What is this madness, people buying stuff for random strangers via amazon wishlists

[elliejjtiny]

I'm wondering if I am just getting old/turning into my mother and this is the modern way of doing things.

But there seem to be so many people these days who have an account on facebook and you follow because they share good recipes or their dog is cute or their child has the same medical condition yours does. And they keep posting links to their amazon wish list, saying please buy us stuff, we would be so grateful etc. Which i don't obviously, but sometimes i look, to see what's on it. And there is usually a massive variety of things, from treats to the essentials and I wonder to myself does anyone buy dog food, nappies and baby wipes for internet strangers?

Do you buy this stuff for strangers and hope that another random stranger buys stuff from your amazon wishlist? I've seen people crowd funding to pay medical bills or for fancy funerals etc but this buying baby wipes for random strangers is just weird.

Fuck knows, but I really don't wanna know 😵‍💫

@andanotherproblem that sounds like a year round secret santa with strangers to be honest
@caringcarer that sounds different as people are not asking, a lovely thing to do that promotes human connection

Whoa, I have honestly never heard/seen this. I would not buy stuff from Amazon for strangers and I would not ask strangers to buy stuff for me, the only people who i have shared my amazon wishlist with are my Mum and brother when they ask me what i want for birthday/Christmas.

People are grabby arseholes and in most (not all) cases will shamelessly take what they can.

Not that long ago a woman crowd funded her dog’s vet treatment to the tune of £7.5K. She failed to disclose that her husband was the Chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi London (6 fig salary, £1m+ house) and happily raked in donations from generous and gullible people who were ‘following’ the fucking dog on social media. Then claimed the page had been set up mainly for friends and family (like that makes it more understandable), and that she hadn’t expected her Insta followers to send as much money as they did.

People are shameless about conning others into subsidising them, regardless of how fortunate they are in the first place or whatever the giddy fuck they think they’ve done to deserve it.

There have always been chancers, and those easily persuaded, and who are happy to part with their cash.

perhaps there is some element of them providing an unpaid service of recipes etc that some people are happy to buy them stuff in exchange for that

I've never seen what the OP refers to but this is one example where I'd be quite happy to buy someone something, seems like a genuine swap tbf. I follow loads of people for their recipes and I can't imagine they're all raking it in from paid partnerships etc. Quid pro quo.

My local nextdoor.com has a woman that posts multiple photos/videos daily of her pets. She claims to run a guinea pig sanctuary, but her FB wishlist also has multiple dog/cat things- some over £100ea item! People are always donating things.

Every week there is a sob story- my pet food hasn't arrived, anyone selling an XYZ dog coat. When people say that are selling an XYZ dog coat or you can buy one from all these different shops- she says, 'I can't afford that' , 'I don't drive' or 'I don't have a card so can't buy online!'

Someone offered her Morrisons own brand dog food and she said she only feeds her dogs good quality food like Lily's Kitchen and wouldn't even feed strays 'cheap' cat/dog food. She gives me SO much rage when I'm normally a calm person.

I vaguely remember that this is a thing. I’m definitely going to start one up just to see if anyone does it.

I only send things to a Amazon wish list if it is a animal charity.and send treats and nappies whatever they need.would never dream of sending random people anything.ever.