Freecycle?

[secular_mom]

:confused: Has anyone else had these issues?

I posted some items recently, and I had a few people repeatedly email me, practically demanding the items I was offering. They 'told' me to let them know if it was still available. It wasn't, so I didn't respond. It was really icky.

Lots of people just send a phone number and say they want it, and they want me to call them about it.

Several reply to the posts when I say that the item is PPU. I guess I should

just type out "pending pick up" from now on. Or maybe I'll just donate items to the thrift store instead. Seems like less drama.

 

One person even started following me on twitter!!!!!!!!! I've never met this person, and I don't know anyone who knows them. That was really rather creepy, IMO. So, I changed my twitter settings so that only approved people can 'follow' me. I also blocked this person.

 

I just don't get it. What is WRONG with people? Or is it me? When you offer items on freecycle, and get tons of responses, do you reply to each individual email to let them know the item is taken or PPU? Just wondering. And I really needed to vent. :tongue_smilie:

[peachskittles]

I used to use freecycle a lot and yes, there are some creepy, pushy people out there. Normally I just ignore the messages that are too demanding, pushy, the "I deserve this because I have 12 kids to raise" people. And also I ignore the phone number people as well. I make it clear in my message that I'm not going to call anyone though. I've met some really nice people through freecycle though. I usually just responded to one e-mail at a time, offering it to the first message that didn't outright demand I give it to them or beg me for the item for one reason or another. They had like a day or so to respond back if they really wanted the item and I moved on down the list. Once the item was ppu or gone, I'd post another message stating such and ignore the new messages that came up. Eventually they do go away when they realize that the item is truly gone.

[melissel]

I KNOW!!! It seems to go in cycles for me. Sometimes I'll offer things and have just the worst experiences and be totally frustrated and disenchanted with the whole process. Then I'll have phases, like today, where everything goes like clockwork, everyone is polite, people actually show up to get their items, and it's done.

 

My biggest pet peeve is when I get responses that consist solely of "Can pick up 5 p.m.," followed closely by the "I can use this. Call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx to arrange a pickup time" responses. A few weeks ago I offered a small bookshelf. Two people responded, and I offered it to the first responder, who said she could come the next day, Sunday, after noon. I e-mailed her back to let her know she could have it. She never responded, but I've had that happen before, whatever. I stayed home all day Sunday because it was raining and I couldn't leave it out, and she never showed up. The next weekend I re-offered it. I got an e-mail from her saying, "I already responded to this. I said I could pick it up this weekend. Call me to arrange a pickup time." She was the only taker and DH wanted the thing gone from our hallway, so I figured I'd give her the benefit of the doubt. It was Yahoo mail after all, so I thought maybe she never got my e-mail and was wondering why I'd re-offered, so I gritted my teeth and called her. She proceeded to tell me that she HAD gotten my e-mail, but just forgot to come pick it up Sunday. HUH??? Fine, whatever, she'll come instead this Sunday. I put the shelf out for her, came home that night, and the thing was still sitting on the porch. She e-mailed me the next day to say she'd decided to stay home with her family instead, and I should "feel free to offer it to someone else." I wanted to respond and say that I actually felt free instead to go ahead and sign her cell phone number up for every marketing call list I could find, but I just let it go.

 

I almost gave up on Freecycle after that one! But I just can't bring myself to throw perfectly good stuff out, and I've heard that our local Craigslist can be just as annoying to deal with *sigh*

 

Oh, and I do try to respond to everyone who e-mails me until my Taken post is posted. I try to get that up quickly and say thanks for the responses, this item is now pending pickup with backups. Then I stop responding individually. I don't always get to everyone, but I do try. I don't think most people do, though, based on experience as a requestor (requester? :confused:) of items. I don't take it personally if I don't hear back from someone.

[ElizabethB]

Personally, when we want to give things away, we just post a sign on the nearest big road near us that says "free stuff" if lots of stuff or "free crib" if giving away one specific thing, for example, a crib. We've never had a problem getting rid of stuff this way, we generally do this with a pile of stuff before each move. (Sign with arrows on big road, paper taped to item/items stating "Free.") For entertainment, we'll hide out of view and peek out to watch who comes and what goes first.

[dalynnrmc]

LOL We do stuff on the curb here, too. Doesn't even need a sign.

 

The way the city does its trash pickup, though, there is a "bulk pickup" day every quarter, and it rotates through the whole city. So at any given point, some part of the city or another is having their "bulk pickup" week. The city says to place your items next to the trash can, at least 2 feet from the trash, in neat piles.

