Selling something that I gave for free

[Wilberforce2]

Just been on Fb and a family member has shared a link from a selling site to a really nice piece of furniture that I gave them last year. Furniture was hardly used but when my step son moved in it wasn't big enough so I gave it to family member and we bought a new one. They now obviously don't want it anymore and are selling it for £100, I don't expect any of the money because if I wanted money I would have sold it but I can't help thinking you shouldn't sell something that someone gave to you for free? I would have preferred her to give it away to someone else or to charity.

AIBU or not?!

On the other hand I can't see that selling something somebody has passed on to you free can possibly be right. You are profiting from that friend's generosity. Give it to charity or pass it on to somebody else. Don't sell it. I am genuinely puzzled how folk think it's acceptable.

YABU. They have had the thing for a year. It's not like you gave it to them last week and they have just sold it straight on.

But sometimes you have something you could sell but decide to give it to a friend or family member to be kind. Thats why its gutting when they sell it because they took that money from you. You didnt give them a gift, you gave them charity and they profited from that. If someone passes something on to me, I always pay it forward by passing it on to someone else.

But the OP didn't have any use for the item any longer. Yes it was kind but also a way to get rid of an item that would otherwise have been sold or whatever. After giving an item away it's no longer yours so why the interest in what happens to it it a year later? I genuinely couldn't care less if anybody sold an item I had given them or spend any time pondering the morality of it!!

But passing things on or giving to charity is very time consuming. I offered things for free via FB. Every time, I had to wait in and many people didn't turn up. When you sell them on eBay, people pay upfront and at least you don't waste time.

Giving to charity is not much easier. The BHF only collects on Wednesday from my area, between 8 and 3. So you have to take the day off or work from home, and then, when they arrive half the times they don't take the furniture as it's "too old fashioned to sell on"

If I give something away, I am generally just relieved to get it out of my house!
I don't give a second thought to what the recipients do with it. Sell or give away - I really couldn't care.

Not so long ago I was suddenly and unexpectedly very very poor. At risk of losing my house and eating rice with peas everyday to get by.

I sold anything I could. The diamond earrings given to me for my 21st birthday were first to go into Facebook selling. Then any phones I had from old contracts. Any other jewellery I had ( most given to me by family and dh as gifts) a particularly beautiful oak coffee table mil gave us as a house warming. Wedding dresses, nice shoes, dvds, books, bicycles, sewing machine. Pretty much anything of value that could pay the mortgage and buy food. I have nothing not essential now. No hobby things. All other bills were ignored out of necessity and I don't think we will ever get out of debt but we are trying.

Glad to know that I am classless, rude, ungrateful, and that karma will come back to punish me for my "morally wrong" choices.

Firesuit, you are so right. People don't want the item anymore, but it still holds 'value' to them.

Cookingongas - keep on as you are going, chin up, and ignore the twats.

They should give you the money from the sale, it's snide to sell a gift and pocket the cash, unless it's an unwanted gift