Catch and involuntary release (or, Why Did You Put These Out, Then?!)
I had an early appointment and decided to go to the bins because I'm not usually up and around when the better stuff seems to come out and after a quick pass before a rotation, I saw a Thinkpad in a bin getting wheeled back. Grumbled to myself but figured I would see what else I could find. The employees wheel the back rows of bins to the front and let us forward, so while everyone else is champing at the bit waiting for the new bins to come out, I look through the ones that are open and... a laptop! And there's another one poking out of another bin! The first one I found was dented and the screen was busted but these are at least 11th generation processors, I can definitely upcycle these. So while everyone else bolts for the new bins once the chain comes down, I loop around and grab three more laptops from that other bin. None of them have RAM or SSDs and the bottom plates were pulled off but they'd clip back on easily.
Finished looking around, got some other things, including a backpack that I stuffed the laptops in because they were heavy (I don't use carts because of maneuverability and I'm not trying to buy EVERYTHING that's interesting) and then go to check out. Cashier weighs everything else that I got, I plop the backpack on the scale and say it's also electronics.
"Are these computers? We can't sell them..."
Why not? Because they might have personal information. I told her that none of them had any storage (didn't mention that the bottom panels were all pulled off the laptops and that I suspected someone further up the supply chain stole the RAM and SSDs because who would donate computers taken apart like that...) but that didn't matter. She asked if I wanted to talk to the manager, I did and he came over with a stack of laptops. He said they had to go to GoodTech or whatever, which... not surprised, it's not the first time I had heard of that policy. Also he had another laptop that I had seen in someone else's cart so I knew he wasn't singling me out or anything, this load just had a bunch of stuff that they could sell for more on their site instead of to people who could actually use it. Shame, because this would have easily been my best haul from the bins ever.
At least it wasn't a total loss, I did get some other useful bits and the vintage Air Force parka in the last picture.