Who are these insane, cheeky people on Freecycle, FB Marketplace, Gumtree etc.?

[BurgerChops]

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been sorting out my house and posting free stuff online.

Most people who've come to collect stuff are very nice and completely normal but there are some absolute loons. Who are these people? Why are they so dumb and/or downright bizarre? How do they exist in the wild with things like jobs, families etc.?

So far I've had:

• I posted an advert for a bath of women's size 8 clothes with pictures of each item. Woman messages me to ask whether I have one of the items in a size 12 like I'm a suburban outlet of H and fucking M.
• A couple of people have arranged to collect things and been very active in real-time updates of their arrival time. And then never show up. Just plain weird.
• I had one guy who arranged to collect a chair but never showed up. Then he messaged me later than day thanking me for the furniture. I'm assuming he was messaging multiple people and collecting multiple items. But I quite like the idea that he showed up to a random house saying "I'm here to collect the chair" and the homeowners were too polite to send him away so just handed over a couple of their dining chairs.
• I advertised loads of massive cardboard moving boxes. A couple showed up on bikes to collect them. They looked perplexed for a while and had a bit of a row (they were Chinese, I couldn't understand what they were arguing about), then wobbled off home with them balanced on these bloody bikes. I do wonder if they actually made without being knocked over or arrested.
• A woman who walked around to my house with her dog to collect some stuff. Her dog had a massive diarrhea attack on my doorstep. Bless her, she was really apologetic and brought a box of chocolates around the next day to say sorry. But that's half hour of hosing and bleaching and Jeyes fluiding my front garden that I'll never get back.

That's disappointing. I hate it when clothes from Vinted/Ebay have a greasy cooking smell to them - you know the way everyone's houses smelt in the 1980s when everyone had chip pans
It's very hard to leave feedback on this without sounding like an absolute twat.

I won't bid on clothes that've been photographed in kitchens because it just makes me think that they'll smell all fatty and stale

My main irritation is when you put your postcode in the body of the post and people ask "where is that?"

You're on the internet, open frigging google maps and pop the postcode in.

Yes and for £5 I couldn’t deal with the effort of disputing. I messaged her politely and said perhaps she could note she smoked in the description and she sent back a message saying she didn’t smoke but no apology or anything. I thought I was going mad, kept asking people to sniff it and all agreed it stank of smoke. Most likely a partner did or something but still infuriating!!

There’s someone on our Freecycle who seems to say yes to lots of things quickly, then decide whether or not he wants them (I suspect to sell on). I’ve blocked him.

We had a bit of a clear out and advertised a bunch of free stuff in a local Facebook group - a cheap dinner set, some glasses, a lamp, a chair, basic household stuff. Had lots of messages and told everyone we'd leave their item in the garden and we were happy for them to take it. I labelled each item with the person's name and then later in the day started getting a bunch of annoyed messages. People had turned up and there was nothing in the garden.

Turns out the woman who came first decided to take everyone else's stuff too. I messaged her to ask and she wasn't even apologetic!

I ended up having a messenger row with a woman who was convinced she could fit the world’s biggest garden set I was getting rid of in her dad’s car. She threatened to report me to Facebook when I said it would never fit and she needs a van.

The point is that they were arguing in a different language so she didn't understand what they were saying. Perhaps if you read it again you might understand.

There's a uniform selling/donating Facebook page for my son's school. People sometimes post things like "need full uniform, blazer, shirt, PE kit, shoes, got to be good condition, has to be free, need it for tomorrow"! It's unreal.

I gave away a washing machine once.
They turned up to collect it in a Fiat Panda...
Then asked if I could deliver it as they couldn't fit it in the car.I refused. They returned a little later with a little truck thing with 2 wheels, slid it under, leaned it back and pulled it away.

More often than not people ask me where I am. This is despite my location in the listing, and I always put it in the description too with the first half of the postcode.

Yes! What's up with that?!
I always include in my post "Collection only from <<my area of town>>, Postcode XY12 3, near <<well known landmark>>" and I still get "where are you?" and "will you deliver?"

We have Wanted Wednesdays and there are some mindboggling requests. Last week someone asked for a campervan or a caravan! I hope it was a joke, but past experience suggests otherwise. There was a recent sob story about a child's broken television, and when a couple of people offered, he refused because the screen wasn't big enough - he wanted over 40".

Our group has the rule that it is entirely up to the giver who they offer it to, and I never offer it to people who just comment 'me plz'. I had someone get very cross because the listing I'd put on over a month before was no longer available (and was marked as such). I'm going to need to sell some things soon and am a bit nervous...

It'll be the 'don't ask don't get' ethos brigade, taken to the n-th degree.

For anyone out there who engages their brain before considering asking for something outlandish - I appreciate you!

