Infuriatig
When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff
I would never call this a garage sale
Def scam vibes
Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one
My grandparents used to do this, for at least like 15 years in two different states. They just spent hours cupon-ing then would have yard sales and sell all this kinda stuff.
I used to wonder how legal it was regarding the food items they had lol.
I know my state doesn't like it, but I'm fuzzy on the details. I work in retail and had a manager find this couponing ring's facebook group, and rat them out to some government agency in charge of retail licenses or something. I guess there's some regulations on the square footage and floor type you have to have in order to sell bulk chemical items like detergent. You can't sell more than X amount out of your garage without some sort of retail license and set-up. So the couponing ring got fined and shut down. And boy did that cause some delicious drama. I was glad to be a spectator
People get real serious with this kind of stuff. One of my good friends is really into credit card "churning", which is basically exploiting credit card loyalty points (like signing up for as many new cards as possible for bonus loyalty points). They definitely have chat groups that share tips and they get serious benefits from it (like my buddy and his wife go on 3-4 vacations a year to places like Bali for free). They're a real thorn in the sides of the companies, too. My buddy had American Airlines shut down his frequent flyer account because he was getting too many free miles from credit card deals.
For a while the US Mint was trying to get dollar coins out into circulation and you could "buy" them at cost from the Mint's website and they'd ship to your house for free.
People were maxing out credit cards for the points and just depositing the coins at their bank.
OMG that is smart. Would have never thought of this. To me this isn't even bad, and to people saying it is, corporations get away with stuff all the time.
From government perspective: worst decision, should be a law against it. About 3% of the transactions were processing fees being paid to the credit card companies. They were basically selling dollar coins for 97 cents.
Maybe, but consider that putting the coins into circulation through other means also has a cost. The 3% might be more or less than of traditional distribution, but I have no way of knowing that. Also keep in mind that by that point they had already spent the money on tooling up to make these new coins, plus the cost of actually minting however many they had at the time. If people weren't using the coins, they weren't actually worth a dollar they were worth nothing. Even if the mint had to move them at a net loss, it's still better than nothing.
I lady I used to work with was super into it. She would walk out of grocery stores with a full cart having spent like $10 or something ludicrous. She only managed it a couple times IIRC, but the store gave her money back while not actually paying anything in her cart. She had receipts. It blew my mind, but that was basically her hobby. She dedicated what I thought was an unreasonable amount of time to couponing. She would drive across the state to specific grocery stores and things like that. She would have made more money just working than she saved, and probably wouldn’t have had a freezer half full of yogurt.
Yup, I love all the comments acting like this is some new revelation or must be stolen goods when my grandpa was doing this over twenty years ago. He’d wait til there was an amazing sale or coupon, stock up, and sell it later.
Lol, I want to meet the extremely fastidious hoarder who has way too much stuff but is still capable of presenting for sale their hoarded goods all neat and clean and organized like this
I mean I can appreciate someone may have done that for them, but can you imagine
I had a family member that used to work at Walmart. Employees who work Thanksgiving or Black Friday are rewarded with a one-purchase 25% discount. They used to bring multiple people with checklists and multiple carts to buy 1-2 years of staples in one go; usually took a couple hours at the store and the purchase was in the $3-4,000 range, with multiple carts full of this kind of stuff (tp, paper towels, kleenex, soap, etc). At one point they had an entire bedroom filled with it because they kept overbuying and decided to give most of it to family/friends. It was quite an impressive collection.
They quit doing the bonus discount. Now you get grocery discounts year round instead of just November and December. I do miss that one big discount though. Great way to stock up.
Clean hoarders are rare but 100% exist I know one who resells stuff online and it’s very lucrative. However he then blows all the money in his personal hoard as well. Like shopping addiction + hoarding. Like old boxes of their kids toys but clean and the toys in a separate container. Mental illness can be very complicated
This was my grandmother, everything was cramped and still a fire hazard but also well organized and clean which is how she justified the hoarding. "Look at how nice everything is, how can this be a problem?!"
That's only 4 cases. The wildcard is the amount of detergent. Screams organized retail theft. All they are missing is a pallet of Enfamil and cosmetics/fragrances.
