Yeah, Morgan Hill actually. I hadn't heard about the stolen money, though I know it's happened before in the non-profit thrift chains...which is incredibly messed up, IMO.

The activity I'd heard of was more about the store employees going through items before they went on the floor, letting customers and friends go through items and take or buy them directly from employees (whether just donated outside or in the back room), things of that nature. It had gotten so bad my mom (who visits there almost every day) finally called corporate and was told they'd been receiving a lot of similar complaints about that store.

Hopefully things will stay good from now on (eternal optimist here ;).

.....yup! When things go wanting, the bottom-level bids/shipping can actually save a few bucks from gas/travel and retail shelf price, at times. Just like the rest of the store...I shop around for 'loss leaders'.

Fascinating--I had no idea. Thanks.

......maybe miss the Portland bins most about being there! Nothing like that huge warehouse on the SE end of town....
Tacoma's in on the HQ campus in the center of town...a little smaller and 1.69/lb. You can work it in an hour, unlike the 'never-ending story' of Portland's continuous restock..:)

This may have been said but the big reason many of these Good will/ charity thrift stores have been putting out more junk and less "oh my gawd I can't belive this is .99 cents" is that many "hippster" for profit stores are snaching up many of the quality finds way before it gets on the shelf. The more trendy it becomes to look like a frumpy old man the more we are gonna see our GW's closing and being replaced by chain store like Buffalo Exchange and Ragstock. To the GW hunter in Minnesota, look up a place called Diggers. You have to dig threw crates on a an assembly line'esk conveyer belt but you can buy great clothes by the pound and it is on the same bus line as the uptown Ragstock (don't forget your gloves).

sorry 'bout the grammer and punctuation,
Erick