What do you think of these Freecycle Wanted Posts?

Buzzbox

There will always be one person who would take advantage of the situation. Luckily my local Freecycle is more full of offer ads than wanted ones. Freecycle is a great way to recycle things, I must admit, feels better to give something away than to throw it in the rubbish.... just a pitty that we get a few greedy people online to ruin it for the rest!

Ice_2

HugoSP wrote: »

Offer one thing at a time if you want, until you get a feel for how freecycle works.

I would do the following.

Ask for a contact (landline) number in your ad for anyone who replies. This way you have someone at the other end of the phone to call if a pickup doesn't occur.
Make it clear that these items are not to be resold, unless you don't mind finding them on e bay or the local paper.
Make it clear that you will 'draw names out of a hat' as to who gets them. That way you won't feel pressured to giving it to the first to respond.
When contacting the person who is to have the item make sure you agree a collection date and advise them that you will have to re offer it if they don't pickup or contact you.

Recently when we bought a house that the seller left his furniture in we did a scattergun approach. We listed everything. In the end one person took most of the furniture and we know she kept most of it and re offered some bits she couldn't use after all.

thankyou so much for your advice...the table and 4 chair's I have might be going to my next door neighbour's daughter...so that's something but the wall unit/drinks cabinet I may ask my local network shop if they want it as they sell things on to people who are hard up for the price of a tenner...so that's an option as I don't think if I put it on freecycle it'll go...it's 60's retro...:D

eyelinerprincess

Today my local one has had wants for a coupe car, Xbox games after a break in (though the Xbox remains untouched), a DVD player and a freeview box, a freezer and gamecube games...

drc

I don't use Freecycle all that much but I put a lot of freebies on Gumtree for collection. Some of it has been nice stuff, good quality furniture that isn't suitable for us anymore with our rugrat.

Anyway, I would say that 80% of the replies are really really rude, no please or thank you, things like "I want it", "I need it", I even had someone ask if I could post to them the large wooden cd rack that I was giving away and he said "I will pay you for postage" as though he was doing me a favour. I put an old keyboard on recently and someone sent me an email that just said "do you have a good monitor to go with this?", no "hello" or "please":rolleyes:. I normally don't reply to rude people but it is disheartening how bad manners are in this country nowadays. I only give away to polite people who will collect when I specify. I've had quite a few people who have not turned up or turned up 2 hours after the time we have arranged with no contact in which case I don't answer the door as that is just plain rude.

There have been some lovely people too though, its just a case of waiting until a nice one comes along....

HugoSP

Andy_Davies wrote: »

- if someone does give them the item (not matter how unreasonable you or I may thing the request is) then ultimately it was a reasonable request!

Occasionally, someone demonstrates sheer brilliance in putting a point accross in a discussion.

Today I have seen such an event!

Well done - I really mean it. :T :T :T

Wkdwill

Someone on my local freecycle got sick of the mods so decided to make 2 other groups, one you can sell on and another just like freecycle.
Its good to have a group you can sell on as I myself have sold a few things on it to raise money for a car, but I was a bit cheesed off last week when I sold an old laptop and gave the person a laptop bag with it just to be nice and within a week this person had sold the laptop on and then sold the laptop bag, surely if they wanted to sell it on they could have done so another way, knowing full well that I use that group and know there username.

And now on freecycle this persons other half has posted a wanted add for a laptop as theres had been stolen from there car..........huh..........you mean the one you sold last week????????????

The sheer cheek of it.

Ice_2

Wkdwill wrote: »

Someone on my local freecycle got sick of the mods so decided to make 2 other groups, one you can sell on and another just like freecycle.
Its good to have a group you can sell on as I myself have sold a few things on it to raise money for a car, but I was a bit cheesed off last week when I sold an old laptop and gave the person a laptop bag with it just to be nice and within a week this person had sold the laptop on and then sold the laptop bag, surely if they wanted to sell it on they could have done so another way, knowing full well that I use that group and know there username.

And now on freecycle this persons other half has posted a wanted add for a laptop as theres had been stolen from there car..........huh..........you mean the one you sold last week????????????

The sheer cheek of it.

unfortunately there will always be that person who is lieing and trying to make a buck...on ours everything is free...I haven't posted yet though so I'll let you know
how it goes...although I have offered my neighbour the table and 4 chairs and they seem to be taking there time deciding whether they want it or not...i'll give them afew more days then go round and ask if the answer is no then that can go free cycle as well...:DI need to de-clutter my late mum's thing's ...:D

nuttywoman

Someone on my local freecycle has asked for a Satnav! last week there was a posting for a shed and a caravan! it beggars belief.

Taadaa

Someone on our group said they 'need' a flatscreen tv :rotfl:

Steel_2

I'm afraid I'm one of the guilty parties asking for a laptop after mine blew up.

As far as I can see, laptops become obsolete and end up down the tip just like all the other types of computer equipment. My local tip has an absolute mountain of computer stuff. If I needed anything replacement to do with computers, I'd try freecycle first, then ebay, then as the absolute last resort I'd buy one.

I'm all for asking for something on freecycle first. After all, just because something is perceived to be too expensive an item to ask for doesn't mean it is. To go out and buy something new just because you think the item is too good to ask for isn't environmentally friendly - I'd rather have something older yet functional than waste raw materials and resources and buy it. And as others have demonstrated in this thread, some people are going through life changes and just want the stuff away from them asap. When hubby and I got together we had doubles of everything and what we couldn't give away to friends and family went on freecycle.

A four or five year old computer or laptop is generally considered to be obsolete and not worth anything and people do have them in their cupboards or attics. A caravan, while it sounds expensive may not be if it's been stuck in a corner of field, needs a lot of renovation work and the owner just wants the thing gone because it's an eyesore.

But I do agree that there are a lot of bogus stories and far too many traders looking for stuff to sell on.