Hoarder was my guess. Had an uncle like this that would just buy loads of things because it was a “good deal” and he’d use it eventually. Had a whole room full of random shit like this. Felt like I was in a mini Costco.
My house currently looks like this. My wife ordered a bunch of supplies on prime day.
I ordered a bunch of supplies on prime day...
We could return most of it, but like you said, we'll use it eventually, and it's not like paper towels have an expiration date to realistically worry about.
I think a lot of the criminals that don't get caught end up stopping their criminal activities and join the police department before their luck runs out. At least, thats what happened to my first pot dealer back in the day.
Laundry soap is one of the most shoplifted items in the country. Everyone needs it, it's shelf stable, doesn't go bad. It's basically an accepted currency in the ghetto.
I say this line to my kids way too much. For some reason I still haven’t showed them the movie, even though I was definitely watching it myself when I was their age.
I went to a live event with Julie Hagerty and Robert Hays. They said originally the lines were supposed to be something dumb like repeating "sheeeeiittt, yooo" over and over again, but the two actors asked and were allowed to write their own jive lines. I can't even imagine how fun that must have been.
It is also one of the bigger coupon deals you can find. I have a shit ton of laundry soap because my ex-wife is a couponing nut. Laundry soap almost always has a deal of some sort that easily stacks with store deals. She buys it anytime she can because she could get 3 bottles/boxes/packages for $10. She kept a hefty supply on hand and donates a lot or gives it away to families in need.
A lot of cleaning supplies and paper towels will have deals as well.
This was what I experienced when I worked at Kroger. I'd get about a half a dozen women come through with carts full of cleaning supplies, then each one would unload a handful of coupons and walk away spending AT MOST $10 for an entire cartful. They'd often do just this, turn around selling them in bulk as "deal bundles"
This. I also coupon, there’s tons of deals for laundry products for cheap. That said, I have no interest in reselling, and my family won’t use anything besides Tide, so I’m pretty selective with laundry deals. But if brand didn’t matter, I’d likely have a whole shelving unit for detergent lol
Yeah, I was surprised to see it all locked behind glass doors in a few stores in The Big City a few years back, until someone told me just that. People steal it. Which seems crazy, as I can't imagine how you'd walk out with a 6 lb giant bottle of Tide in your pants or something. But there we are.
A coworker I had back when I was a teenager would steal beer from Walmart for his weekend partying. I asked how he got away with it. "Put it into a cart and push the cart outside."
At my local Petco or Petsmart ( forgot which one it is ) their shopping carts have very tall wooden poles attached to them. I asked what they were for and they said shoplifters would load up carts with big bags of pet food and just walk out with the entire cart and not pay, the big poles stop them from being able to do that anymore.
I'm confused how it stops them, is the pole taller than the door so the cart can't be taken outside the store? So then what if you're buying a big bag of dog food, you wouldn't be able to take it out to your car in the shopping cart?
You are correct, the pole is taller than the door so you can't get the cart out. If you buy a bunch of stuff or something heavy, you just have to figure it out.
Yeah, late 90s gas stations would just have big 30 can cases of beer outside next to the ice machines. He'd get gas and on his way out just grab a case in each hand and split.
ORCs work as teams at my store. One will come in, grab a bunch of stuff and stage it then leave. While AP is watching the crack head with 30 cans of tide pods, an old man or soccer mom comes, grabs the cart and pushes it right out
Another tactic people do is pulling receipts out of the trash, then picking up the items on the receipt in the store and “returning” them. I had an obviously homeless guy do that with a bag full of makeup products that were purchased a few hours prior per the receipt, but we weren’t allowed to refuse a return if the basis was accusing them of fraud.
Here in England at Tesco the cameras are so advanced that they can track thievery and the next time you enter the store the automatic facial recognition signals to the security guard to apprehend you before you leave the store.
More so corperate tells us not to persue. And for good reason.
I worked retail for over a decade. I caught plenty of shoplifters. I was also threatened with being stabbed with a used needle over baby powder and teeth whitener kits.
