When did it become so hard to give things away ?

[BethJ62]

Having a clear out including lots of baby stuff that DGC have outgrown and DD doesn’t want . Moses basket , clothes , toys.
As money is tight for many people I decided to give it away using a local Facebook site .
Simple ? No.
Despite me asking people to collect , every person who has shown interest has asked me to deliver . A couple of people have become a bit stroppy when I said collect only . Reminder - this is good quality free stuff.
Yesterday I waited in all day for someone who didn’t appear . Today someone who said she was desperate said she would be here at 10. I told her we are going out at 12 so she has to be here before then . 10 minutes ago she messaged and said she would be here at 2 !!! I reminded her the arrangement and she said she thinks I could be a bit more understanding!
Has anyone else experienced similar ? I don’t think I am unreasonable but maybe I am ??

This is why I no longer give things anyway. The sense of entitlement is just beyond belief. The last straw for me was when someone I had told needed to collect before 12 texted at 12 to tell me she was still an hour away and was travelling from the south coast - i had put the item on a local group precisely to avoid that kind of shit. She then had the audacity to get abusive and angry with me for not cancelling my plans to stay in and wait for her so I could give her a free 40 inch television.

I honestly find it depressing how entitled so many people are. It's grim.

I agree OP, it seems so odd when everyone is apparently struggling so much financially and yet you can't give perfectly good stuff away for free. Charity shops often won't take stuff because they're full. But when you go in and look at the stuff they're asking £5 for some old bobbly top from Primark so of course they're not going to sell that. Why don't they sell stuff for 50p or a pound then they would help people that needed it and have a really fast turnover, and probably make more money.

That is why you should never use FB to give away stuff of any value. There will always be someone lurking ready to pick it up and resell at full value.

Always sell at full value, or if you want it go to a good cause give it to a charity shop or baby bank etc.

I use freecycle and while I used to get the odd time waster who didn’t turn up, I haven’t experienced that problem since moving to the southeast a few years back.

Facebook marketplace is notoriously full of time wasters. Take it to the charity shop in the new year. At least you can be rid of it at a time that suits you!

We moved house recently and got rid of lots of old furniture - used but in good condition. I was really keen to try and pass them on so found a company online that collect items and give them to families in need. They had excellent reviews and are regularly contacted by charities such as Crisis and Shelter to supply furniture.

Got in touch, was asked to supply photos of all the items, did so apologising in the process as it had taken me a week or so to get everything together. Lots of friendly emails back and forth with the office and then complete silence once the photos had gone over.

Needless to say, after chasing them up, they offered to pick up only a couple of things - no problem, the rest either wasn’t in the condition they wanted or didn’t have the relevant fire certificate/instructions etc, very frustrating but not their fault. Then they told me they were fully booked for the next few weeks and could either pick up first thing the following morning - bearing in mind they were emailing late afternoon - or it would be a few weeks after our move date 🤷‍♀️. I’d specifically told them in my first email when we were moving and the days they could collect aswell as stressing to let me know if the dates didn’t work as I didn’t want to waste my time or theirs. It was incredibly frustrating.

In the end, the whole lot got taken by a house clearance firm to the dump as I just didn’t have the time to go through the process again with someone else or try and sell it privately.