The Salvation Army USA
Reviews and Complaints

Salvation Army scheduled me for pick up my old clothese, shoes and etc. Ticket #1028247, no one came, and no reason. Called again Salvation Army scheduled another appointment to pickup on 7/9/2011 Ticket #1058561, no one came. Salvation Army Dispatcher scheduled a third appointment on 7/30/2011 Ticket #1153150, no one came and no reason. I tried to call them more than ten times; and called the input coordinator, no response.
I trust Salvation Army and believed the first two appointment were missed may be caused by some reasons. They didn't show up in the third appointment and never return my call. If Salvation Army cannot pick up, please don't schedule an appointment. Salvation Army ruin my three full days in the weekend especially during I am griefing for my husband.
I lost the confidence with Salvation Army.

i went to an aution at the salvation army on green stret in augusta ga on saturday the 4th of june (i think) and proceeded to fall into a hole covered over with rocks. I only had one man who worked there ask me if i was all right, then he too blew me off. went to the medical college of ga, and found i had fractured my foot in TWO place. all i asked was for them to contact me concerning the medical bills. Today is tuesday, still no calls. I am not sue happy, but if I have to get a lawyer to get my medical bills paid, then i may as well sue. All i was asking for was my med bills.I dont like suing a charity, but it seems that this charity is all show.

My neighborhood had a garage sale and had a few items we were going to just discard to the trash but decided that someone could use some items that were in useable condition. They accepted a box filled w/ hand bags and totes, luggage, toaster oven ( 2 years old) but a 19 inch color TV was not accepted. Works, cable ready and 5 years old. I dropped in the back and an employee told my wife he could not accept it because it didn't have the sticker that showed date of manufacture. I was it the car and my wife got in to tell me that they would not accept TV. She told me that she informed the employee that she would have come and get it, no big deal. So I go to get out of my car and as I do I see this employee take his blackberry smart phone and take a photo of my car & license plate. I asked him why he took a picture of my car and told my he was going to call the police on me for illegal dumping. I asked what was illegally dump in front of him. He said the TV the lady in the car (my wife). I told him I was coming back to get it and I want that photo deleted which I thought he did. Well guess what... Police department contacted me about illegal dumping. It was 2 pot holders that had merry Christmas on them. I had to go to the store and pay them $10 fee for the cost of disposing of the illegally dumped items. This is the part that pisses me off. $10 dollars to get rid of pot holders. I know if I ever need Salvation Army's help I wouldn't kick a gift horse in the mouth. I will never donate anything ever again. Thank God there is an independent thrift store down the road that accepts donations. Also to go back the guy who took the photo looked like a piece of work, tattooed w/ Nazi symbol right on his arm, dirty ripped clothes & rude. Now I know people do stupid thing and even the tattoo is his right to have and show but then merry Christmas us offensive on pot holders. Thank you for reading this in advance & God bless

I am a regular shopper at the store, today I have seen the worst customer service yet. Waiting on line I experienced one of the cashier telling the other cashiers how the lady before me was stealing, if theres any thruth to that I wouldnt know. When it was my turn I had done all my math since it was a sale day and had a low budget, proceeded to ask the cashier, if that was the price on the item written on ink, she said she didnt think so and asked the cashier that had previously said something about the lady in front of me. She said that wasnt the price (it was a few dollars higher), because herself had put a price on it (yet there was no price tag, just the price written on the item). So I told my cashier to ring me up for the rest of the items and that I would see if I had some change so I can buy the desired item, she said ok gracefully. I stepped away from the register and took the item with me, once I did that I put another item away and began counting my change, when the rude cashier told my cashier that you have to watch out for people like that ( meaning me) and tried to take the item away before I told her I was gonna buy it. I did have enought change and bought the item. Why would I try to pull anything in a store that actually helps me as much as I help them? what is wrong with this lady? if you think someones stealing then call the authorities on them, dont embarrass me because I simply asked if that was the price on the untagged item. Being that Im calm and not confrontational did not know how to react... so I use this platform to express myself. To me it is an embarrasment to the store and the Salvation Army, people should approach you before they judge you when you're a pretty regular customer. So sad, people need to be better trained in every way when it comes to dealing with people.