 

So people just put stuff outside any ole time, knowing that within the next month or two or three, that there will be a bulk pickup day. In the meantime, it's like the whole city has an ongoing, rotating, yard-free. :D LOL It's hilarious.

 

 

And it's crazy what the rich people consider trash!! :p

[melissel]

LOL We do stuff on the curb here, too. Doesn't even need a sign.

 

The way the city does its trash pickup, though, there is a "bulk pickup" day every quarter, and it rotates through the whole city. So at any given point, some part of the city or another is having their "bulk pickup" week. The city says to place your items next to the trash can, at least 2 feet from the trash, in neat piles.

 

So people just put stuff outside any ole time, knowing that within the next month or two or three, that there will be a bulk pickup day. In the meantime, it's like the whole city has an ongoing, rotating, yard-free. :D LOL It's hilarious.

 

 

And it's crazy what the rich people consider trash!! :p

 

LUCKY!!! :lol: DH will not allow me to trash pick, no matter how good the item is. Plus, our town is very strict about trash. You have to call for pickup of anything that won't fit in the regular can, and you can only put it out the night before. So lame... :D

[dalynnrmc]

LOL We find it hilarious. We've lived here for two years now (and are moving out - I'm fixing to go MIA like, probably tomorrow!) and it's been a hoot. We find it quite amusing that on the local freecycle and craigslist ads, people will actually post when it's bulk pickup week coming up for the rich district in town. (It's a full neighborhood, named and all, and it's hilarious how many "informer" posts there are about it.)

 

Anyway. Sorry to thread-jack. ;)

[SherryTX]

I haven't had anything to put on FreeCycle just yet - usually I drop off clothes at Goodwill, or another place that takes used clothes. Here where I live we have a LOT of charities that drive around and leave bags for you to put your stuff in you want to give away and they come pick it up - very handy.

 

However, I have posted, oh maybe 3 times in the last year or so asking if someone has a bread maker they are not using (I know, that is kind of a big ticket item - but I have seen them on there, and by the time I respond they are taken), and...I forget what else the other 2 things were, they were not big, but have had no luck.

 

I am going through a bunch of stuff, and after I get approval from the husband (since some of this stuff is HIS old stuff) I hope to post a few things later this spring. I figured there must be some hassles, because I have seen a lot postings about these types of issues.

[secular_mom]

Thanks folks. Nice to know I'm not crazy/neurotic for being bothered by this behavior. I've had one really whacky week. I'd love to do the curb side thing, but the home we are renting is in a neighborhood that has an home owners association, and they probably wouldn't appreciate junk sitting on the curb. Plus it rains a LOT here. Two people are supposed to show up today to pick up some items from me, but the weather is terrible so I understand if they don't show today.

I ended up replying to the two worst offenders, to let them know that PPU means the item is pending pick up, and that I am a very busy person who doesn't have time to respond to every single email I get in response to my offers. I figure that just maybe that will 'educate' those two people about the process, help them realize that there's a human being on the receiving end of their email, who also has a life, and that they are not the center of the universe. Hey, I said 'maybe'. ;)

They are definitely on my blacklist though. People that behave that way via email scare me, I mean, what are they like IRL? I consider the twitter person to be stalker-ish, and have absolutely NO desire for her to ever know where I live. LOL.

[Dobela]

I have a serious love hate relationship with Freecycle. There are some terrible people on the list. I never give to someone that just says "I want it tell me how to come to your house." If that is all I get, then I take the item to goodwill or some other thrift place.

 

If someone is very rude or annoying I do take time to email the moderators. Ours really tries to keep people in line soto speak. If she gets too many complaints about someone not picking up, or rude emails, she will ban them from the list.

[secular_mom]

Oh, that is a great idea! I never even thought of mentioning this to a moderator. But then, my local list was recently asking for more volunteers to do the moderating. They really should no about the very rude, persisitent, and creepy stalky people though. Thanks for the idea.

[jujsky]

For the most part, I like freecycle, but I have had some bad experiences. I can relate to a lot of what you said in your post. I also had people demand to know whether or not it was still available, and people demand that I call them. I had several cases where people would say they were picking something up and never showed up, they'd reschedule, not show up, reschedule again and not show up. I also had cases of people showing up way early to pick something up "because they were in the neighborhood." THAT was a huge problem for me. As a SAHM, I don't allow people I don't know into my home unless DH is home. I'm just not comfortable with it. In fact, over 99% of the stuff I got rid of through freecycle, I left on the porch and gave people a "pick up after...." time.

