Freecycle Nusiance

Ken68

Freecycling and e-baying and boot sales and THIS SITE are ideal training ground for savers and entrepreneurs.
Impolite requests and replies are just counter-productive and
as I mentioned before, large items would have disposal costs anyway and moneysavingexperts should at least try to recover collection expenses.
Local small auctions are my thing , and what I can't use I sell. More convenient anyway, as would buying from the recycling centre Have to pay but never dear.

frugalpam

Hiya pulliptears - glad to hear that woman got her come uppance :T

I think a few of the freecycle Mods do read on these threads, and take note of our grumbles about the grabbers and nabbers. Just recently there have been quite a few posts from Mods in our groups reminding people not to post shopping lists etc, and to suggest people wait 24 hrs being making a firm offer to someone, in order to give everyone a a fair chance.

I've still got mixed feelings about posting 'wanted ads' - I like the idea one group has of restricting them to one day a month, and no more than 3 'wants' per person.

Pam

pulliptears wrote: »

I was having a clearout of DD's toys ready for putting our house on the market. I posted 2 offereds for various toys and almost immediately got a reply stating that I was

"not bother posting offereds, I will take lot now. here phone call"

Made little sense anyway!! Unsurprisingly he didnt get a thing from me.

Shortly after that incident I found the freecycle thread on freebies and started to post some of the outrageous requests and amusing offereds along with my views on how disallusioned I was with freecycle and some of its ignorant members. A week or so later the mod from our group joined MSE with the sole purpose of having a go at me for posting about her group! LOL I never realised Freecycle was covered by the official secrets act so there you go.

The amusing thing that came out of it all was one particular "lady" from the group who could see no wrong at all in the group and I was truly evil for posting about it. She threatened that I would get a "Strongly worded PM!" should I ever post any of her messages on here (Perhaps because they were mostly wanteds haha), anyway, last week she posted a wanted for a microwave after her son put a metal plate in it and she recieved 2 rather nasty replies about how it was tough and she should teach her son better!!! She is now complaining about the replies in the chat group!!!

It made my day

angelavdavis

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.

Gingham_Ribbon

There are some freecycle threads on the green board so I'll pass this over there for you. Thanks.

Savvy_Sue

You could email the moderators and say that you found his attitude unpleasant. I would be upset by someone coming back to the house without contacting me first because if I'm not in, I don't want them talking to anyone else!

avfc4life

How ungrateful can you get?

He is getting something for free and has the nerve to complain about it. You put it up on there as you thought someone would be able to make use of it as it is still in a good condition. I dont understand people like him. If he had brought it it might have been different but he got it for free. You said it would have cost him £3/£4 to fix up and they cost about £20 so thats not bad going.

The icing on the cake was coming back to complain about it. How dare he. You were trying to do someone a good turn and he throws it back in your face. Its free and used what does he expect?

People like this are the reason Freecycle wont work aswell as it should.

dolly_day_dream

What a p**t! I love freecycle cos I have gotten rid of lots of things that I just don't need any more and trust me none of it was in a condition to be sold. Plus I have acquired items that others don't need but I do. Strangely enough I received a whirlygig washing line a little while ago. Mine had bent during a storm and I was really gratefull that there was one available to replace it. Did I expect it to be in perfect condition - no I just wanted it to be straight if I am honest. As it happens it had hardly been used but like you say the replacement lines are so cheap what was his problem. I am off today to collect a barbecue which is fantastic as my daughter wants to have one in the next couple of weeks but we rarely use one. I will use the barbecue for her and then re-offer it on to freecycle again. Please don't let this experience put you off because when it works it is anti consumerism at its best.

grayme-m

pulliptears wrote: »

The amusing thing that came out of it all was one particular "lady" from the group who could see no wrong at all in the group and I was truly evil for posting about it. She threatened that I would get a "Strongly worded PM!" should I ever post any of her messages on here (Perhaps because they were mostly wanteds haha), anyway, last week she posted a wanted for a microwave after her son put a metal plate in it and she recieved 2 rather nasty replies about how it was tough and she should teach her son better!!! She is now complaining about the replies in the chat group!!!

It made my day

This suggests she doesn't feel enough in the right to defend herself in public?

What does make me chuckle is the reasons people give, so maybe need shouldn't come into it, but then posting how stupid or wealthy you are isn't going to help the person offering decide to offer to you is it?

lightisfading

Don't let one person get you down Email the mods and they should have a word with him, or at least make note of it in case of future complaints. Plus put a 'taken' message ... 'unfortunatly it then got taken to the tip by someone to bone-idle to thread some line onto it'.

I used to run a group myself and still got ungrateful b******s whinging - ie about an item i'd said in the original message was missing such and such and they still complained! - or the people who after picking something up from my partner wandered away taking the p*** out of his (Canadian) accent . (trust me they got a stern talking to ) . On the other hand I've met some wonderful people through freecycle, and the vast majority have been polite. I've had a personal thank you email from a 6year old who got some star wars toys I gave away, and recently had a heater dropped off at my house by someone with a broken wrist! Not everyone's bad

Fozz

Have only just strarted using Freecycle and so far have had good experiences. Yesterday I got rid of a bunk bed, the receiver turned up on time, and sent me an e-mail saying thanks and his daughter really likes the bed.
The person you decribed is unbelievable, I can understand how you feel, but hopefully people like this don't turn up too often. However I was my local charity furniture shop the other day, and a woman was asking them to knock a bit off the price of something as it wasn't in pristine condition!
I think you have to console yourself by thinking how much better you are than them, they can't be very popular with that attitude to life!!