My first visi at the yard and the missing price lists

Hi everyone,

Today was my first visit at the yard, one of the main ones in Toronto, Ontario, where I brought a couple of fridges and other bits of ferrous metals.

The first impression was of a complete chaos and disorientation. After weighting the load I entered the office to take the money and I asked for the price list of all the metals that they take. The lady at the counter and here manager coldly told me that they don't have such a list. I insisted to have an orientation for the prices to know what to do the next time and after some refusals, the lady in front of the computer prepared me a handwritten list with 6-7 prices. When I checked, i saw for example aluminum cans .035/pound. When I told here that in US the price for pop can is double she said that she doesn't know very well the prices. Is the manager who decides every day what to pay???!!!
First of all, is this situation normal where you get not a price list to check and compare?
In the yard I saw 3-4 other "scrapper colleagues" downloading their stuff and among them one full truck of computer parts throwing them in the same pail of simple ferrous stuff???!!! How can they be so blind?? To get for all those hard drives and motherboards the same price of tin???
Did anyone of you have the same experience in your yards? Any advice for the price lists?

Happy scrapping and leave the hammer for the last moment! Don't destroy everything right away even though sometimes can be therapeutic and stress relieving...

The yard I sell at I can call any day they are open and get the price for anything, no problem.

Find a new yard to sell to even if you have to make bigger loads or ones just for non-iron items. Also make friends with the guys selling their hard drives, etc and maybe make a deal with them. You could do well. My impression of your yard is they need a competitor. Best to you, Mike.

Never heard of such a thing as not having a price list!!! There is a yard around here that doesn't have prices printed out, but does post prices on a "grease board" above the pay window. Did you get a scale ticket showing in- and out- (gross and tare) weights, type metal sold, unit price and price paid? Did you just have one type of metal or how did they determine the weight of each type you had? Do you have any laws in Ontario governing scrap yards and sales?

My yard has a running ad in the local newspaper stating their prices, and if you have a question they are all to happy to answer it for you.

Thanks for your reply guys!

Exactly, my next step will be the studying of laws, rules and regulations governing scrap yards in our region. In this we have to be more knowledgeable and not reduce ourselves in knowing very well only our scarp metals.
Yes, the reason to not provide a price list is that you can't compare and decide the yard where to go but this is shortsighted and not a modern progressive businessman's vision. I will never again go there even though it is the closest yard and I'm a very small fish and not so important for them.
I think also that one of the goals and the merits of this forum is exactly to wake in each one of us "poor scrappers" the conscience to make things better and wiser, to share with each other our experience and help each other. That's why I quotet at the end of my post "Don't use right away the hammer to break things down, use your brain and internet first to sell or trade your scrap before going to the yard and get only peanuts that some cheap guy offers you unconditionally".

PS. For Kris Kringle: In Canada unfortunately the Beer Stores collect only beer cans (¢10 each), but not other pop cans. Since last year they are collecting also wine/spirits bottles (¢20 each).