your place. Overall it doesn't have much floor space and there's just one small shelf for electronics which was basically void. I asked if I could see more and got the, "what's on the floor only" response which I understand but the guy in front of me just purchased something from the back (why I even bothered asking) so I don't appreciate the hypocrisy. They also make up prices at checkout which I imagine could be very frustrating, and another reason why not letting me see more doesn't make sense, it's not like they can't show you because it hasn't...