Freecycle question..

smeeth

Hi all,

I hope I'm posting this in the right place?
I have a question about freecycle & wondered if any of you could share your thoughts.

I replied to a post offering a tv & ps3 on friday, and today I received an email stating that in the time it had taken for their post to be approved & posted they had moved home.

They now live about 300miles away from me, opposed to the 5miles before.

They offered to post to me, but I can't afford courier fees at the moment.

They responded saying that they would get their husband to post it to me for free if I just gave them my address.

I'm just a bit concerned.. it sounds too good to be true. Who pays to give something away for free?

What do you guys think? Is it safe to go ahead & give them my details?


Thanks.:beer:

Auntie_Sceb

Run away fast. If it sounds too good to be true it usually is,

Dark_Star

Er no.....


It can take seconds for a post to upload (if it does not require approval from moderators) & even if it needed approval then most get listed the same day.


Avoid like the plague & forward their reply to your local freecycle admin team.


Unless their removals were done by the Starship Enterprise crew, I cannot see how they moved so quickly!

gt568

Oh. My. God.

On an unrelated matter OP, I have millions stuck in foriegn bank accounts but I can't move it to the UK as I can't afford the transaction fees. If you front me 10k I'll give you £100,000 when the funds clear.:eek:

Mojisola

smeeth wrote: »

They now live about 300miles away from me, opposed to the 5miles before.

They offered to post to me, but I can't afford courier fees at the moment.

They responded saying that they would get their husband to post it to me for free if I just gave them my address.

Tell them to join their local Freegle group and offer it again.

Also, tell the Moderator of your group.

smeeth

Good to see you're on the same lines as me, thanks all.

Auntie_Sceb

I know we all agreed on this one but I just received an email from my local freecycle saying:

"This is a warning about a recent scam on many Freegle groups. Moderators have recently received a complaint about a scam where a scammer offers (or replies to a Wanted message for) a large screen TV and then asks the member to pay courier charges, plus insurance charges.
The scammer claims that the moderators approved their offer too late and they have now relocated to another part of the UK, but the items are still available if the member pays for delivery, plus insurance. Typically the scammer then emails them a link to a fake courier website and asks the member to pay with UKash vouchers.
The Ukash vouchers are cashed almost immediately by the scammer, but the items are never received by the member who paid the delivery and insurance charges. Victims of this scam have typically lost between £30 and £80 payment for delivery and insurance charges.
Group members should protect themselves from scams as much as possible. So a couple of things to remember -
Don't under any circumstances pay any delivery/courier/insurance charges that someone may request, whether it be by direct debit, PayPal, credit card, Ukash vouchers or any other form of payment.
If you are contacted by a scammer please save any emails between you and the scammer and any fake website addresses to courier sites that you receive from them. "

ginnyknit

Sounds like a scam to me too. I posted something at 5pm, it was checked by the mods and I had 5 replies by 7 o clock. Things move very quickly on the sites.

sparrer

Agree with everyone else, this is a scam which has been doing the rounds of various freecycle groups for some time. If you see anything half-way suspect or too good to be true in future best to refer it to the mods before you reply to the offer

Honeythief

Although this particular thing does appear to be a scam, it's not unusual for things to take ages to post or get updated on Freecycle. I don't expect to see updates within a day for my local Freecycle branch - it is often faster but not always. It is frustrating when posting or viewing posts, but I just take that into account when I'm using the site.