freecycle

[Jerseymum]

Just had to laugh at the post on our local freecycle. In amongst the requests for pianos and televisions (far outnumbering the offers of old bricks and topsoil and baby clothes) was a 'WANTED: boat (it doesn't hurt to try)' post.
Obviously, this is tongue in cheek, but does anybody else think some of the wanted ads on Freecycle are ridiculously specific and greedy?
Sarah

[MuddyWitch]

Here we have 'Real Cycle' now & the mods filter out most of the 'WANTED 40'' telly' type ads.

My own favourite was 'WANTED: politeness' in the body of the text the person asked for simple please & thank-yous as she'd offered an item & recievied a reply along the lines of 'I want that'

I now end all my offers with 'Only polite replies will recieve consideration' I still get 'I want that' but they don't get the item.

MW

[pops]

oh yes, i have almost given up on freecycle round here, we had one, honest to god last year -

"i know this is a long shot but does anyone have a 3 bed house in leatherhead? my daughter really deserves her own room!"



to which a friend of mine publicly replied
"are you serious?!"

[Ellendra]

My area must be weird. There are generally more offers than wants posted, and I have yet to see a demand for a fancy television.

(The boat ad might not be as far-fetched as it seems. My dad made the mistake of buying a boat once, and after paying for storage and having to maintain it for a year, he would have been glad to dump it on some unsuspecting freecycler, had such a thing existed back then. He does that kind of thing a lot.)

[Milims]

My favourite was "Wanted kitchen sink - I'd put it outside while I was replacing my kitchen and some Bu**er stole it!"
Closely followed by "Wanted - Taps - they were attached to the sink!"

[Rosendula]

yep, I've seen wanted ads for cars, motorbikes and caravans. More surprising is when they occasionally post a 'received' notice

[Susie]

I've just looked at ours and people are offering flatscreen TVs .

This is an untapped resource! {Goes off to investigate}.

[Susie]

Someone is asking for a slimline dishwasher on ours. I do think that is going it a bit.

[Susiwaa]

I get really frustrated with my local one, more wanted than offered ads!

rarely a thank-you or a received but there is an automated "now taken" message you can send.

People frequently ask for something because they "desperately need it" when asking for TV's, tumble driers, dish washers and even laptop computers!

And the stories you get from people when you do offer stuff, I don't need to know you life story!! lol !



Susi

[123sologne]

I don't think I have ever seen some seriously crazy big requests on ours and I have a special e-mail box where I get all the Freegle (not freecycle no more in Reading) e-mails. Every 2 weeks I clean up the box and ditch about 1000 e-mails... We get a lot of offers and you could fill up houses after houses with beds, sofas, televisions, flat screen ones too... It is simply crazy, the stuff people get rid off. The wanted are a bit much sometime, but I have never seen anybody ask for a brand of dishwasher or for anything like a car...

[Thomzo]

Here we have 'Real Cycle' now & the mods filter out most of the 'WANTED 40'' telly' type ads.

My own favourite was 'WANTED: politeness' in the body of the text the person asked for simple please & thank-yous as she'd offered an item & recievied a reply along the lines of 'I want that'

I now end all my offers with 'Only polite replies will recieve consideration' I still get 'I want that' but they don't get the item.

MW

I once got so fed up with all the 'I'll have that' e-mails that I ended my message with 'goes to the first person who says please'. I got more messages from people agreeing with me than wanting the item.

Now I chose the recipient based on the politest reply.

Zoe

[crowsashes]

the best 'offers' i have seen are - offered - prosthetic arm, great for Halloween! no joke! and someone was getting rid of a dentists chair!

freecycle here was shut down by the 'owner' without a warning or an offer for it to be taken over etc. it has restarted but i dont check that often now as its not a yahoo group. when i did use it i offered allsorts and people requested allsorts! the only 'excesive' ad i put up was for old film cameras ( i recieved 3 different ones that all get used reguarly)

[Jessiebean]

I agree with all of the above sentiments!
We have one person who asks for "shabby chic" items regularly and now wants "stuff that will look good in my garden" such as ornaments, old wheelbarrows etc... Now I am not adverse to a wee bit of shabby chic but I do think that if you want your home to look like a Country home magazine for free you at least need to get off your bottom and specify exactly what you want and be willing to slap a bit of white paint around yourself to get that *ahem* French Provincial look. If you just want every thing good to go I think you need to just stump up the $$$! I also am a bit irked when people specify that something MUST be in good clean condition- why can't they fix it up or clean it- they are getting it for free!
We get people wanting Wii Fits, Midisleeper beds (they are worth about $700 when cheap) and one of my favourites was someone wanting laying chickens buy specifying they wanted heritage breeds and weren't interested in ISA or Hyline Browns or cross breeds- ummm I personally would be very grateful to receive any FREE laying chicken!(and I like my little Hyline hens).
I don't give anything to people who anwer in Txt spk lk ths as I am very riled about the deterioration of the English language.

[darkbrowneggs]

I put a few things on last year, and got the emails for a while - the best/worst I saw was someone asking for a car in good running order with tax and mot, and saying that someone had been kind enough to give them one before but they needed to replace it now

All the best
Sue

[StripyPixieSocks]

Ours is quite good, no silly request but lots of offered hens, pigs, Rabbits (for meat) type thing... guess people down here are less interested in HUGE lf at screen TV's because theyr Uncles,Aunties Cat likes to watch it from the end of the garden and he has a sore paw this week.

In London however we saw the ads for Laptops,Cars and even houses!! :O