Let me expalin myself.
My wife Elsie (who is 85) works in a Charity Shop two days a week.
She has previous experience in retail,but she says she has never before met people who are so greedy,grasping and generally bad mannered(and that counts for those on low incomes,and the better off too).
They seem to equate the word Charity Shop with Jumble Sale,and try and bargain down already low prices to practically nothing.
The shop my wife works in is in Tenterden,an affluent town on the Kent/Sussex border,where many of the customers are equally well off,and these people can be the worst for money.
It doesn't really matter WHO or what class the customer is,they seem to forget that the shop is on (usually) a short and expensive lease,that the Charity has to pay Business Rates,and this is before they have even sold one item!
Yes,SOME customers shopin these shops because they are short of money,BUT the funds raised(in Elsie's shop for instance) go to those who are on the streets,or are at their lowest ebb;this is why I begrudge ANYONE taking pennies out of their hands.
In some ways I think we British despise those who are in the gutter(so to speak) because we are scared of being there ourselves,so we (finacially) are happy to cr@p on them first.
I just hope when you are down there,someone will stretch out a hand a help you up,not worry about a credit note.