Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/05/2024

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  -They have a teacher center for teachers to collect items, for a $35 annual fee -I went in on 2/3/24 to use the teacher center (provided my membership card, drivers license, etc). I have been there at least 8 times before.-They made an accusation that they stalked my ******** profile and accused me of "selling items" that I have collected there and making profit off of it, so they revoked my membership -I asked calmly what items they are referring to on my ******** profile, what proof that they have that I have been stealing/selling items, etc.-They had absolutely no proof, no paperwork or documentation of what I've collected there in the past, etc. They could not answer any of my questions.-They would not provide me with a copy of the teacher contract and the names of the owners. The man and woman working there could not provide me with any information whatsoever.-I would not leave until they refunded my $35 and they wanted to escort me out of the building. -The woman, ******, and some man named "**. ******* were profiling me, assuming that I was stealing without any proof, and making accusations. -They claimed that their business lost $250,000 last year because of "people like me who steal"-The lady looked at me and said "you look exactly like someone who would steal"-They took my membership card, my annual fee money, everything.

  Business Response

  Date: 02/13/2024

  Hello ******* *******,
  

  Art of Recycle is a non-profit organization that distributes free art and educational resources to teachers and non-profit organizations. Our organization does ask teachers to pay for a membership processing fee of $35, if they can.
  

  Art of Recycle does not require any contract for teachers to sign. There is no contract between Art of Recycle and Educators and Non-Profits that are receiving free resources from Art of Recycle. We are a form of social services that acquires donations of educational supplies and redistributes them to programs in need, to assist those programs by alleviating them of the costs of necessary educational resources that they would otherwise have to purchase for the underserved in our communities.
  

  We have an electronic application form that teachers, schools and non-profits must fill out in order to determine their eligibility for the program. They are also asked to sign a disclaimer stating that they will abide by our non-profit’s rules, which are clearly defined on their membership card and on the impact forms that they must fill out every time they receive free materials. We track the resources that we distribute, for free, into the community and to the school districts and other non-profit programs so that we may track our impact as required by the IRS.
  

  The complainant applied for access to our free teacher resource center on July 21, 2023 at 10:42am, she was denied access on July 29, 2023. In her application she did mark that she was willing to pay for the processing fee, but we have no clear evidence in our register records as to whether or not she did pay for the membership processing fee. I can see one credit card payment and one cash payment but there were three teachers who applied for and received access to the resource center on July 21,2023.

  On July 21, 2023, the complainant entered the free resource center and received over $200 of resources that were donated to Art of Recycle and redistributed to her school. The name of the organization that would have received those resources is listed on the impact record.
  

  We have uploaded the July 21st impact form for you to view.
  

  We had several concerns about the complainant’s application.
  

  The first, the school year had ended in June and the school would not have been in need of resources at that time.

  The second, one of the items on her list was a new roll of shipping labels, which you can see on the impact form.
  

  The third, her teacher ID had expired at the end of the school year. She did not have an ID for the 23-24 upcoming school year.
  The complainant received an e-mail on July 29, 2023 that her access had been denied, yet she continued to return and take items that were needed by other organizations.
  

  Art of Recycle does not stalk ******** profiles. Our staff is tasked with making certain that the resources that are donated by the community reach the underserved people within our community. Some of our staff’s time is spent researching marketplace and other selling sites for any of our inventory that is being sold. This is our way of assuring our donors that their donated items are going to the proper places. When we discover teaching supplies for sale in our area that appear to be from our free resource center, we tag it and place the sellers on a list. People who are on that list are not necessarily denied access, but we do warn them that selling our free educational supplies will terminate their access to our center. 

  The complainant arrived on February 3, 2024 and attempted to access the resource center. 
  

  I recognized her name and checked her application status and discovered that she had been denied access in July of 2023. She was informed that her membership had been denied and that she would not be able to access the teacher area. The complainant left and then returned with her mother and sister who shouted at our staff and demanded that we return the membership processing fee. We explained to them that they had received thousands of dollars of resources over the course of the year and that her membership had been denied. We usually do not tell people why they are denied, but they were causing a disruption in our center and they would not leave until they had an answer. We told them that the complainant had a marketplace site that she was selling teaching resources. We did not accuse the complainant of selling resources from our center, but the act of selling
  any teaching supplies on marketplace by a person who is taking hundreds of dollars of materials from our center is a concern.
  Over the course of 2022, Art of Recycle had over a quarter of a million dollars in theft of donations from our store and our resource center. Most of the theft was coming from the resource center. Microscopes, science equipment, precious gems and stones, complete teaching program kits and summer camp program kits, and anything new in the package was being taken and sold on marketplace and other selling sites. This theft forced our organization to take greater precautions to weed individuals who may be a risk to our organization.
  

  We would like to make it perfectly clear that the complainant was never accused of theft. 
  

  The complainant’s mother verbalized that denying her daughter access to the resource center was an act of accusation. She insisted that her daughter was being accused of theft because she could not receive free resource from our center. We replied that we cannot allow her access because her marketplace account had teacher supplies listed for sale, but we were not saying that they came from our center, only that it made her a risk to our program that we were not willing to take. It was very difficult to have a civil conversation with them about how our program worked. They insisted that they had a contract with our organization that allowed them to access our center and take what they wanted whenever they wanted, because they said that they paid a $35 membership fee and that it was a binding contract that we couldn’t just end. They kept shouting that we were accusing her of
  theft without evidence, and our staff member told them that if we were accusing her of theft, then she would be sitting in the back of a patrol car talking to a police officer and not to us. We asked them to leave, again, and they remarked that they would, but that they would make certain that everyone knew that our program was a scam and that we were stealing people’s money by terminating their access to our resource center before July 2024 and then they left us a one star review on ******. 

  I apologize that your time has been taken up by this matter, but we will not be paying them $35 after they had received hundreds of dollars in gifted resources just to keep them from writing bad reviews about us. If you decide to post their complaint on your website, that’s ok, we have thick skin.

  Sincerely Yours,
  ******** ********
  Art of Recycle
  Creative Director