I have listed the Virginia address, where the National Commander resides and reigns over his kingdom of ministers spread throughout the U.S.A. This organization is one of the (If not THE) richest charities in the country. They appeal to good-hearted people as a 'poor' charity that 'does the most good' for people. They helpp themselves, mostly. I had opportunity to see them over quite a few years, in various locations. The scam is this: 1. Take some people that attend church for awhile, or the kids of existing officers, send them to 'school' and teach them to become officers, then send them out to various cities to either become assistants, or to be in charge of the local organization. 2. Once in charge, these people are not supervised, other than whether they raise their quotas of donations and pay the higher up people a 10% share of their monies raised. Since they are generally ignorant and incompetent, but since they are 'ministers', they get away with all kinds of abuse and mismanagement, as well as illegal activities in some cases. 3. To further the problem, The Salvation Army is top heavy with older officers and has huge administrative costs, which they try to disguise to donors as 'program' costs. The officers rarely do anything, other than bark orders (no matter how ridiculous), so they have to hire outsiders to do their work, driving costs up even more. Most of their 'program' costs are church-related activities, which are basically related to the ministers' costs. 4. The entire organization, including the National Commander, are in the 'brotherhood of the church' and refuse to see anything bad or negative about the place, even with proof of problems. Their responses are to dump any complaints back to the original source, or to the persons complained about, for THEM to resolve! That's like asking the fox to resolve the issue of his eating the chickens! Why do they cover up for each other? *Mainly, to preserve a great deal for their ministers and their families. The organization raises billions yearly (they could pay off the national debt today!), which mainly (I'd estimate 80%) goes to pay for salaries of TSA (The Salvation Army) ministers, their wives, their kids' needs, their vehicles (these are for 'church' use, yet are almost always unmarked?), their vehicle gasoline, their vehicle insurance, kids drive the cars too, their home phones, their cell phones, their utilities, their houses (these are usually $500, 000 homes in great areas-what's Israel live in?), their trips to 'conferences', their ful medical/dental for them, spouses and kids (even adult children with them). And, they get food for free, plus petty cash for anything in between. Not bad, but it gets worse: Each one of these dill rods also has to have an assistant set of officers to run the church, or to run programs, or just to be the whipping boy (if right out of their 'college'). Yeah, each set of 'assistants' is also given all the freebies listed above. You could estimate the costs for houses, living expenses and salaries (and retirement perks deferred for them) per couple as $100, 000 per year EASILY, and that's not counting the higher up people like in Virginia. So what happens when you report fraud, mismanagement, abuse or other problems? *First, they deny or ignore it, hoping it will go away. Then, they take anything you report, send it in total back to the origin of the complaint for them to resolve! Like washing their hands of the problem? The minister that is responsible for the problem simply either explains it away (this is always taken at their word, since they are 'ministers' too), or blames someone else that is not an officer (ie, throw them under a bus?). In the worst case, such as legal problems (there are documented reports of minister couples having violent DV situations, officers stealing money, officers' kids abusing cars or property, molestation concerns, etc) what does the Salvation Army do? They simply move the offender to a different location far away. This is regular and common, but they call it 'answering the Lord's call to move' or some silly crap, which is used for many things. People working for The Salvation Army (regular employees) are treated very badly, including harassment by the ministers, other staff, church people. There is no recourse because of the fact the Salvation Army is seen as a holy institution, no one believes it, especially the public that keeps giving them money. They pay well below the local average in wages, explaining that the employee is working for a 'poor' organization doing the 'lord's work' and shouldn't expect high wages-most employees are under Federal Poverty guidelines due to the organization's own set salary scales! When the officers hire their own kids or parents to work (yep, it's nepotism, happens ALL the time), they get paid above average wages, or overpaid for less work. Nice. Why are wages low? To pay for the extravagant lifestyles of many of the officers! They run low on money due to mismanagement, they simply lay off employees and make the remaining crew work harder-the officers don't help, they are 'busy'. If a good lawyer or person that does reporting/news wanted to have a great story, investigate this place. It's amazing. Contact current and ex employees, they'll tell you the real story about the harassment and abuse by officers. By the way, when you donate your property, it is sold and the money goes into big old trust funds that are invested to make even more money; these are used to buy the big houses the officers live in. Start with the local Salvation Army property lists- just look at the values, go see the houses. If you investigate officers, just look at the costs in their accounting offices for just them and their families-forget the 'church' cost excuses. Every local Salvation Army officer is taught to 'poor mouth'. They appear pious on TV and say 'we're not going to be able to feed anyone this year' and look at the ground. Donations then pour in, usually more money than anything else, all is good again. Same routines with special events, toys, programs, etc. They fundraise to pay themselves/buy new cars and toys. What a joke! My advice to any good church person, Christian, or donor: DO NOT give the Salvation Army a dime, now or ever! They are a classic Rip-Off. Don't believe the lies about 'doing the most good'. Those Red Kettles raise money that never sees a poor person, it goes into the 'general fund' which is the officers' pockets! Any program run there (like shelters, food, etc) is paid for mainly by government funding (oh yes, they get HUD money, state money, local government money, FEMA) that restricts the usage-they've tried for years to circumvent government regulations to allow use in the church, to no avail. The Salvation Army was a great organization before 1980. They were respected and built a wonderful reputation. Then, they got greedy. Now, it's all about getting a piece of the pie for themselves. In the pre-greed era, the Sally ministers were few, worked very hard and lived simply. They helped people in need, had few staff and litle administrative support. Now, it's PR directors, HR departments, Admin support, mail appeal (yes, they pay companies to raise even more money!), wills and estates experts, legal teams, IT departments- none of this crap is program related!