One dude I caught was a meth head with hepatitis start ripping open his scabs to bleed on me as revenge for catching him. That dude is still in jail, but getting tested and waiting for the all clear on HIV and hepatits was a scary fucking time for me.
One of our loss prevention officers got beaten down by a roid fueled theif (when aprehended he had a couple grand in steroids in his bag). The roid rager was just feeding the LPO shots to the head and face until a third party showed up and beat the fuck out of (and then subdued) the theif with a hockey stick.
Shoplifting like this is a societal issue. You'll always have things like dumb teens doing dumb shit, but they're not the ones stealing laundry soap and baby food. Enforcement/policing doesn't work because the people involved have fallen so far they don't care anymore and the safety nets that do exist don't reach them. We need to do better at making sure people in vulnerable points in their lives are supported enough and helped so that they don't get to that point.
Big stores like Target and Walmart have cameras and track shoplifters. Target is notorious for just letting the total accumulate until it reaches felony levels, then arresting the shoplifter. Part is that in some areas, DAs won't prosecute pennyante levels of shoplifting. Someone stealing $50 of laundry detergent is not worth it to the DA, as usually they have too much to do as it is.
Additional context, nobody checks receipts because even 15 years ago when you were slightly less likely to get shot by a shoplifter, everyone knew they weren't paid enough to care about that shit.
I worked at Costco and our loss prevention team caught an obese woman who was using an automatic scooter while hiding pies in her fat folds. They pulled two pies out of her uhh... pubic area and one under each bob. I was told there was more by the person who caught her but it's such an absurd amount of pies to hide I have no fucking idea how and I just can't trust that number after not seeing it for myself. I was there, I saw them bust the lady, but I did not see what treasure trove she had stored.
Because the days of walking out with stuff in your pants is over. Enforcement is so lax and DAs often won’t prosecute so basically you just walk out with a full cart.
See, I didn't know that. I was wondering why the two Walmart's in my area had a whole of cameras and screens set up in that isle when all it was was napkins and laundry soap I'm thinking why all the security. Guess now I know.
I have a friend who is a super couponer. She gets so much stuff and then makes grift baskets to resell as a second income. She also just gives away toothpaste to everyone she knows because, apparently, it’s basically free.
as a non-american, i find the coupons quite interesting. i did watch a few episode of the show about these people but i found the people to be.... exhausting.
As someone that used to be a cashier that had to deal with A LOT of couponers, they're extremely exhausting. I mostly don't have any good things to say lol
They're fencing... Highest probably that the goods are stolen.
Note: This comment is agnostic of the location (projects in the above post). These kinds of setups exist everywhere and is the monetization strategy behind shoplifting.
Yes. I’ve been to a slew of flea markets where dudes are selling packets of coffee or other single use stuff. When dudes wanted to haggle I’d just call them out, “I know you stole this from work, it’s not worth $5”, and they’d cave.
One of the most ridiculous things I've seen a vendor try to sell were an open box of those plastic cutlery/napkin kits that a fast food restaurant would throw into the bag with your order. The dude wanted a dollar apiece for them.
I felt like telling him those things are barely even worth being free!
The flea market in my area used to have a vendor that would pay people to steal random stuff from stores, so he could resell it at his stand. Sometimes for more than what the store originally charged. For example he'd charge $3 for a single can of Coca Cola when at the time, a 12 can pack was going for $4 or $5 at the store that he was stealing them from.
It took months of evidence gathering and tailing before he was finally arrested and charged. From what I heard, he was not very well liked. He'd get into shouting matches with other vendors, yell at customers. etc., so nobody really shed a tear when he got hauled off and his stand was shut down.
My sister does this her garage looks like a stores back room inventory. She used to be like those people on the show, entire cart load for 15 bucks Christmas is all useful stuff like shaving cream, soap, razors, snacks, shampoo and such.
I don't see this at garage sales often. But I do see it at flea markets. Cleaning supplies are the most popular. I've even seen a guy repacking laundry soap into 5 and 10 gallon buckets. What's weirder is that he's actually selling a lot.
My city is full of stores that just sell that stuff. The buy Amazon returns, throw them all in bins, and tell people to go crazy. Everything's $15 one day, $10 the next, then $7, and so on until it's all gone and they buy another pallet. My cousin got a legit nice coffee maker from one of these stores, but I only ever see cheap shit in mangled boxes.
