One of the biggest perks of shopping at a thrift store rather than buying things brand new is the money you can save on household necessities. On rare occasions, however, shoppers have felt that thrift shops hike their prices too high — possibly accidentally. 

One thrift shopper could not believe their eyes when they saw the price of a batch of Starbucks mugs at their local Salvation Army. They were compelled to share what they saw in the r/ThriftGrift subreddit, a forum dedicated to exposing potentially unethical secondhand shop practices. 

"The most egregious one I've ever seen! Salvation Army can eat poop," the original poster wrote, sharing a picture of the Starbucks mugs. 

The set contained eight Starbucks mugs, seemingly from the "You Are Here" series, including mugs from Paris, France, and Québec, as well as from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot. The yellow price tags on the mugs read, "$199.99 set." 

"I had to ask the girl who made that pricing mistake," the OP wrote. The sales associate replied, "They're being sold as a set, that's why it's that much," according to the OP's post.  

The OP could not believe their ears, describing the situation as "insanity," as the set wasn't even a real set. It was apparently a bunch of Starbucks mugs thrown together to be priced as a set. 

However, since most of the mugs are considered collector's items, the pricing as a whole might be a deal. On eBay alone, collectors can typically find all of the mugs — both of the Paris mugs, in addition to the Netherlands, Magic Kingdom, France, Québec, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom ones — for between $20 and $55 each. 

When these collections of mugs were released, they would feature a specific city, state, country, or theme park, which soon became favorite collector's items. Collectors would curate mug locations with an underlying theme that reminded people of their wonderful travels. 

The mug set in question, however, is an assortment pulled from multiple collections. 

"This was literally someone's crap they didn't want anymore. Charge $2.00 a mug and move on. These stores are greedy," one commenter said.  

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Absurd thrift prices aren't usually the norm. In fact, shoppers have found great scores at the thrift shop. One shopper scored a beautiful vintage rocking chair at their local thrift shop for only $5. Another shopper found a premium dual-boiler espresso machine by KitchenAid at their local thrift shop for only $4. 

Thrifting is a great way to save money on household necessities and occasionally, vintage and rare items, which tend to be better quality than the mass-produced products on the market today. Shopping at thrift shops also helps keep still-usable items from crowding our landfills, helping to conserve the resources needed to produce new products. 

At times, thrift shops will seize the opportunity to capitalize on donated products to make a little more money off of their customers, as some commenters thought was the case here. 

One commenter could not believe the ruse, "Did they put an extra .99 on that?"

"I spat out my water. I can't stop rage-laughing," a third user commented. 

However, as one commenter noted, those who collect these mugs might find value in the set: "I have definitely seen them going for around $30 [Canadian] regularly, so I could see this being a set deal."

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