Was hired in Nov. 2009, as the Store Manager...after the last one was mean to employees, was mean to customers...my business was lost in the Iowa Flood of 08. Needed health insurance. Pay was 8.00 pr hour, and bonus...IF you qualified. Saved everything..but criminal actions by my landlord resulted in everything I owned was destroyed. Long Story, lawsuit pending...they committed 4 crimes, 2 federal crimes.
I know the 2nd hand business like the back of my hand, my first month there, cleaned and organized the entire store, even sized the clothes. Increase of sales...68%. Over the 9 month period...my total monthly increase 67&. Almost doubled the business in March. A clean organized, good price store. With half of the employees as I had when I started.
My very 2nd week there, after my 40 hours...an employee called in sick. So I called other employees, no one available.
So I called my district manager and asked what should I do? I already put in my 40 hours (this was sat=btw)..and the guy on staff had a disability...anziety.. ..the nicest guy you will ever meet. But, we had a big madness sale going on.,
and leaving him alone would not of been good.
Anyway, so I call my boss and ask...what should I do? He said you will have to go in. So I said...well I don't know the procedure for the paperwork for the overtime hours...now get this...he says...oh no...you can't clock in...no overtime allowed and if you clock in, you will get wrote up...so I said...so I won't go in...then he said...Its your job to verify the deposit and ensure the employe gets their break, and if you don't do that...you will get wrote up. We went through this seniro 3 times...so I went in and worked for free. Because I was screwed either way...
When employees quit, I was not allowed to replace them, yet the constant threat of getting fired or wrote up if I didnt get my required amount of daily sales...Corporate popped in on suprise...asked where is all my employees...found out I was short handed, told them to get me a full timer to start...not only did they not give me a full timer...they cut my %$ allowed payroll hours. So I get punished for upping the business by almost 70% from the year before. Makes sense. Umm no.
This went on for almost 9 months, until I couldn't process stuff faster then it was coming in.
Saved the 20K in payroll, 12K in free wages by me...Increased sales by almost 100K,
I couldn't keep working almost 40 hours free. For three months I called to get more help. Nothing. Sent pictures and inventory records to show we were getting hammered..nothig. So I called corporate...and got fired.
Salvation Army is pure evil, greed. Don't donate. The thing I got fired for...was sending their pallets of clothes back in the delivery truck, so they don't get rained on.
They refuse to give me a copy of my personal record. Greed ...

This complaint is in no way against The Salvation Army as a whole, which does a great job of providing assistance to the disadvantaged and poor. However, in any organization there are some bad apples. Unfortunately for those seeking assistance with addiction at the Salvation Army ARC in Phoenix, Rosemarie Abernathy, Director of Rehabilitation Services, does not live up to the ARC's mission to provide spiritual and temporal regeneration for recovering addicts. Through her bullying tactics, she has created a power base which she uses to intimidate, humiliate and threaten beneficiaries and employees at the center. Perhaps because of her husband Brian's background in criminal investigation, rather than counsel, she threatens, bullies and interrogates. She generally keeps one or two lackeys in her office to ensure maximum shame is induced during her bullying sessions. Contrary to her exhortations to addicts to be open to correction and to accept advice, Ms. Abernathy is completely closed to criticism of her management style. She rules the 140 men and 14 woman program like a monarch. Rarely does she reach out to any lowly beneficiary, unless he or she happens to be one of her favorites, who she attempts to mold in her brutish likeness. She misses a major opportunity to empathize and effectively teach addicts by sharing her own struggles with her obvious food addiction. Instead she states she is not an addict so can't understand, but then goes ahead and dictates who should be a beneficiaries sponsor, home group and what his or her specific problem is. She is oblivious to the inherent hypocrisy of her hollow words. Most damning, she regularly invokes Christ as an ally in her prayers which are nothing more than the imposition of her own daunting will on others. SHE needs more help than most of those in her program. The Salvation Army truly needs to do something about this problem.

