Is it rude to sell things that you’ve been given? In this scenario

[Dolly10113]

We gave a close relative (Jo) a load of baby stuff. I mean loads. Enough clothes for 0-3, a baby bath, a baby carrier, toys, rocking chair. It was all hardly used and some of it brand new.

Now recently dh and I have realised that over the years we have been too generous to people with a lot of things, doing favours, giving people things, we’ve ended up being taken advantage of, so have decided to start putting ourselves first more. This might be clouding my judgement.

Anyway, we found out via another relative that Jo had been selling on all the baby things as they were in her words ‘too good to give away’.

Aibu to think that this is a bit off? If the things were too good to give away then shouldn’t she have offered them back to us?

Or is it a case of once you give someone something they should do whatever they like?

It's cheeky and rude. I hope you questioned her why and not just let her get away with it.

My personal moral compass tells me that if I have acquired something for free then I pass it on for free. If I have paid a lot for something but feel like someone could use it, I lend it to them long term and tell them whenever they're finished it with it pass back to me unless it's been broken. If you didn't stipulate that then you just need to accept that you gifted the belongings and now you have no control over what happens to them.

I bought a brand new , quite expensive, snowsuit for my toddler. It didn't fit. A friend of mine had a much smaller toddler and i offered it to her instead of returning. THE VERY SAME DAY .... she posted it on vinted. If I had known she didn't want it for her child, I would have taken it to the charity shop or donated it to women's aid. Now I just give things straight to the charity shop.

Yabu, she won't have made "good money". Even new with tags baby clothes don't sell for much, let alone worn stuff. It's a big hassle to sell this stuff and takes ages, and you get a few measly £. That's why lots of people give them away.

When you offer items to friends or family or thru Facebook or wherever, you need to state the conditions of the offer.

Would you object if they immediately regifted to others, if they very negligently lost or damaged items, if they insisted on handing items back to you for disposal even when item reached rubbish / broken / very dirty stage, if they misused or carelessly lost the items? Presumably those are among the many "you should have read my mind" rules OP wants to apply.

Threads like this on MN make me never want to accept a "gift" from anyone every again.

Same happened to us OP. I now sell everything even if it's just a few quid & it pays for a takeaway once in a while. We have a little jar for saving the cash. And we enjoy it ourselves.

I don't know if it's because I'm 40 now but I have become a little more selfish and cynical of others (and I love it!)

I don’t think that there are any conditions other than don’t sell it.

I think it’s clear from the responses that it’s one of those things where some people think it’s fine, other people think it’s shitty.

Same here. Because if I’d known she was going to sell it I’d have just sold it myself 🙄

I’ve realised people can just be absolute piss takers.

I've sold some items that were too good to give away that mt sister passed down to me. However I did offer her the items back or the money but she refused (wasn't high value, only total of around £20 anyway)

I wouldn't be bothered the other way either. I've given away items to friends and family. If they sold them on after using that's up to them.

I do this BUT with a few conditions

1. after we have finished using the items
2. after checking the original person doesn't want it back (99% of the time they were glad to get rid of it in the first place)
3. if I have no-one to pass them on to. I only have one friend who has a younger child than mine now. I always offer her first dibs on anything (esp the clothes she sells me from her eldest)

Then I try to sell anything I can. If it doesn't sell then I put it up for free or take it to charity shops. My reasoning is I can't keep everything and that money is used to fill the gaps in clothes for the kids or get them a next age up toy they want. I never do it to make a profit to keep for myself - all the money I get goes back into the kids and what they need or want.

I think it’s fine, on the surface. HOWEVER I do think if I were Jo I’d be mortified that my mother had let the cat out of the bag - which argues that I don’t think it’s really as fine as all that. My sister and I have sold some family jewellery, and I believe we had the right to, but we have tried to do it where other family members wouldn’t know about it.

I agree that if it bothers you, don’t give stuff away, because you don’t retain control.

I don't see what difference it makes for you. I got given lots of stuff and clothes when my kids were born and throughout their childhoods. Some things were bought for them, some was hand me downs. Once I was done with them I sold or donated them. I didn't treat hand me downs differently to bought gifts, if there was a resale value I would sell them. I could have hardly held on to everything my kids had ever been given and it's not really the norm to return gifts when you no longer need them. That would make it a loan, and this wasn't.

It’s funny isn’t it because I’d rather have not known tbh. I think it was Jos mum gleefully telling us that Jo had made good money selling all that stuff and then seeing if we had anymore 🙄 it just seems so bad mannered.

Probably doesn’t help that I find them a bunch of piss takers anyway.

Did she really make "loads of money" from second hand baby clothes, though? Youalways think you are going to make good money doing this, but it's almost always morw trouble than it's worth. It sounds like Jo's mum is just stirring up trouble.

I think its rude and I wouldnt do it/would be annoyed. But I dont bother to sell anything so I recognise my privilege somewhat in this.

I don’t know I suppose it depends on what you class as a lot of money but there was a lot of stuff and it wasn’t just clothes.

All I know is that if someone gives me handed down items, whether it’s clothes, toys or else. I always offer it back to the person, presuming it’s still on usable condition. Or I’d gift it on.

Making “loads” of money is all relative isn’t it - used and washed baby clothes I can’t imagine would sell for more than a couple of £ per item - I have twins so have loads of stuff - I can’t be bothered to sell on vintage so I donate it - if they want to make loads/couple quid on it good for them - I couldn’t be bothered with the house it would take to photograph list bag and post not to mention argue with the chavs who would quibble over refunds and lost parcels

If I don't want things and don't wish to bother selling then I'm more than happy to pass on to someone. If they benefit from the items or benefit from selling them on for whatever reason they might have (my gopping taste or they could do with the cash) I'm happy.

