Freecycle, anyone used it?

[SenseOfTumour]

I have, in both directions and I think it's a great thing, and in general don't feel it's abused as much as it could be, which is good.

If you don't know it, it's essentially a series of Yahoo groups, one for each small area, (I know UK and US are involved, don't know how 'worldwide' it is), and people either post something they want for free, or things they want to get rid of for free.

Strangely, the 'Offered' posts seem to vastly outnumber the 'Wanted's, and Ii think it's a great thing as it stops working electronics, furniture, etc all ending up in landfill, and saves everyone cash buying pointless crap they don't need when they can reuse someone else's.

My only downside is when I offer something and get a few people wanting it, then I feel kinda bad leaving people out and telling em they didn't get chosen. Choosing is hard too, as what do you decide by, and how do you know if they're truthful?

Anyways, I've cancelled my TV licence, so my TV will be on there this weekend.

 

[The Cheezy One]

Gave my bed away on that. not the one im using obviously. its a bit hard to get anything good, and as soon as someone offers, say, a tv, there are 2 million people who need one or orphans called timmy with lisps will die. its best to offer obscure things that people with a specific interest will want. for example, our house came with a wind surfer that the previous owner never picked up. it went to a teacher so hed have a stock one for students to use!
where do you live? can i have your tv?
i think that kind of thing has been put forward to the escapist staff a couple times, a sort of games trader/lender thing, but it was dangerous to give addresses to people on the internet, and there would be no way of getting a game back from someone if they didnt want to

 

[Rusman]

Can't say I've ever heard of it before, seems like a good idea but what's stopping people put broke stuff on there? Other than morals of course.

 

[Jamash]

Yes, I've used it quite a bit recently to get rid of unwanted, yet useful junk.

We're trying to move house and are faced with the daunting task of clearing 26 years of accumulated stuff from a family home, so as you can imagine there's quite a lot of junk (and things that have been kept because someday we may find a use for them) in the loft and garage.

I like it because if we hadn't been able to give the stuff away, we would have just taken it to the dump, so it feels better knowing that your old junk is being used by someone, for example recently we got 2 new bathroom suites but were able to give our old ones away on Freecycle to a couple who had just rented a house, which apparently had a bathroom so dirty it wasn't possible to clean, so it felt nice knowing that we were helping out someone in desperate need.

I hate having to choose who to give your stuff to, especially when people spin a yarn to make out how desperate and needy they are. Recently we offered a chest freezer and had about 30 people asking for it, with some people saying they had loads of kids to feed and couldn't afford a freezer, which wouldn't have been so bad if they were the only needy person, but when lots of desperate souls start asking you begin to feel like you're playing God.

In the end I gave it away to someone who ran a underfunded community allotment project for kids, reasoning that it would benefit the most people that way, especially if it got a few kids on the council estate genuinely interested in growing fruit and vegetables rather than getting up to mischief.

Apparently 'Freegle' is a better site than Freecycle, it's much the same but has moderators so there are less scammers (e.g. scrap merchants pretending to be charity cases) and cheeky beggars such as: "Wanted - Television for children's bedroom, must be a LCD or Plasma HDTV at least 40" LCD and HDMI compatible" - apparently beggars can be choosers.

 

[Bludge]

I love freecycle, had some awesome stuff from people using it! its great to get rid of your unwanted stuff too.
All the people i have delt with have been fantastic, and the people collecting stuff from me really appreciative.