When freecycle first starter, I tiled a floor and had 2sqm of tiles left over. Put them on the local free group with a photo of the work being done to show how they looked, as "perfect for a wc our small hallway" . Was inundated so offered them to the first woman. She asked if I had any adhesive or grout? I said no. She blocked me. Passed on to the second and he asked if he could have my grout spreader and borrow the tile cutter. I said no. The third person asked if my husband could lay them for her as she had 2 kids and was 12 weeks pregnant. I told her that it was ME that had laid the tiles and if she looked at the second picture she would see I was 26 weeks pregnant and had 3 kids age 7-13 passing me the tiles and adhesive and cutting tiles for me etc. Fourth time lucky and somebody came to get them and didn't ask for half the contents of my house for free!

A few years ago we were doing a big garden project and I asked my daughter to advertise a trampoline and a hammock for free on the local fb free paste. A big huge bloke turned up for it with a trailer. Him and his wife were maybe 50 . They sat outside my house in the car chain smoking for 25 minutes to the point you couldn't even see them in the car. He was messaging my daughter saying he would be there soon (despite them being parked outside). He suddenly jumped out the car, ran up the path and knocked on the door. He was acting really weird with my 23 year old. Smiling really creepy at her and looking at her without blinking. Took him to the back garden and he basically lifted this 8 ft trampoline and carried it on his back like a turtle. Threw it over the fence and then rolled it to the car. Did the same with the hammock. Then dropped to the floor and did ten press ups ! We just waved and shut the door. He started messaging my daughter right away. After 40 minutes of telling him she wasn't interested and to back off she had to block him. Ten minutes after that the wife was on the site telling everybody that they need to be careful as my daughter was a temptress trying to steal men. We were like 😲😲😲. What she would want with a creepy 6ft4 very overweight 50yo with yellow and brown teeth I don't know.

She was explaining that she couldn't understand them because they were speaking a different language. Why are you looking for reasons to be offended?

'I couldn't understand what they were saying as they were speaking a different language'.

Thing is, I don't mind if people ask for delivery as long as they're polite about it and offer to pay for it. I do believe in 'don't ask, don't get' but you've got to ask in the right way!

The trampoline man was certainly very weird.

Oh my god, that story with your daughter and the bloke is absolutely awful. I'm so sorry that happened.

But the bit about the press-ups did make me laugh. Like, why?!

YY to “can you deliver?? You are getting a real leather three piece and you want me to pay for a van? Get away with you!

People who start asking you how to look after the item you're listing is also very odd. I recently sold a printer on marketplace, and the woman who bought it from me seemed nice but a bit dim. Before picking it up she was asking me how much cartridges were and where you could buy them from. I responded politely as I wanted rid, but I did just think "can't you look this up yourself online?!".

heartbroken22 · Today 13:12

So what race was everybody else since you mentioned they were Chinese?

There's always one!🙄

I live in SW London. The traffic crossing east-west is notoriously bad at the weekends. I was giving something away and a bloke was determined he'd have time to make five collections east-west in an afternoon, mine being his last. I told him he couldn't, and he kept doing that live update thing that the perennially deluded do on these occasions. Can't say it bothered me when he messaged to say he was still at pick three and wasn't going to make it as I had booked a day out confident in this happening!

I'm always amused by the selling ones along the lines of "Nintendo DSi not worked for years, maybe good for parts. £120"
Um... you can get working ones for half that on the same site!
Or where they put something along the lines of "Non-descript vacuum cleaner. Doesn't suck up properly, but I'm sure someone can fix it. £60".
If I need a working hoover I'm not going to pay for one that "might" be fixable.

I did notice that there's a certain subset on the free items fb page who spent most of 2020 and 2021 "having to isolate" or needing items desperately for isolating single mother friends with children who have SEN, who then were going to host families from Ukraine who needed lots of high value items (or who were asking for a friend/family member who was)... the latest one is they're en masse becoming foster carers/about to adopt and needing high value baby items. I would be suspicious it's the same person except they once got in an argument with each other about who was more needy. 🤣

Conversely, I recently listed a leather sofa that was (genuinely) in really good condition 'in the flesh'. I could NOT get a photo of it that didn't make it look as if it needed condemning. 😂If anyone had taken notice of the 'this looks shit, but it isn't honestly!' note in the listing, I have no doubt they'd have bitten my hand off for it. Heinous waste to chuck it on the tip, but there it went.

For future reference , there are lots of charities who will take good condition furniture. We have a BHF furniture shop locally who sell things like that, or a homeless charity who collect furniture for people/families who have been been given a home but can't furnish it. They collect from you so no need to bin perfectly good stuff.

I was giving a small, low value item (under £5) for free.
Someone wanted to collect at 10am the next day. Didn't turn up. I messaged at 11, she said she didn't come as she "doesn't have a car". I guess she knew that the day before when she suggested pickup.
Asked me to deliver, which was about 30 mins each way. I said no as the item was free so nothing in it for me. To be fair she offered to pay petrol, but I declined.
I offered to post it and postage would be £3.10. She said no as she could just buy one for not much more. Why not just do that then?!

It was relevant to the story, so that she could explain why she couldn't understand them!

What a ridiculous comment