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.

We have one at the minute.
selling a classic car and at £20k it’s in bloody stunning condition and a very good price for the marque.

Guy messaged DH earlier and told him all about how his Father was terminally Ill with cancer and it’s been his life’s ambition to own one of these cars and what’s the best price he can possibly sell it for to make an old man very happy.

I think he thinks we’re stupid.

😂 these stories 👌🏼😱

I sell things regularly on FB marketplace and I say all the time it’s absolutely full of lunatics.

Have sold all sorts over the years.

Bed… turned up in small car, numerous journeys.

Wardrobes… let down numerous times with the guy trying to arrange van. Didnt fit in said van.

Lounge furniture… As soon as buyer was in house, agreed price gets knocked down to “I’ll give you this much”. Tried to get cushions that I wasn’t selling thrown in for free.

One lady messaged EVERY SINGLE time an item went up to ask loads of details, never bought a thing.

The wierdest one to date, though, was selling an engagement ring off ex, somebody enquired why selling and somehow escalated into him asking me if I “liked being tied up”.

Beware folks, they walk among us…

Weird of you to be annoyed if they specifically said they can't specify a time. They said between 2-4 initially and did indeed turn up between 2-4.

Fair enough if you wanted a specific time, but just decline their request for your goods as their collection arrangement is inconvenient for you. Getting annoyed because you pushed them into a time when they did say upfront that they couldn't honour one is a bit strange imo.

There's always one to antagonise and suggest racism 🙄 get a life!

I do get what you are saying, but surely if she wasnt sure on an exact time her partner was finishing she could have said 4 to be on the safe side, if you see what i mean? Or gone for another day? She literally said her partner finishes at 2, on the absolute worst traffic days (which this wasnt) it takes an hour to cross fully from one side of town to another (20 mins normally) so why didnt she use the logic of 'well he might not be back until 3 if traffics bad, and then we'll need to drive to this persons house, so better say 4 just in case?' - thats all i was thinking.

I've just thought of another one...

In one of the free swap/exchange/giveaway groups on FB (no selling allowed) someone was asking for items for a baby group she runs. My parents had a baby bouncer that had hardly been used at their house and I offered it to her and she said she wanted it. Arranged a time to collect, gave her my parents address but she didn't turn up. I messaged her asking if she still wanted it and got no reply. I reported her to the group admins (as per the group rules for no shows) and they said they'd keep an eye on her and take action if necessary. She's still active in the group now which is about three years later.

A message to say she's changed her mind is all I wanted. But to not turn up AND fail to reply when I asked if she still wanted it is just rude. It's bad enough giving my own address out but it really annoyed me that some stranger now has my (elderly) parents address.

I was selling a big leather sofa.
A bloke arrived on very old Vauxhall Corsa, the small one, about 20 yrs old- saying he lived about 50 miles away.
To my shock, after we dragged the sofa out, I couldn’t undersea now he gonna carry it as no roof rack nothing.
He literally lift the sofa in the cars roof, took out some very old thin! rope and tidied it to the roof through the windows. It looked mind blowing , the sofa was still not firmly attached, however he drove off! We were just absolutely shocked..

No, I absolutely didn't mean that she planned it at all. She was mortified. I don't think she was a CF. I was just putting it out there as one of the more random things that've happened with Freecycle/Gumtree/Martketplace people recently.

Reading through these and howling at so many.

I go back to my original question - who are these mad people and how do they function in actual life?!

I feel like a MN selling site would be great - Sellers are just women posting super clear adverts with excellent pictures and accurate descriptions of good quality items which are well-priced. Buyers are reliable women who word responses correctly and politely, don't push CFery and turn up when they're supposed to. Heaven!

I gave away a TV to the first person to get in touch. I'm really pleased it was her. She turned up when she said she would and her family were delighted.

But oh my this bloke hounded me because I was being unfair to him because he wanted it.

