Remar UK - what are your thoughts?

[BoyFromSmoke]

Very Expensive when compared to The British Heart Foundation furniture and electrical store at Crystal peaks. They sell some really cheap stuff and it all goes to help me and you and our families have healthy hearts

[Mister M]

What does the Salvation Army do that is not 'charitable'?

 

This article makes for an interesting read about the Salvation Army

http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/shameless-workfare-exploiting-charities-slam-the-benefit-sanctions-they-are-responsible-for/

[ricm]

Hi,

I just wanted to add my latest experience to this thread. I have no idea about the work that Remar undertakes both in this country and abroad.

 

I chose Remar for the reason that my mother's house needed to be cleared for sale. We wanted all of the furniture to go to charity. We knew that Remar took large electrical items so they were an obvious choice for the fridge, freezer and washing machine. We also had a double bed (without the fire safety label) and a settee, footstool and chair (with a fire safety label) plus a few other small items.

 

I was told when I made the arrangements for collection over the phone that without a fire safety label the items could be taken but only for disposal and that there would be a charge. I had no problem with that.

 

On arrival the various items were checked over. The bed with no label incurred a £30 disposal fee. The settee with full safety labels, was said to be "saggy" but to be honest it was in great condition. The driver said he didn't want it but would take it away for a fee. Another £30 was added to the disposal fee. £60 in total.

 

There was no official documentation by way of receipt, just cash in hand. The driver said that he and his mate were volunteers and that it would cost them to dispose of the items.

 

I have no disagreement with the fact that disposal does cost. But how much is realistic? And why no book of receipts? Why even no paper, pen or anything else for the driver to sign? What records are kept of income and expenditure or declared to Inland Revenue? Surely there needs to be some record, especially if a proportion of all clearances result in some items for disposal? If so, then the cash in hand per day for such volunteers would not be insignificant.

 

Personally I felt I was over a barrel given the impending completion date for the sale of the property. It's not so much the money but the correctness of the procedure, the lack of any audit trail. However, I was told that if I popped into Remar I could obtain a receipt. But for how many people is this convenient? And how often does this happen?

 

I wish Remar well. It has obvious successes and that is a good thing. Many of the items we gave will be sold and there ought to be a corresponding benefit to those in need. However I personally would never use them again. I was left feeling extremely uncomfortable with the "disposal" arrangement. I am not saying that there was anything untowards but in future I would want to donate to a charity with full transparency and accountability with appropriate record keeping at the point of transfer - especially if it involves a payment.

[bigsteve]

Unfortunately this seems to be a shared experience with using Remar.

We were asked to take a sofa back to Remar for a customer as part of a removal we were doing as it wouldn't fit in the new house and rather than dispose of it our customer preferred it to go back to Remar as a donation and be re sold.

She rang Remar and even still had the recipt from them.

When we arrived at Remar they refused to take it back saying that despite having a recipt and they had too many sofas and our customer didn't get it from them as it had no fire label (despite the recipt describing it) this understandably made our customer very upset. We won't be donating any items to Remar