Charity shops in the US are increasingly not carrying
computer goods,
mainly because if they end up being unsaleable crap they have to pay high
disposal fees.
The one that used to be near me didn't sell computers because of support
issues. They started out selling them, then found that no matter how much
they marked it "all sales as is and final", people would come back and
ask for support getting the machine to work correctly.
So they started tossing the computers that were donated, and selling the
rest of the items that came with it (monitor, keyboard, mouse, cables,
printers, software, speakers... anything but the CPU itself).
Alas, they don't exist any more, the owner of the building felt a
Salvation Army store wasn't the right "image" for his property... so he
kicked them out. I was sad for a while, but now a japanese resturant is
going into the building, so I'm happy again.
(now if I can just find another goodwill type store in the area to start
visiting)
-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>