Dillard Lee is obnoxious, bad mouthing bullying ***. Every single employee hired by this store in the last year has quit because of Dillard's temper and his bad attitude towards women. The employees are NOT ALLOWED to talk to each other or the customers, unless the customer asks a question. Said question has to be answered with as few words as possible with minimum eye contact. When Dillard walks into the store if there are two employees on the sales floor, one SCURRIES into the back room before he can see her. It is a lost and soul less place. There is no social fun here. You go in, look quickly to see if anything interesting is there and escape out the door within minutes. Almost no customers even though this store is located across from the the biggest grocery store in town with hundreds of cars streaming by hourly. Upper management needs to look at their mistake of hiring someone who smiles at them submissively while kicking out at employees and mouthing off at customers.

Salvation Army employs Domestic Violence Abusers. Regardless of the proof given to them, they do not hold abusers accountable, they employ them and look the other way. This is defrauding of the worst kind, especially for an organization that claims to be against domestic violence against women & children.

I have been employed for the Salvation Army at their thrift store for 7+yrs. I have complained many times about the unsafe and unsanitary conditions many many times. The store is very very old and if OSHA came in they would immediately close the store because of the conditions. For example the store is full of mold in the ceiling of the main sales floor, the wiring is exposed everywhere, the store is surrounded by a chain length fence and the gate has fallen off its tracks many times including on me twice, once causing me to have medical attention. The store has no hot water so you can wash your hands, this includes the customers, there is no handicapped bathroom and the customers have to walk thru the warehouse for bathroom access. This is super dangerous, I have fallen in the warehouse due to the uneven concrete floor and clutter everywhere. The parking lot is horrible, full of large holes which customers and employees continually trip on. When it rains the lower end of the parking lot is a lake, people must move their cars because the water goes halfway up on their tires. This has caused the store to actually flood on many ocassions because the water runs in under the overhead door in the warehouse and goes straight into the store.
The rat infestation is terrible, just yesterday I was in the so called break room and a rat ran across the floor under on of the food cabinents, and they are all over the warehouse and in the main shopping portion of the store. When you open the warehouse in the mornings and turn on the lights in the warehouse you can watch them run. Just think the clothes, shoes, just everything has been crawled on by these rodents and e have to put it out for sale and don't even have hot water to wash our hands and the poor customers have no clue.
We have 1000lb clothing bales stacked 3 high right where employees have to work and I was there when one stack fell and knocked out the back wall of the warehouse, just waiting for someone to get killed or seriously injured. The forklift driver is not certificed and is just a voluenteer, go figure.
This is sad that they care so little for the people that work so hard to make the store run and with no help to even try to correct the conditions. If people knew just half of the conditions, unheated warehouse in below freezing temperatures, large plateglass windows on the mail store that are not safety glass (I know at least one is because I tripped on outside curb carrying a chair to a customers car and went thru the window) it was replaced with safety glass. Just had to vent and I am going to OSHA and see if they think this is a safe and healthy working enviroment?

My complaint is about the lady that runs the Salvation Army at 702 East Main street. Prattville Al.On one special day when I was down to my last few dollars, I decided to stop by and shop. The money I had happened to be several 2 dollar bills. This is legal tender and is accepted everywhere else. Everywhere except The Salvation Army
where the lady named Diane works. If it had not been for a man that offered to exchange 2 $5.00 bills, I would have had to put the merchandise back.
Another day I went up there, they had a sale. All the plastic you could get in a large bag for a dollar. I took a while and got several items. She, (Diane) stopped me before I even got up to the counter and had to inspect my bag to be sure I didn't put anything other than plastic. This was embarassing and I swore then, I'll never set foot in that store again. I have taken many car loads of donations not only for myself but other families to this store.. I have even bought thing that I later returned as donations but never again. Not as long as this person is working there.

i waited 2 hours today to pick up my package, needed the toys for my 3 children, was given a huge empty garbage bag with just 1 old book, colored in and ripped and old, was this a joke or the 3 new works that were there stealing everyones goodies for christmas? I asked where the gifts were and she told me there aint none! this needs to be known, Salvation Army usually gives 1 nice toy to each of us donated from toys for tots.