My husband sold a TV on a local Facebook buy and sell page some years back.
He was contacted by a lady a few towns away and arranged for her to come and see it.
My husband always keeps the original boxes and all the packaging when he buys high value electricals so that if he does sell them after a few years he can ensure that they are well packaged.
Anyway, she turned up the following day and my husband had the TV all set up so that he could show her that it was all working. She was delighted with it (it was only a few years old and in perfect condition). We packaged it all up and helped carry it to the car for her, all sorted or so we thought.
Fast forward about 3 months, my husband gets a text message from her to say the TV wasn't working. My husband replied to say that it was working perfectly when he sold it and that he was sorry it had packed up but there was nothing that he could do.
She came back with a barrage of abuse, saying that she had bought it for her daughter, who was a single mum with 2 kids and that he had scammed her blah, blah, blah, so he blocked her.
The next thing, she's back on the FB selling page naming and shaming him, all her mates piled on, slagging him off and saying he should be ashamed of himself, threatening to come round. In the end the FB page mods got involved and told them that all 2nd hand goods are sold as seen caveat emptor and that their behaviour was not to be tolerated and they were all banned from the page. It was awful, my husband was really upset that all these people thought he was a scammer.

I just beggars belief, doesn't it 😳😳😳

I was selling a still-good American fridge freezer for £50 as we were redoing our kitchen and really needed it out of the house.

Loads of people arranging to buy and then not show up, then finally a lady asking could we deliver and install in her 2nd floor flat.

Cheeky enough, but also, could you pay in weekly instalments, and then no until two weeks after 'delivery' as she didn't get her money until then 🙈🙈

When you see an item for sale and it says ‘just needs a wipe’, wipe it then as no-one knows what might be hiding underneath the dirt you can’t be arsed to wipe off!

We gave away a fridge freezer. It was in working order but a few bits inside had cracked or broken (had highlighted this on ad) but still quite usable.
The person who wanted it asked if we could deliver. DH stupidly said OK as he had a large estate car. Took us bloody ages to wedge it in the car. He delivered it and then saw they had a van on their drive!

Sold our yellow pram on market place, the pictures show the obvious colour, first message”what colour is it” .

I saw a photo of a sofa posted the other day for £350. nice corner sofa, probably a bargain, then they also put a photo of the corner that had been completley chewed and mangled by thier dog!!! who the fuck would want to spend £350 on a fucked up sofa?!!!!

Worst experience was selling preloved cloth nappies. People were like vultures and I struggled to keep track of who wanted what. They were so demanding and rude. It was ridiculously stressful. Never again.

I love stories like this. Some absolute lunatics out there

Oh yes I hate this. OK maybe if it's free, but if you're expecting people to pay for it, bloody well wipe your dirt off it!

I have to say, I have never heard the word "pre-loved" applied to bum cloths before 😂😂

I was listing a single bed with drawers and headboard standard size. Had someone message and could only collect when I was in work. My dd (19then) was home so she was going take the payment. They turned up in a small car the bed was never going to fit they tried to pressurise my dd into letting them take the headboard only.

The Preloved nappy market can be crazy. It seemed to have calmed down a lot recently and I've struggled to sell mine, annoyingly. Some people will pay £50+ for "rare" prints of particular nappies. I think it went especially mad during lockdown when some mums had little else to do!

See also spending £48 on a stained second hand babygro in a "must have" print. Saw that on eBay once, unbelievable

I’ve just been reminded of a woman who posts things for sale on our neighbourhood group but she posts pictures of the items that do not show the item at all. Examples include:

A glass table for sale but the photo showed a table covered in a large table cloth. She made it very clear the table cloth was not included.

A pram but in the only picture of it the pram was folded up.

The best one was a picture of her shed, she was selling a rabbit hutch which was apparently inside the shed but she couldn’t be bothered to get it out for the photo.

She always complains no one helps her out by buying her stuff…

I get this - cant bear it. Particularly oh thats too far. Fucking hell - you're on the internet - use google maps like the rest of us. Will you post - no I put collection only. its glass and I cant be dealing with the pfaff of superhuman packing for a fiver. Etc. I only sell bits because the cash is quite useful to give to the teenagers to buy icecreams or lunch. The hassle is starting to be no longer worth it.

🤣🤣🤣
Has anyone mentioned it would be helpful to see the items?