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.

I was selling a dress and a lovely woman emailed me to say she was interested and did I think it would suit her mum 😁

I don't bother anymore as people never turn up .

We did buy a small TV once for ds to play his wii on . Dp took ds with him to collect it and the nice man selling gave it ds for free

I was moving house and put a really nice, big, modern electric fireplace suite on freecycle as I needed it out of the way quickly, it was lovely and I thought it would be such a nice thing for it to brighten up someone else's living room who couldn't normally afford it. It would have been about £500 new and I genuinely thought I was giving it to someone who would love it, she seemed so chuffed and grateful.

Cheeky bint had it on FB marketplace about a week later for £200, unlucky for her I saw it and commented on all the adverts.

It's tedious, getting rid of free and other stuff.
I sell on gumtree Shpock and ebay and there are tossers on all of them. Recently sold something on ebay collection only, clearly stated from where. Buyer told me id have to send it as he thought it was 'area' near him, not 290 miles away, which was somehow my fault. He obviously couldn't understand postcodes. I declined.
Have been ripped off twice, buyers get lots more support than sellers on these sites.
And don't get me started on manners. And cfs. So many of these around.

I have just remembered that years and years ago my mum put an advent in the local paper to sell her old sofa. A family came to look at it. It was a proper family outing.
My mum opened her front door and a huge amount of children ran in. They were everywhere. One asked my dad for a biscuit and one ran upstairs with his shoes on and got on the bed.
the heavily pregnant mum sat on the sofa breastfeeding her baby happily unaware of the chaos.
My dad helped carry the sofa out to their van with loads of children sat on it and hanging off the arms.

They got rid of the free cycle closest to us on Facebook because of the cheekyfuckery like this with people making demand for delivery etc.

I recently bought a lovely table on Marketplace. When I first messaged, the seller was a bit funny with me because she'd had 9 - NINE! - people in the previous week say they were coming to get the table and then not show up and blank her. I had to persuade her that I was really serious about buying it!

What's wrong with saying Chinese? Is it an insult?

There is a woman on our local fb page that seems to say yes to anything that's listed for free. I'm bemused as to whether she actually wants or needs everything and a lot is not the type of stuff I imagine someone would sell on. The annoying thing is that I think she must have a freebie-radar and comments straight away that she wants the item.
Then later she pms to say actually she doesn't want it...but other people probably assume its gone as she's ways first to comment!🙄

The absolute cheekiest one I remember is when I was selling a wardrobe, collection only. A woman messaged me saying she really wanted it but didn't have any money, so could she have it for free, and as a favour to her, could I go halves on a removal van to deliver it to her.

I sold an item on eBay which was worth about £40. I sent it to the buyer via tracked delivery and could see it had been delivered. However, got a message from the buyer to say it hadn't arrived, so I sent her the tracking number again and a link to the Royal Mail site so she could see for herself. She still maintained it never arrived and so I worked with her, back and forth to see if maybe it had accidentally gone to a neighbour's or left in a secure space outside. She just kept saying 'I want my money back' and I said 'I have proof it was delivered, I'm sorry but no'. Told her to open a dispute with eBay but nope she just wanted me to put the cash into her account. Nope, not a chance!

Few days later she says she's found the parcel. It seems the postal worker had left it under a plant pot but it had gotten wet and was ruined - cue more demands for a refund. Nope! I could NOT get her to see that I'd done everything right and if she wanted a refund she had to take it up with eBay or the Post Office. I then got a message that she was apparently disabled. Autistic and dyslexic and didn't know how the internet worked so wouldn't be able to contact the post office.

In the end, I applied to the post office (on her behalf) for compensation but they declined to pay out. As a 'gesture of goodwill', they sent me 10 x 1st class stamps so I popped them in the post to the woman along with a little note to say that I'm sorry it didn't work out and she was welcome to have the stamps. She didn't even say thanks and after ALL that, still left me a negative review!

I live very rurally it’s obvious from what I post that it’s not in town. 90% of people who respond seem to not drive and think they can walk to me. When I explain where we live, they ask if I can just drive whatever free item 10 miles to them.

