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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To have left the Freecycle group?

86 replies

KirstyJC · 15/06/2014 12:17

Oh joy. I waited in all morning for someone who said they would be here at 11. When I emailed back at 11.30 asking where they were I was told they would be here in a couple of hours after she had a bath!

When I said we had to go out then and had been waiting in for her, I got a very rude email saying to 'keep the item'.

This is the final straw! This is far from the first time this has happened! So I have removed myself from Freecycle.

I am sick and tired of people thinking their time is more important than ours, and that they don't even need to bother with basic courtesy ie letting us know they are delayed.

So AIBU to pull out of freecycle? Grrr......Angry

OP posts:
YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar · 17/06/2014 10:18

Should say I ask for nominal amount and have occasionally dropped stuff off if I have time.

Bogeyface · 17/06/2014 12:22

Anna that doesnt surprise me to be honest, if someone is genuinely in need so they cant afford to buy a sofa or whatever then they wont able to run a car will they?

kungfupannda · 17/06/2014 12:39

I never had any problems with freecycle until a couple of weeks ago when I offered something that turned out to be surprisingly desirable. I had upwards of 30 responses.

I went with the first-come-first-served policy, and arranged collection time with someone who wanted it that day. They never showed up and never made contact again. The next half-dozen replies were all along the lines of 'I'll have it' or 'Text me I want this' or 'I need the [insert complicated technical specifics] so I know what I'm getting]. I skipped all of them and gave it to a nice lady who asked politely, gave a factual explanation of why she wanted it - not a sob story - and turned up when she said she would.

If you can't be arsed with the absolute basics of courtesy - please, thank you etc - I can't be arsed with you!

toobreathless · 17/06/2014 14:08

I tolerate the fact that 90% of our local freecycle seem to be utter idiots as it is useful for getting rid of stuff I can't shift myself.

I skim read the first 10 of so replies, pick one that sounds nice and vaguely reliable & it is on my terms. 'Must be collected tomorrow between 9 to 11am' I haven't had a no show (yet)

We have passed on several large pieces of furniture and a car. The car was going to cost more to MOT than it was worth & went very successfully to a trainee mechanic who could do the labour.

AnnaLegovah · 17/06/2014 14:46

I totally get that Bogey, hope no-one thinks I'm being poor-ist but given the amount of sob stories I saw on my local Freecycle, nobody in our town has a car. I'm not sure I believe it.

FriedSprout · 17/06/2014 15:06

In parts of Canada, they have a specific day every month where unwanted household goods are left outside on the verge for anyone to pick it up.

i too no longer use freecycle, due to the sob stories that leave me feeling guilty and the lack of curtesy.

IAmANightOwl · 17/06/2014 15:09

I used Freecycle a while back and I couldn't get over some of the 'Wanted' posts, like 'In desperate need of tumble dryer as winter is coming and have young baby..' Sounds reasonable until you actually read on '...must be condenser drier, silver/grey, immaculate condition, please message me and I will give you my address for delivery' Shock Shock Shock Good luck with that then!

stripedtortoise · 17/06/2014 16:08

YANBU. I had a similar situation with a fridge. Kept cancelling. Excuse after excuse. Then got shitty with ME when I dared to say I'd have to offer it to someone else & sent a very strongly worded email to me branding me the C word! :/
When people are getting something for free, they care less. I stick to EBay now.

deakymom · 17/06/2014 16:44

ive left too i accidentally didn't put multiple pleases and thank yous in my request so they sent it back saying it was "rude" so i tried it again three pleases/thank yous sent back again so i messaged admin explaining i was trying to have a sort out and nit picking was not helping finally got the ad published then i tried to put on a request i was told i couldn't unless i actually got rid of something first i quit

the ones that get me are the "desperate" ones that conclude as sent from my blackberry device or sent from my iphone really? if you can afford them you dont need to be begging for clothing trade your phone in and BUY some

RahRahRasputin · 17/06/2014 17:32

We use Freegle now, some sort of offshoot of Freecycle. You're not allowed to post lists of items any more, which is a bit annoying, but when we used to do an Offered: various post, with say ten completely unrelated items from clearing out the loft, there would be immediate replies of people wanting all of it Hmm which seems rather coincidental. We would usually give as much as possible to polite people who wanted individual items then let them take the rest.

For a while there was an ongoing sob story about a woman whose dog had cancer. She kept wanting things to sell to pay for treatment and also posting very graphic updates about it, in the end I felt so sorry for the poor dog being kept alive and forced to have chemotherapy when it could barely walk and had all sorts of horrific symptoms Sad

I haven't used it for a while as I complained to the moderators about the number of sob story posts, which are clearly banned in the guideline, and I was told that they weren't the sort of people who would read guidelines so there's no point telling them off Hmm

The one that triggered me to complain was a man who posted a whole list of things he wanted and then said something about how he was the dad of teens and so he didn't have much money as he had to buy them everything they wanted Hmm

Mabelface · 17/06/2014 17:39

I'm a co-owner of a freegle group. If you have no shows or abusive messages from any member, do make sure that you email the mods so we can do something about it. If we don't know, we can't deal. :)

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