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Freecycle. Hmmm.

Whaleblue

Whaleblue

Southbound
Tempted to call this a rant thread, but it’s not that important.

Placed a freecycle ad for a freezer today. Within minutes had someone interested. A couple of emails exchanged, our address given out, and a 4-6pm pickup window agreed.

Got the freezer out of the garage, onto the drive, gave it a clean and waited to help load into their car/van.

They have not shown up.

They have not emailed an explanation.

It’s going to the tip tomorrow, which saddens me in this world of global warming.

Humph.
 
Unfortunately you get a bit of this on FC. People value items at what they have paid for it. The other thing that you get is sh*trags bottom feeding for stuff to resell. My approach to this is to offer also something different, like a bag of children's clothes, mixed ages 2-5, boys and girls. If they also want a car wheel and tyre, they can FO.
 
It was ever thus; about decade- no, rather more - I had a perfectly serviceable car, EOL to me, needed-rid but likely good for another 50K with minimal care, and advertised it as such on national car forum: free Saab ng900turbo, 3month MOT, just come collect.

You would.not.believe the number of timewasters and tyre kickers that made contact asking for more. Like free delivery, photos of the tyres, service history, a weekends test drive, a tank of fuel, blah blah, and worse. Any one could have rolled up, taken it off my hands, signed the v5 and weighed it in for free money. But no. I got scum for a month.

(That story did have a happy end tho. - about 6wks later, a youngish lad sent me a nice email, is it still available? - GF pregnant, I think we'll need a large safeish hatchback until we can afford better, can we sort something out? Yes, we did; I drove it to his place, 150 miles away; he & his lovely extended family shared lunch in the garden and gave me the train ticket home; he got 18months+ use out of it. More than happy with that.)
 
JensenHealey said:
Facebook marketplace works well, locally. And you can do free stuff on it too.
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Yes, but experienced same symptoms as @Whaleblue . Several times. I did try writing "Item will be recycled if person doesn't show up on time" into the ad, but it looks like it deters people from answering.

But it can be a source of joy too. Last week I gave away a brand new Ikea bed which I finally had no use for, it turned out to be a young single mother arriving bang on time with her 3-yearish old son. Things had not turned easy for her, but she looked very responsible, trying to make the best out of her situation. Oh and later she wrote me how happy her son was in his new bed. :)
 
In Reading our experience of Freecycle is generally okay. Yes, a few timewasters who email first to "hold it for them" and then don't bother getting back in touch whilst I keep others waiting, but generally okay.

Don't get thank-you notes though.
 
I use it a bit to offload stuff too good to bin or scrap (but not good enough/suitable to eBay). Mostly it is ok. Recently I put 3 things on, had a reply on each (2 for one item), sent offers out asking for an approx time/date for collection. Never heard back. Two of the replies were from the same person, and said 'do you still have the item?', which makes me suspicious that they were copy/paste replying to many adverts.

Some people are a pain, not turning up or turning up late. Occasionally, some are very nice and very appreciative. But only once have I had a follow up message saying 'thank you'.

Sometimes I read the ads for entertainment. Things like 'TV wanted, must be 55" minimum full HD and have 3 HDMI's, and able to deliver as I don't have a car' make me chuckle a bit.

But I'm not on Facebook, so I will have to just keep using it rather than than add to landfill.
 
andrewd said:
I have had good experience using freecycle to offload stuff that would otherwise go into landfill.
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no good experiences - tyre kickers and time wasters. Really good TV stand thing - glass and aluminium, gonna go in landfill
 
I've been clearing my parents' house this year and decided early on if i was going to give it away it was going to a charity shop, anything for sale would be a minimum £5 for collection on the basis that even at only a fiver, if someone's prepared to pay for it they actually want it and will turn up. Generally it's worked really well, not too many timewasters and sometimes I have bent my own rules by delivering or posting items when it suited me. As ever, you have to accept that some people aren't equipped with basic life skills.
 
Freecycle can be really frustrating.

I request a mobile number I can txt them on and to state in the response when they can collect. Then I wait 24 hours before replying and respond first to the most promising email. Any one line 'yes m8' emails get deleted immediately.

I have homed quite a lot of stuff that way so it's worth the hassle (I think!)
 
I use Freecycle as a way of getting free transportation of surplus stuff out of our house and drive. Most of the stuff moves 5 miles to a large estate.
 
We've given away quite a few things via freecycle over several years and have definitely had our fair share of timewasters and one or two shady characters! I think it's still worth the effort to try and extend the life of stuff and to help people out.
It's also been surprising which things have been most popular and interesting to hear what people use random stuff for e.g. a leftover length chimney liner for a smokery and leftover kitchen worktop that went into someone's camper van renovation.

Last time I looked on freecycle (a few months back) there was some chancer with one wanted advert for old valves and hifi equipment and another for unwanted old watches. 'I just like fixing stuff', lol.
 
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