That said, we once sold an outdoor table and chairs. The woman showed up in her Micra, looked perplexed, paid us the money and took one chair (all that would fit). She returned a week later to collect a second chair. We were moving house so we told her she definitely had to come the following week to get the other 2 chairs and the table. Never saw her again. The rest of it went on the bonfire.

We also had a couple who bought a wooden playhouse from us that needed dismantling. They came with their van and trailer. Took down half of it (after paying), must have gotten annoyed, packed up leaving the other half of the playhouse intact, and then stole our bloody hosepipe! 🤷🏻‍♀️

A few years later I had unwanted stuff and wanted to help others out. I now just donate everything to charity shops and they come and collect mostly when they say they will.

The thing that really put me off was the man that eventually collected my unwanted old sofa; he kept agressively trying to persuade me to let him take my new sofa instead as if would go better in his room. It was too large for my house so my old one was better staying and he'd take the new one off my hands! I just wanted him out of my house asap with or without the old sofa. Then a few days later, the first couple who'd been interested, turned up outside the house with the van they'd hired specifically for the sofa that hadn't fit in their car about 4 weeks previously. They'd not thought to let me know they still wanted the sofa.

The ones that irk me are the people trying to sell stuff in the swap/borrow/give-away childrens stuff group I'm in. There are bloody loads of sales groups. I'm in this one specifically for the sharing and reusing ethos (I mostly am the one giving things away when I use it) and it pisses me off.

A woman put an advert on the local Facebook page saying she was setting up as a childminder was looking for all kinds of equipment (would pay). I had DS’s cot bed so I offered it to her free of charge seeing as she needed a lot of stuff. She failed to come to collect it on two occasions. So I messaged her and said I was withdrawing my offer of the cot bed as she didn’t have the courtesy to turn up or communicate with me. Never heard from her again. Advertised it on Facebook, sold it for £20!

I replied to an advert for a bookcase, I asked when I could come to collect but had to be one evening as it would only fit in my husband’s car. Seller suggested Wednesday (it was now Sunday). Wednesday afternoon, she messaged me to say she had sold it to someone else ‘as there are so many people who let you down’. She had other furniture for sale and I think the person who collected the other item must have asked about the bookcase when they saw it. I was so cross and replied to say she hadn’t even given me a chance to come at the agreed time. A few weeks later she was complaining on the Facebook community page that someone had parked outside her drive and she couldn’t go out. Shame.

When we moved into our new house we weren’t able to fit in the all our Pax wardrobes from
our old place so I listed some of them on freecycle. This bloke messed me about for a week because of one sob story or another.

He did eventually turn up and said his wife preferred the version with the wooden doors as opposed to the glass ones I had
clearly photographed and described in the listing.

He went away to “think about it”. I went ahead and listed the whole lot on eBay and it had bids within a couple of hours.

Wooden Door Man then replied saying his wife did like them and when could he come and collect. I texted him the eBay listing and said you can bid here!

I’m downsizing from a 4 bed detached to a 2 bed flat in another country. One person messaged to say “is this pushchair still available?” I replied that it was. She just sent a thumbs up emoji and left it at that.
My item is still for sale, all’s right with the world?! 🤷‍♀️

I did learn if you price too low/ free, people who would benefit from cheap stuff might not be able to afford to collect as I’m in rural Ireland and public transport is a total joke.

Oh I forgot Kitchen Ninja woman.
She wanted me to post or deliver (an hour away) a fucking Kitchen Ninja soupmaker in its box. It’s about five kilos and massive. I was quite blunt in that I did not have time for this sort of thing.

I can't mentally cope with using these sites anymore, Fbook marketplace being the worst - couple of gems:

Listed a double bed - clearly stated in the ad what the dimensions were, that the buyer would need a van to collect due to the headboard, etc., etc. Cue the inevitable stream of time wasters but eventually thought I had a buyer. Back and forth messaging all week, re-confirmed size of the bed, that she would need a van to collect - then decides to message the night before she is due to collect to say she is 'devastated' that she can't buy the bed as she only has a king size mattress.

