To expect people collecting items offered on Freecycle not to take the p*ss?

[alicet]

OK so I have been having a BIG clearout this weekend in preparation for lo's arrival in a few weeks. Have offered up literally LOADS of stuff on Freecycle. Now I know this is mutually beneficial - I get to get rid of loads of stuff I no longer want without having to make a trip to the dump / charity shop and they get something for free. However AIBU to expect people to be polite and courteous about this and thank me for the items they receive?

Most people were lovely but I had the following...

Couple arrive 30 mins late. no apology, no thankyou for the items, just 'it took us ages to find it!'. Well thats why I gave a list of directions including my phone number love - why didn't you call and don't you think you should say thankyou?

Man repetitively mails me presuming items I have posted as taken are for him even though I have not told him anything of the sort. Then when I do offer him something he doesn't respond!

And there are more but this post is already too long. Am I expecting too much??? OK so I am tired, hormonal and therefore cranky so I am probably making a bit too much out of this but it does annoy me!

hatwoman -it does make sense doesn't it. Maybe there is a niche for some sort of loan scheme to avoid unnecessary purchases.(Someone will come along now and say "aaaah but there is already a scheme called xyz.." )

Other things include stuff like travel cots, booster highchair seats that you need for holidays etc (both of which we have but frequently lend to friends and neighbours rather than them having to buy new ones).

Well last night another lady was supposed to pick something up - had all been arranged and she had my address, contact details and phone number. Did she turn up? Did she hell! And no call or email to say why or apologise. If she gets in touch again then tough. Irritated again!

I love freecycle and ours has a separate freecycle cafe site where we can ask to borrow things, or advice or chat about local stuff. It's great.

Wanteds can be a pain but I've given away stuff I didn't know anyone wanted because of them so guess they have a role to play.

I think you get nice and nasty people on freecycle as in real life, the trick is sussing out the nice ones before agreeing to give them anything

Our mods always want to know about persistent no-shows so they can be banned too.

I think my mum's local freecycle got suspicious of her because she asked for quite a bit of baby stuff for me from it, and it's a small town. But my mum is married to someone who also has 3 adult children from previous marriages, and my stepsister was pregnant at the same time. Between freecycle and pressies I did end up with more things than I needed and we donated some stuff back to freecycle or to causes that my mum and I felt were deserving (the Leeds Refugee Centre).

I've picked up some small items from my local one but they were just left outside for collection - I admit it did take me a few days to get to one but my week had gone pear shaped.

Last night I posted my own offer, and have had some interesting emails - I'm giving away some old records (vinyl) that I now own on CD - one batch has been collected and I've agreed to give another batch to someone on Monday. There was another perfectly reasonable email about the Joni Mitchell stuff I'd already given away, kindly offering me conversion into wma format for me (well, I thought that was nice). But there are two emails from people who seem to think they want everything as "collectors" even after I've told them that the records are not in good condition at all. I've decided I don't trust them, they might be an easy way of getting rid of the records but something about their emails bugs me. Am I being unreasonable to decide to ignore them further and see if someone will give my much loved but obsolete vinyl a genuine good home?

elkie-it is up to you who you let have them, in our fc rules it says to consider giving to the most deserving, like charities, so no, yanbu