Watch what you buy. I bought what looked like a sealed box of LED fluorescent tube lights. Got home, they were a pair of burned out lights someone had returned. I was pissed
People buy a product, use it until it dies, buy a new one, then return the dead one in the new package. The old one gets sold in an auction of Amazon returns.
Or someone needs a part for something they own, they buy a new one, remove the part, the return the new product with the part missing.
No you don’t, you’ll go once or twice and realize it’s absolute junk. Take another look around and you’ll realize everybody in there is just feeding a hoarding addiction. It’s depressing actually. Any videos you see of guys finding iPhones and electronics are 100000% employees making content.
We like to go around town and hit up garage/estate sales after a lunch date on nice Saturdays. No destination just spend an hour or two hitting areas that normally have a bunch.... There is a house that changes up their signage and tricks us all the time but as soon as we start getting close we give up and turn around. Amazon pallet reseller, the prices are barely under amazon prices. I WANT OLD TREASURES NOT YOUR STUPID RETURN PALLET JUNK KAREN.
I see this all the time and wonder if the stuff was stolen, dumpster dived, what? Also, I just would never think about stopping along the road for random cleaning products unless I lived in some remote-assed location with no stores.
My neighbor would do this in the 90’s/early 2000’s. Hit up the discount racks at several stores then up charge by a dollar or two. It was a way for her to make a few extra bucks a month as unemployed older lady in the south. It’s not as bad a scalping.
Imagine being the POS that buys a ton of diapers when they are BOGO even though you don’t even have a baby because you want to make sure the actual parents of babies can’t get that deal and might buy them from you instead.
I coupon, these items are all regularly bought by couponers. Looks like someone has too much in their stash. It can get out of control quickly, couponing can be addictive for some people.
my friend wrote an article about extreme couponing! she was curious how much value couponing generated and determined the main value was in the thrill of the couponing itself, which clearly brought everyone she interviewed a lot of genuine joy. I'll see if I can find it, it was a really sweet article
I never got into the extreme couponing but when there are good deals and combos for soda pop, laundry detergent, and certain hygiene products I’m on it. I don’t have the space to have a huge stockpile like some people have but I have a closet filled with stuff and anyone in my family can come over and help themselves.
These look like items that are both very often stolen, or very often bought by a type of hoarder known as a "couponer". If I knew the person and knew they weren't a thief, I might take a gander if the products were well below what I'd pay in the store. If you can get a bottle of detergent for $3.99 and they're selling it for $3.49, I wouldn't bother since I have no idea what they did to it. At least stores accept returns.
It looks weird, but we considered doing something similar to this when my wife's uncle passed away. He lived alone in a four bedroom house, and they were all for storage. Dude had at least 30 packages of toilet paper (pre covid) cases of tissues, soap, cleaners, and he had an odd habit of buying multiples of things he liked. Binoculars? Yeah, 5 pairs of the exact same model. $150 walking stick? Seems nice, let's get 8 of them. He kept receipts for everything, or we would've thought for sure he was some kind of kleptomaniacal hoarder.
Procter and Gamble employees are entitled to product sales of their items at extremely discounted prices. These happen about 2-3 times per year, however the rules state these products are for personal family use only. These items are all P&G items. This person probably is a current or soon to be former employee.
I've seen apartments operating as small convenience stores and the merchandise was likely obtained by various illegal means. There was a lot of welfare fraud involved (that's why it was uncovered).
This is not stolen. This is, very much, the exact items that Walgreens or CVS has on sale weekly. I use those sales to get products for my family. You can get great deals. These are people who take advantage of the deals, buy extra, and resell to make money.
Most often it’s stay at home moms or retired ladies trying to make some extra cash.
I like garage sales too and skip these. But idc. Make your money however you can.
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u/IllAcanthopterygii19 13d ago
My grandparents used to do this, for at least like 15 years in two different states. They just spent hours cupon-ing then would have yard sales and sell all this kinda stuff.
I used to wonder how legal it was regarding the food items they had lol.