Freecycle Nusiance

rosieben

OP I would be furious if that happened to me - if he wants 'as new', then he must buy new! I would certainly name and shame him on the local freecycle forum, and post that he returned to the house and harassed your elderly parents - that is totally unacceptable - for all he knew you could be a lodget there?

biscuit81 wrote: »

.... I'm right in thinking I should inform the moderator, aren't I?

I would certainly inform the mods and also make a report to the police if you have the guys name and contact details - not much use otherwise though. I would post something about this on the boards too, let him know that his behaviour is unnacceptable, and say that you will be calling the police if anything is missing from the shed.

bl@@dy cheek of some people!! :mad:

The whole point of the forums, as I see it, is to share experiences of freecycly. I would certainly be sharing if I had experiences like either of the above.

Quasar

This is why I have decided against joining Freecycle. I have read stuff like this before, and I think this scheme has become so big that now it gets people with "demands", not to mention peeps after stuff they just want to sell on ebay.

Luckily there is a large charity shop just round the corner from me, where I can take clothes, books, bric a brac and even heavy furniture - they come by prior arrangement and collect.

I really can't be doing with selfish, ungrateful d***heads.

reformedEffortMaker_2

I cant believe what I've just read! What disgusting behaviour!

biscuit81-I would tell the Police for sure, might be interesting to know if any freecyclers have had items go missing after a collection from your guest?

BTW-a friend of mine had a frustrating problem with freecycle where his chest of drawers and table lamp were spotted in a car boot sale. I know once they are given away he didnt have a claim to them, and if he had had the energy he could have sold them himself, but is there anything in the freecycle rules that states items are not to be taken in order to be sold on or to make a profit to be made?

reformedEffortMaker_2

I think this is one of the best requests I've ever seen!!....someone blatantly just asking for money!!

"WANTED: ANY UNWANTED POUND COINS!

Actually, no seriously everyone! I am a struggling artist in London, and I
want to create a piece of art to combat poverty! To this end, I am going to
try to turn £10 notes into a piece of still art! Doesn't anyone have any old
£10 notes they don't want anymore? You know, just those crusty old tenners
you have lying around just taking up space, that you can't be bothered to
shift yourself.....I'll take them off your hands for my 'work of art'!!
"


I cant believe the moderators allowed this to be posted...unless of course it was a joke?!....frustratingly, it lead to a few others jumping on the bandwagon posting requests for money....v annoying :mad:

Savvy_Sue

Not as far as I know - the intention is to keep things out of LANDFILL. Which a car boot achieves.

Plus, you don't know that the person didn't take them, find they weren't quite what they wanted, and have a car boot coming up. I know that some people would prefer they re-freecycled them (and we do see "I got this from FC but it wasn't quite what I wanted" in our area quite a lot) but there may have been a reason other than making money why the person chose to do this.

1jim

There seems to have been a big fall out behind the scenes at Freecycle, our mods have spat out their dummies and moved everyone over to a group called "realcycle" and closed down the freecycle group (the group is the Nottingham one), ps we have been told we can leave if we dont like it..... how nice is that :-(

frugalpam

What a totally ignorant individual! Did you report all this to the Moderators of your group?
There are fortunately a lot of good, honest and appreciative freecyclers out there, but we never know quite who is going to turn up at our door to collect something we've offered - giving out our addresses to total strangers carries its risks. Yes, it would nice to be trusting, but not everyone can be trusted, unfortunately.

Pam

angelavdavis wrote: »

Had a bad experience with freecycle yesterday and decided enough was enough.

I had advertised a long list of stuff for people to take as I have been clearing out the garden in order to prepare for the wedding reception in September (eek!)

Amongst the items I had was a rotary washing line. I had used it up until a year or so ago when we were doing the landscaping in that area of the garden and we put it on the floor between the two sheds.

I decided I would prefer a retractable line anyway, so we got it out (it was grotty, so as I left to drive to Devon to work, Dad washed it down and cleaned the cover and spike).

Anyway, a guy responded to my ad:

"I would like the rotary line as I am sick of clothes on the rads".

So I responded it was available for collection after 6pm (when I knew parents would be home) and he picked it up later that day.

He then sent me a really snotty email:

"Many Thanks, you could have said it was ready for the tip as all the lines are broken, this is not good recycling it is passing on junk"

I was really shocked to hear this and wrote back as follows:

"Sorry to hear the lines were broken but replacement nylon covered line will cost you about £1 in ESK in Hastings and rethreading would take you about half an hour. The actual original line cost in excess of £20 as it is a re-enforced version and the cover an additional £3! I don't think you got a bad deal.

Admittedly, it has been packed up at the side of the shed so I wasn't aware of this, or would have said so.

If you aren't happy with it. Let me know where you live and I will collect it on Thursday and pass it onto someone else who would be grateful for it and you can go back to using the rads."

I have to say I was furious to be honest. Admittedly, I had left my elderly dad to clean up the line and so didn't realise that (I am guessing) the line had perished so badly, but I was really hurt by the tone.

He emailed back to say that he had already taken it to the tip. It transpired he had come back to the house to complain, but my poor deaf dad couldn't work out what he was saying! He just told Dad to tell me not to pass on c*** that I had deliberately made unusable (by cutting the line) in future!

So, I have had enough! I thought people on freecycle understood that items aren't always going to be in pristine condition (else I could have sold it for £10 in the local rag, but at least were in a serviceable condition so a few more years use could be made of them. I wouldn't have been above rethreading the line.

Sorry about the long rant!

Am I being over-sensitive or wrong about this?

If you are still awake(!) I respect individuals perspectives on here and would appreciate your thoughts. Needless to say, everyone else was thrilled with their freebies! I got rid of everything to a new home.

frugalpam

That just beggars belief !! Maybe the group isn't moderated and all requests get through?
The Mod squad in one of my groups vet everything that goes to the group before allowing it to be posted - doesn't matter how long you've been a member either,

Pam

reformedEffortMaker wrote: »

I think this is one of the best requests I've ever seen!!....someone blatantly just asking for money!!

"WANTED: ANY UNWANTED POUND COINS!

Actually, no seriously everyone! I am a struggling artist in London, and I
want to create a piece of art to combat poverty! To this end, I am going to
try to turn £10 notes into a piece of still art! Doesn't anyone have any old
£10 notes they don't want anymore? You know, just those crusty old tenners
you have lying around just taking up space, that you can't be bothered to
shift yourself.....I'll take them off your hands for my 'work of art'!!
"


I cant believe the moderators allowed this to be posted...unless of course it was a joke?!....frustratingly, it lead to a few others jumping on the bandwagon posting requests for money....v annoying :mad:

Ironick

I think one of the problems is that there is no feedback system. I would rather give to someone who has given several items in the past. Although this may lead to a swap shop type arrangement, it is preferable to giving stuff to freeloaders who have no intention of returning the favour. If you knew who you were giving to and if they were "contributors" it may engender a more community feel, ala this forum.

There are a large number of genuine people out there, and I think this system would deter the selfish.

Perhaps a forum rather than a messageboard might be a better medium. Surely this forum is large enough to have sufficient people in a local area to sustain a recycling group?

jordylass

On our group not all posts are moderated. Users are moderated until they post correctly. Then there posts go straight to the group.
We then get the occasional one that goes straight to group that would not have been allowed had it been moderated, these are removed from the group and the poster informed and put back on moderation. The users who have messages sent straight to their email still receive it and often don;t realise the moderators have done something about it.