Susan has been very friendly with me for several years but 2 transactions left me feeling naive and wary toward her business style.
Earlier this year I took in a bag of children's snow boots. She called me to say she was not interested in them and asked if I preferred to pick them up from her store or donate them. I confirmed I wanted to donate them. The very next day a friend of mine said she was looking for child size snow boots and I thought "perfect!" so I called Lollipops to recover the unwanted boots. The assistant told me Susan actually wanted the boots and had already taken them home. I was shocked because I was told the exact opposite.
I called Susan to understand the situation and she explained she actually wanted the boots but wanted to pay me in a few months time, in the fall, due to budget limitations. Although this was not forthright I agreed because I had been shopping there for years and had developed trust with Susan.
More recently I took in a bag with several beautiful name brand summer dresses and blouses, shoes, capri pants in excellent condition. I was impatient for the credit so I waited for Susan to go through my items, which unfortunately, she could not because she had to leave. So I left my bags there trusting I would hear from her soon.
A few days later when I checked on the status of my items, her assistant could not find my things nor could she find a credit for me in the ledger so the assistant called Susan.
Susan's version was that Susan went through my things IN FRONT OF ME (which never happened) the day I brought my items in, she told me no thank you to everything and then I left the store simply leaving the bags behind. What is more, at that point Susan also communicated through her assistant that I could not recover my things because she had taken them home as donation items and they had already been picked up.
Susan did not go through my things in front of me the day I brought them in, she did not tell me she did not want my items the day I brought them in, I would have never 'donated' my things through Lollipops again due to the previous experience of 'donating' (I have not seen any money or credit from the boots she had kept from months before) and it was difficult to believe someone could tell me this happened (through her assistant) when it never did.
Thus, I called Susan the next business day to understand the situation and after a lengthy telephone conversation trying to understand Susan's logic and explanations, we had to agree to disagree on what happened. However, after finding out that there are donation bins at both Susan's house and the store, understandably because of the nature of her business, why haul things to the donation bin at home instead of using the bin at the shop? Why not call to confirm what the owner of the items prefers to do with the unwanted apparel? Why not write the credit for the boots (or other items) in the store ledger instead of a ledger at home? Why take clothes or anything without providing a credit or check the day you keep them?
Illogical and shifty.
I received no call asking what I prefer they do with my items Lollipops did not want on that particular occasion, I received none of those items back because they had been collected from Susan's donation bin at her personal residence and I received no money or credit in return for those 2 recent transactions, NOTHING.
After our lengthly, unfruitful conversation Susan offered to give me a couple pairs of shoes for my children to repair bad feelings but I don't want free clothes to mend relations. I would prefer transparancy.
Buy there, sell there (and make sure you get paid on the spot), but consider donating to the Burien women's shelter if you really want to donate. read more