I’m torn on this because morally it’s not acceptable. I myself have been gifted 2 things from friends that I can think of - a sofa a friend was giving away on Facebook that I put in the kids playroom and a microwave another friend gave me when ours suddenly broke & we couldn’t afford to replace it. When we bought our new microwave a few months later (the one my friend gave us wasn’t quite big enough for some of our dishes) my friend had emigrated, so i advertised it for free on Facebook and gave it to a friend who contacted me and asked for it. I have no idea what she did with it after that. The sofa I put up for free on Facebook when we no longer had a need for it years later. The friend that gave it to me originally messaged and asked if she could have it back (I only didn’t go to her in the first place because she’d been advertising it online as free to a good home so I never considered she might want it back) so I gave it back to her. It wouldn’t have felt right selling either of them.

But if I give something away, that’s for the receiver to do what they want with. If they’re struggling and decide to sell it to use the cash to buy something they need, good for them. I might feel a bit miffed if they list it for sale 2 hours after gifting it if they said they wanted it to use, but when you give something away it’s no longer yours. What about if you sell it? So if you sell a bundle of baby stuff worth a few thousand pounds, get a few hundred quid for it I presume that’s ok for them to sell bits on. What about if you only sold it for £1/£5/£10/£50…. A nominal amount that was a fraction of the value so your friend didn’t feel like a charity case. Does that change your view, and if it does, how much do they need to have paid? We sold something on a car boot once for a fiver. Half an hour later, my husband spotted a woman carrying the item walking past us, not the person he sold it to (and it was quite a unique item or there was something obvious on it that it was the same one). He asked her where she got it and she said a stall around the corner, so he asked how much it was. She said £10. She was a bit miffed to find out she could have had it from us for a fiver, my husband was angry that the person had bought it and sold it for 100% profit so we could have gotten more for it… I was just happy we had sold it so had some money for it and didn’t have to take it home again!

I always find it odd though when people get angry about a friend selling something you gave to them and then they say they’ll just give it to a charity shop next time. If your friend is struggling, wouldn’t you rather they sell it and use the money to help them in a tight spot than give it to a charity shop (many of whom send truck loads of stuff to landfill without even trying to sell it) to sell it to people who are struggling themselves and a large percentage of the sale will go to the huge salary they pay their CEO etc. isn’t it a tiny percentage that actually makes it to the people supported by the charity? I’d get it if you’d have sold it yourself had you not given it to a friend - but if you’re saying you’d rather give it to a charity to sell I really think that’s mean (unless your friends are super rich and don’t need the money).

The key points for me are:

We gave a close relative (Jo) a load of baby stuff. I mean loads. Enough clothes for 0-3, a baby bath, a baby carrier, toys, rocking chair. It was all hardly used and some of it brand new.

OP being kind, and Jo rejected things she didn't want.

The cheeky fuckery is here:

What added insult was that Jo didn’t tell us but Jos mum told us that Jo was selling all the stuff and had made loads of money as it was such good stuff.

Her mum even came round a few months later mooching around asking if there was anything else Jo could have.

Jo seems to have inherited her mum's CFery.

I feel so torn on this.

I was given a lot of baby stuff for free from friends. Baths, breast pumps, clothes, change mats etc. Some of it I have now passed on to other friends and I always asked the original giver first. They were more than happy for me to pass on, told me to arcs anything to a baby bank that I didn’t want.

I don’t think it would have sat right with me to sell the stuff. However on the other hand, you did give it away, you could’ve sold it yourself but chose not to. Even as I say that though, I do think it’s a cheeky move.

it was a really nice thing that you did. I’d reconsider your thoughts that you were both being too nice. The world needs more generosity and you’ll feel better helping people than stopping yourselves!

It wouldn’t sit right with me either. I think if you receive an act of kindness you should pass it on, not profit from it.

They are all really good points and reading that I think has helped me reflect on why I (rightly or wrongly) feel pissed off.

So Jo and her mum are relatives. Jos mum is very well off and Jo is not rich but definitely not struggling. She’s about the same financially as us.

For various reasons we couldn’t have another child and the truth is I was probably a bit attached to all the baby things so I offered them to Jo as I’d rather they stayed in the family (which perhaps means it wasn’t an entirely selfless act). Otherwise I would have sold it all myself when I was ready to let go of it.

I’ve also come to realise that they are users anyway. For example dh is a builder and they were always wanting free jobs done, they’d get parcels sent to our house because they knew I was home and expected us to deliver them, the cheeky fuckers so tbh the selling of the baby stuff is just one of many things they’ve pissed me off over.

Oh and funny you mention about people asking you to return gifts. Jos mum gave us two things, the one thing she asked to have back. The other thing we offered her back, she said she definitely didn’t want it so we gave it away, then 6 months later she asked for it back and got all arsey.

The moral of the story is don’t give things away if you’ve got any expectations and don’t get involved with Jo and her mother.

I think this is so wrong. You have her things to help her, the right thing to do would be to pass them on foc to help others. I often do the same with my friends and if I found out they were selling them on I’d be upset, it’s making money out of someone else’s good will and kindness.

I’ve given away lots of baby and child stuff and I would be LIVID if anyone gave it back 😆 this is because I’m not having any more babies and have no use for it. Are you having more babies? I assume not or why would you have given it away?!