 

I finally started getting a little bit nasty, and became extremely straight-forward in my posts. I said all items would be left on my porch. I told people to please only respond if they wanted the item -- that I would not answer 10,000 e-mails asking if the item was still available, and all e-mails asking me that question would be ignored. I specified that people were NOT allowed to come by early, and I also said that no-shows would not be given a second chance (except in cases of inclement weather). I know that all sounds really harsh, but it weeded out a lot of the pain-in-the-butt people!

[bella_gitana]

I have a serious love hate relationship with Freecycle. There are some terrible people on the list. I never give to someone that just says "I want it tell me how to come to your house." If that is all I get, then I take the item to goodwill or some other thrift place.

 

I had one girl email me with the "I want it, how do I get to your house" line, so I deleted her email, which is what I do with those. Then she emailed me about an hour later with "I haven't gotten directions."

 

My other pet-peeve is the amazingly fast replies. I mean, some people must be sitting in front of their computers all day requesting things as they are posted. I've had replies within 5 minutes of posting my offers. I'm sure some of my things have ended up at the flea market.

 

Luckily, I have met some really nice people. One lady, when she saw that I homeschool, told me to contact her if I needed any resources. She was a retired teacher. She gave me her number and address, and even gave me a thank you card.

[Ohdanigirl]

..at any given point, some part of the city or another is having their "bulk pickup" week. The city says to place your items next to the trash can, at least 2 feet from the trash, in neat piles.

 

So people just put stuff outside any ole time, knowing that within the next month or two or three, that there will be a bulk pickup day. In the meantime, it's like the whole city has an ongoing, rotating, yard-free. :D LOL It's hilarious.

 

And it's crazy what the rich people consider trash!! :p

 

Do you have an extra room I can stay in?:D Just until the next bulk pick-up. LOL.

 

Danielle

[melissel]

My other pet-peeve is the amazingly fast replies. I mean, some people must be sitting in front of their computers all day requesting things as they are posted. I've had replies within 5 minutes of posting my offers. I'm sure some of my things have ended up at the flea market.

 

Around here, you will always get amazingly fast replies. In fact, if I don't have several within five minutes of posting an item, I'm surprised. There are several thousand people on our county's group. If you don't reply quickly to an offer, you don't get it.

[PiCO]

I just had a good FreeCycle experience. My kids are switching rooms this week, so I had an old wooden bunk bed and some pre-fab shelves and drawers to get rid of.

 

After reading everyone's horror stories here, I decided to pick from the e-mails the people that sounded most sane. I eliminated people with horrible grammar issues, people who gave me a sob story, and people who wanted a picture.

 

Both people I picked came exactly when they said they would, both people were very polite and appreciative. One woman turned out to be a former customer of mine, and the woman who got the bunk beds was a single mom with 2 daughters. I felt good giving things away instead of taking them to the dump!

[Shenan]

I think your results may also depend on how well the moderator moderates the site.

 

When we lived in VA I had nothing but wonderful experiences with Freecycle. The moderator was very good about making frequent post about such behaviors and was even known to ban people who were reported for breaking those rules.

 

Where we live now, the Freecyclers seem to think they deserve every thing you give away. I even had a nasty responder tell me that I shouldn't have given my things away to another poster because she WAS the first to respond to my offer and was entitled to what I offered. (..hello...it's my stuff and I can give it away to anyone I wish to give it to!) I reported this post to the moderator and never heard anything back. The Freecycle site here also seems to be the place to post all of the local news, events, and gossip of the day. I reported this to Freecycle. They replied they would check into it and it cleared up for a short while but then went back to its original status. SOOO I have given up on Freecycle here and try desperately to find homes for our stuff through church. When unsuccessful, I just break down and take it to Goodwill.

[klmama]

Just a couple of ideas for you, based on what I've learned over the years:

 

Use a different email account (free at yahoo.com) and don't use your real name as a screen name for it. That way, they'll have no idea who you are IRL. Send yourself an email at your regular address to be sure it shows up the way you want before you post your item on Freecycle - you will have to change the settings to make a different name appear than the one you put on the account.

 

If you don't have time to wade through the emails to pick a sane person to receive your stuff, just put the things by the road for a few days with a big FREE sign before you advertise them on Freecycle. Our local moderators say sometimes people get hassled by strangers at the door when the advertised items are gone already. Also, I know someone whose porch furniture was taken by someone when they left other items on the porch to be picked up by anyone via Freecycle. It makes me leary, KWIM?