MONEY MORAL DILEMMA: Should Madge flog Harold’s stuff on eBay?

Pete_Biggs

This is exactly what Madge should do - she should get something for going to the effort of listing it but not telling Harold that she'd put the stuff on eBay would be dishonest.

notken wrote:

I would tell Harold that I sold them on eBay and share the profit with him. He would be over the moon for the extra money, and everyone wins.

Idiophreak

I don't agree with any of you that say "he obviously didn't want it", that isn't automatically the case. Maybe he did want it, just thought it was time for a clear out.

From what the OP says, it is clear that Harold knows the stuff is of some value - that's why he's asking other people to grab it if they want it - if he thought it was complete junk he'd just have thrown it out.

That being the case, he's probably put the stuff out in quite a charitable way - it's stuff he doesn't *need*, but he thinks some of his friends and neighbours might benefit from it.

So if you take it and sell it, you're taking it from your other neighbours who, maybe couldn't afford to buy whatever it is for themselves.

Taking it and selling it would be a bit like going to a homeless food shelter, grabbing yourself some soup, then going outside and trying to sell it on to a beggar. Not a nice way to behave.

I'd suggest to him that a couple of the things would sell well on ebay and that if nobody else wanted them in a couple of days, I'd be happy to help sell them and split the profits.

gwynevans

MSE_Natasha wrote:

left a heap of stuff outside for people to help themselves to if they want.

Note that this bit changes it from the more normal situation of being put out for the rubbish collection.

cloudypops

While he obviously does not want the stuff, it would be nice to mention to him that he could sell the stuff on ebay. If he's not interested then great Madge should help herself and get on with selling, if he is then Madge is no worse off than she was yesterday, and she could even help him get started on ebay and probably improve their neighbourly relationship.

Idiophreak

cloudypops wrote:

If he's not interested then great Madge should help herself and get on with selling

But what if he didn't want to sell them on ebay as he wanted his friends and neighbours to have what he'd put out?

kasper

I think there's a good chance that he put the stuff out on the street as a friendly gesture towards his neighbours in which case ebaying the lot might be taking advantage of his good nature a bit. However, he might have stuck it out on the street because he was too lazy to take it any further, in which case it's fair game, in my opinion. The trouble is figuring out which motive he had...

IanatSeaton

Whatever his motives when he put these things out, they were unwanted by him, and made available for his neighbours. Surely his neighbours are entitled to use those items in any way to benefit themselves. Thus I see no reason why they should not sell them on eBay, and make them some money to buy other items that they really need and want.
How could he object to that?

morg_monster

I had a similar issue with a charity shop near me which sells paperbacks for £1 and hardbacks for £2. They had a 2-for-1 sale last summer so I picked up a bunch of textbooks to sell on Amazon because I had a serious cashflow problem. I was only expecting to get a few quid for each, so didn't have a huge ethical dilemma over it, plus there's no way the people who run the shop would have time / knowledge etc to sell the items on the internet themselves (they are a small local charity, not like Oxfam who I know do employ people to identify more valuable books)

Anyway I ended up selling one for £50 and one for £60, so I felt a bit mercenary and to ease my conscience donated £25 of the profit to the charity. I suppose I could have been more generous but at the time I was seriously strapped. I still use the shop a lot to buy books etc (but I buy them to read now, not specifically to sell!) any more and always take my finished books back to them rather than selling them, now my financial situation is better. So I feel I pay them back in patronage!

I don't feel I took too much advantage of them but you might disagree...!

NatFeerick

Harold is throwing the stuff out - he's not entitled to know what happens to it after. If Madge asked him if he had a spare food processor she could have, THEN she ebay'd it, that would be wrong, but to take something he is discarding anyway and sell it on is perfectly acceptable and the only reason Harold might be upset is that he didn't think of it first!

nearlyrich

Ebaying can be very time consuming and stressful, not everyone wants the hassle, we have all seen programs on TV where people have bught antiques for 10p and sold them for thousands. I don't think Madge is out of order in the circumstances described but as others have said she may feel better if she shares the profit with Harold or a charity.