Another time I was selling an iPhone - buyer asks can I drop the price to cover the cost of his fuel to come and collect it - errr, no!

I bought a couple of dog steps so my old arthritic dog could get up on the sofa and the bed. He tried a few times getting on the sofa but it was clear it wasn't going to work so I put them up for sale - one unused and still in box, the other as cheaper as it was used. Sold the used one to someone - I asked which one she wanted and she said the used one as it was cheaper. She then left me a bad review as it had dog hair on it.

I had a small double bed for sale on Facebook, good condition, had four storage drawers and only used as a spare for when grandson slept over. £40.00
A man came to view it with his daughter, th bed was upstairs and in the room was a telly 42” that belonged to my daughter.
The blokes eyes were everywhere, eying everything up.
“Is that telly included?”
No it’s not.
” Throw the telly in and I’ll give you £30.00”
No, it’s 40.00 for the bed only and the tv is not for sale,
He then spotted a chest of drawers.
”You selling them?”
No, just the bed.
The daughter was really embarrassed.
I told them to leave as they clearly weren’t interested in buying it.
As they walked through the hall he gave the lounge a good eyeing up.

From then on anything we sell gets taken into the garage and no one comes into the house.

🤣🤣🤣🤣 paddle, nothing surprises me nowadays

I had similar but mine was for a nearly new huge ikea wardrobe which I just wanted gone as I was moving

however, as it was nearly new I really wanted to give it to someone genuinely who would appreciate it. I struggled as a single mum for many years and Wanted to do a good turn so In the advert I wrote about how ideally I would like it to go to a single parent family (i was giving it away for free)

the amount of abuse I got for saying that was unbelievable! It started a huge long thread of an argument amongst strangers on my post calling me disgusting for saying I wanted to give it to a single parent
when they are other types of people in need

my god. My wardrobe, my decision who gets it for free! Jeez the sense of entitlement from some is astonishing !

Went to look at a big dining room table, very wealthy house owner in a nice area, it was not as advertised, basically firewood with a leg missing.
When I said I didn't want it as it was not as advertised she asked me if I could take it to the dump because she can't get it in her car.
My answer was no 😅
Clearly only advertised in the hope somebody would be too embarassed to say no.

I can never get over just how much attention utter shite gets. One person's junk is another person's treasure - I get that, but...

Cleaning our garden three summers ago. We decided to replace a plastic storage box with lid for a small shed. This box wasn't massive but it was big enough for a few garden tools or a place to store cushions for outdoor furniture etc. It was structurally sound, no damage, but the lid was bleached from sunlight as it was probably about 7 or 8 years old. I listed it on FB Marketplace on a whim for £20 thinking I'd take my chances and actually be a CF. I'm not joking, but in the space of an afternoon I had over THIRTY people ask if it was still available and the vast majority seemed genuinely interested, asking for dimensions and all the usual stuff. By about 5pm it had gone. The guy who came to collect it was thrilled. I'd even got the hosepipe out and given it a good wash inside and out for him and left it to dry. I could have sold that storage box 30 times over (more if I'd left it on longer) and got more money for it too. A few days later, DP and I were in Home Bargains and they had what looked like the exact same boxes for about £27. We were utterly baffled.

Also during the garden clearance was an old rectangular rabbit run, only really big enough for guinea pigs hence we hadn't used it for bunnies for years. The wood needed painting, a catch on the door was snapped off, the wire mesh was rusting and the hinges which meant the whole thing could fold quite flat were all about to snap so all needed replacing. It was fit for the tip. Knowing how crazy people went for the storage box a day or two before, I listed the run with a very honest description of the extent of the repairs needed to make it safe for animals. It. Was. Fucked. So I put it on at £15 and my partner laughed at my cheek. Again, WELL over 30 enquiries and messages asking if they could collect immediately all within a few hours. Run gone by the end of the day and the buyer even did it up and sent me a photo of their guinea pigs in it saying how happy he was.

Mad world.