Habitat for Humanity ReStore San Jose — Local services in San Jose

‼️Don’t let them hold your ID. Might be great, but sadly have to deal with a problem that has happened way too many times over the past decade + a new very serious one. Literally every time I’ve gone, whether it’s a volunteer or an employee I’m not sure, but always somebody comes up to me absolutely unsolicited has some kind of unwelcome comments. It is ranged from telling me I look cute and other physical comments to asking me out, To saying things right in front of me that were derogatory or negative about other others who work there (I don’t want to hear your office gossip), or giving me a weirdly hard time, then me keep pushing back, and then they finally say something like oh “I’m just joking”. I have spent money there on small and very large ticket items and I appreciate the value that it provides on various different levels. Prices are great & terrible. But I don’t need the weird invalidating comments, distractions and flat out invalidating actions. I’ve tried to make donations before & staff doing the donation was rude or difficult so I didn’t & brought to Other thrift shop or sold it. Tried again recently- same sort of situation: I donated Multiples of a brand new item, and the donation Staff said that if I “didn’t provide a manufacturer’s box for those items they weren’t going to accept the donation”. Thing is, I had already spoken to the manager on duty Bianca to clarify that that donation would be accepted BEFORE I even went to drop off at the donation staff just so I wouldn’t have another hard time from staff or if they did try to be negative I was prepared. Nope- the donation staff were just either being mean or rude again, And then after going back and forth about it “arguing” - enough, I made them go get the manager and she confirmed to me that “they don’t know what they’re talking about, that they’re volunteers, and what they’re saying is wrong.” BUT Thing is this happens every time. Maybe they’re angry that I interrupt them from their hanging out & chatting?

Big problem is if you make a purchase over the phone, they want to check your ID when you come to pick up. Sounds normal. Well, they insist on taking a photocopy of my ID. That’s not necessary at all. And during the time my ID was being photocopied, once again, there was a whole bunch of chatty staff shenanigans at the checkout desk & I got distracted as well as the tall white guy checking me out because he didn’t give me my ID back. Worse: Bianca called nearly a month later letting me know she found my id in the copier. I mean, I’m glad to get my ID back but why would you sit on it for a nearly a month? Considering the info that you take down you have my info in your sales membership. I didn’t express how stressed out I was about missing my ID. Of course the whole process with DMV. I did not make a purchase after I got my ID back. I was starting to leave, & a few staff/volunteers made comments on my id situation. Particularly a staff guy said completely unsolicited to me “oh, you purposely left your ID here so that way you could come shopping again, right!” I said NO cause at this point I’m in no mood for this again. And so this guy keeps going at it “no no you left your ID here so you could definitely come shopping again cause you like to shop here.” Now this is very uncomfortable and weird (again), and I do not have a smile on my face. Again, I say no, I didn’t leave my ID here - It was taken and not given back to me, so no. Then the medium tall black guy says “hey I’m just joking.” I’m not laughing. . . Their normal. I’ve always tried to be nice with how people talk to me there/how I get treated, but You’re teaching me to be kind is the wrong thing. Even though they’re doing “good work” if you are making me uncomfortable in a rude way or harming me / making my life difficult (like keeping my ID & sharing my info with volunteers); me giving feedback in person in a kind way hasn’t helped. Their having fun sharing my personal data is...

This is a for-profit running in the disguise of “donation”.

TL;DR: definitely make sure you are confident that they will accept your donation before making the trip to this place. They seem to only accept items with almost perfect condition.

We called over the phone asking if they accept donation of an office chair. The person asked yes over the phone and didn’t mention or ask anything else. So we loaded the chair on our car and drove 30 miles there. Then they rejected it claiming it was not in perfect resale condition. The chair has a few scratches, and some dust of the arm that can be easily washed off, but functions completely fine.

1. I am not sure that’s how “free item donation” works. I perfectly understand donation item needs to be reasonable condition. But the chair is perfectly functional and can easily be put into a few years of more use. They seems to be only accepting items that can make significant profit, which is against the whole sprit of donation.

2. Had they mentioned what conditions they accept for donation, that would also be acceptable. Instead they wasted 1hr of our weekend.

3. The staff for evaluating the condition was extremely rude. Even the person on the phone apologized for not explaining clearly. But the person evaluating the condition was very condescending and claiming the rejection was based on “common sense”.

As you can see as other recent negative reviews, this is a common problem with this place....

Purchased a great loveseat recliner on Saturday in mid-December 2018 but could not take home that day, as we were not expecting to buy furniture. We had 7 days to pick up with no penalty. They put a "sale" tag on it and moved it to a "sold item" section. We returned 5 days later, on Friday - went to work super early and battled rush hour traffic to get there before they closed. The ReStore could not find my loveseat! They think someone took the sale tag off of it and pretended it had no price in order to buy it a few days earlier - And they sold it to them even though it was in the "sold" section of the store!! So frustrating! The ReStore employee even commented, "I guess we need a better system". They offered us any other sofa they had, even if it was more expensive, but did not have anything that would work size wise. They eventually refunded our money, but we were of course out the time and gas. Today (Jan 5) I got a call from the ReStore right when they were closing telling me we are overdue to pick up our loveseat and we MUST pick up by Sunday, Jan 6 (they are closed Sun-Mon) or it will be returned to stock. They really need to get their...