The Salvation Army Thrift Store in Spring Hill, Hernando County, Florida has on display, for all to see, an example of what a charitable organization should NOT be. Lying, stealing, and taking the Lord's name in vain seem to be business as usual for the staff at the Salvation Army thrift store. There is discrimination against minority customers including the elderly, disabled, and people of color. The elderly and disabled are routinely run into with large carts. People of color are verbally abused. The disabled are told that they are in the way. However, the abuse is not limited to minorities, There is plenty for everyone. Thank you for providing us with this example. We will be happy to take note and do otherwise. And I Thank the Good Lord for that.

I informed that it was the salvation army from Elizabeth and Elizabeth from Elizabeth. I believe that Elizabeth told the truth story. I am both of Elizabeth and Tina's witness because Tina, who worked as volunteer at the salvation army, got black eye from Elizabeth; and she got nosebleed from Tina after Tina did hit Elizabeth's nose after Elizabeth knocked Tina's eye out. That was very real crazy brawl when they fought to each other over the note and pen for communication. Tina's mother, who worked as the salvation army position, refused to communicate with Elizabeth, who was her deafmute client, with the pen and note; and then Tina forced Elizabeth to hear what they talked without the pen and note, but Elizabeth did not wear her hearing aids. Elizabeth did ask them for note and pen four times; and then they refused to communicate her so well since she did not understand. Elizabeth did write, " why did not she get food with her food card?" Tina's mother did not answer her questions and told her without the note and pen when she did not understand what Tina's mother said. Elizabeth used ASL sign language to her until Tina jumped and cussed at Elizabeth in Tina's mother's office. Tina made Elizabeth so angry, yelled at her and attacked her sign language; and then Elizabeth did knock her out before Tina knocked her, too. 5 volunteers and employees broke them up; and then Tina stayed in her mother's office and Elizabeth was in another room. Elizabeth did calm down, but Tina kept talking. I took the pen and note to her and told them to communicate with her with the pen and note. Jeff, who is the supersivor of the salvation army, did communicate with Elizabeth understanding clearly with the note and pen and made decision to kick Tina and Elizabeth out of the salvation army center for foods forever. Jeff told her that he was very sorry what's happening that communcation was misunderstood; and he needed her faince to pick her foods. Jeff explained it to Tina's mother that he made so decision to kick Tina out because she treated Elizabeth like so bad. Jeff informed that her faince still keep picking elizabeth's foods and emergancy near the future when he is her help. Jeff wanted me to tell elizabeth that Salvation Army in Wheeling and Weirton should help her not wellsburg, wv. I know that Elizabeth did donate over $5, 000 after her mom's death to the salvation army in the past. Jeff begin to teach his employees and volunteers to respect the ADA law for deaf, blind and disabilites people. For example, wheelchair person needs help for bringing food or stuffs when the volunteer bring the box to one's car and respect the wheelchair person. I believe that Elizabeth and Tina can't sue being complaint to each other over the salvation army brawl. I am very sorry for both of Tina and Elizabeth getting kicked out by the salvation army. Do you agree that Elizabeth needs to take anger management class?

When my mother died I had a houseful of older furniture in very good condition, or so I thought. Not wishing to endure the craziness of Craig's list or a yard sale, I called the Salvation Army to donate all of it to the needy. They sent two guys: one looked like he thought he was a Hollywood producer and the other I think just got out of jail. The 'Hollywood" one flounced and flitted thru the house and within 2 minutes said "oh, no no no, none of this will do, sorry. Have you got anything else? " ELSE? People are homeless and sleeping on sidewalks and you're turning down four bedroom sets and a whole livingrm/dining rm suite? I was livid. All they want is NEW stuff in Perfect condition so they can sell it at top prices in their "thrift" shops. You can do better at Target or Ikea - these people are PHONY and should not call themselves "non-profit"! I will never put a penny in their stupid buckets again.