Sad little bearcat 3

[Electronic M]

Remember that many thrifts try to test all gear and only let the stuff that appears to work hit the the sales floor....If it had a problem it was going to end up there regardless of the smarts of the staff.

It may pay to get in good with the staff and let them know what you like. You may be able to get some "it's you or the crusher" bargains that way...

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Remember that many thrifts try to test all gear and only let the stuff that appears to work hit the the sales floor....If it had a problem it was going to end up there regardless of the smarts of the staff.

It may pay to get in good with the staff and let them know what you like. You may be able to get some "it's you or the crusher" bargains that way...

It's a darn shame, IMHO, the way GW and the Salvation Army deal with items they cannot sell, or which have any kind of problems. These could and should be sold, again IMHO, in "as is" condition, not unlike items put up for auction on eBay, not crushed to death. That Bearcat 3 scanner deserved much better than to be crushed as it was. Those were great scanners in their day.

I agree with your advice to tell the store personnel what you like and to request they hold such items for you. If more folks did this, a lot fewer perfectly good items would die such a horrible death as did the Bearcat under discussion here. I cringed inside when I saw the picture of that scanner, crushed and now unsaleable (except perhaps for scrap, given the condition of the PC board chassis), not to mention unusable.

[kf4rca]

I went behind one of these thrifts and a lady was dropping off children's clothing in plastic bags. As soon as she drove away, the thrift worker threw them in the dumpster. I was apalled knowing about all these kids in third world countries running around half naked (even in countries less than 1000 miles away- Haiti.)
ALSO, some of those clothes might have been high end children's clothing like Oshkosh By Gosh. Not cheap stuff.