Oregon boy parks bike in wrong place, Goodwill store sells it

SALEM, Ore. — If it's on the floor at the Goodwill store in Salem, it's for sale. So when Cody Young parked his bicycle in the wrong place, it got sold.

Not only that, the bike that cost $232 four years ago went for $6.99

"That was just insulting," the seventh-grader said.

Young said he and friends went to the store on Sunday to look at speakers. He didn't have a lock, but his friends told him they'd previously parked inside the store. He left it near other bikes that were for sale. While they were shopping, his black BMX bike was sold.

Goodwill officials said they were looking into the sale. They said they were unable to identify the bike's purchaser.

"We will make every effort to do the right thing," spokesman Bob Barsocchini said, "and we will throw in a bike lock."

Goodwill spokeswoman Dale Emanuel said the store doesn't permit bikes inside, to avoid just such mix-ups.

She said it's not the first such sale in Goodwill's busy Columbia Willamette system, which did $77 million in sales in 2006.

Once, Emanuel said, a janitor left a bucket and mop on the sales floor, and a store sold them the next day

"What goes on the floor sells," she said.