Freecycle

Horrible been member of leeds 22 days.in that time i been modded unmodded then modded again.gestapo mods.i posted lots of offers and was kept waitin forever before they went on.i posted 1 wanted and mod deleted it so tried again n same thing happened.horrible way to treat new members.now told 1 wanted ad every 30 days.i never even got 1 on.dont know why they like this.every 30 days are they serious.i seen multiple wanteds go on from obviously not modded folks.one rule for thee etc shambles.i have withdrawn my offers now.we are not kids and this is not good to be treated like one.also there was an ad of a lady offering sex services complete with 3 nude pics she was unmodded.it didnt get removed til next morning was on all night.a few weeks ago the site was run brilliantly and now its a crock.

I made post giving away my living room set. I noticed a typo that I made and edited it. The edit was rejected for "Duplicate Post" and my whole post deleted. I complained about it and they said they are volunteers and don't deserve abuse and asked that I repost it. So I did and guess what! Deleted again for duplicate post! I did get heated and cursed out the moderator at this point but I was pushed to that due to their crappy moderation. I legit was trying to give away a full living room set. Now it is going to be thrown away and nobody gets it because I refuse to post it a third time. If you use this site, don't try to correct your typos! The moderation staff doesn't understand the difference between an edit and a new post!

It was straightforward before, when emails were simply redirected. Now I have to log in for every message and was unable to change that setting. Callie997 didn't show! She (Gemma), didn't message. I waited in all morning to give away a like-new £100 memory foam mattress. My complaint about her to the moderator just got an error message, time and time again. My post was inaccessible and I could not change it from 'taken".

I've been a Freecycle member for at least 10 years. I may have learned about it through Mary Hunt's "Everyday Cheapskate" column. It was a pretty straightforward way of letting other members know I had something to give away; it was also easy to respond to other folks' postings. I periodically would do some purging and list items. If I recall correctly, I usually had at least one response to a posting.

For those unfamiliar with Freecycle, one signs up for an account (it's free). When a post is made, an e-mail is sent to all the members in that particular town group. If a recipient is interested, it used to be that one simply hit the reply feature on your e-mail and the poster would then get an e-mail from the recipient. Then the two parties could communicate back/forth via e-mail to arrange pick-up of the item.

Also, once an item was no longer available, the poster could update the listing by saying it was taken. Then, an e-mail would go out to all members advising that the item was no longer available.

I noticed in the last year or so that when an item is marked as taken by the poster, an e-mail to that effect is no longer sent out. Instead, if a person tried to send an e-mail to the poster to see if it was still available, the sender would get a response saying something like the item is no longer available.

I don't often post and seldom respond to a posting, but in recent months I've noticed that one can no longer simply hit the reply on the Freecycle e-mail. Now, if one wants to express interest in an item, one has to log in to his/her account, find the listing, and then send a message.

A couple days ago I made three offer posts. The first one (10:12 a.m.) was for two partial sheet/pillow case sets, the second was for two framed pics, and the third was for some fragrances. The third one was approved and appeared in my e-mail inbox almost as soon as I submitted it. The sheet post wasn't approved until 9:48 p.m. The next morning the framed pic post was still not approved. When I went into my account, it was gone. Now, my first thought would be that perhaps I hadn't hit the final button to submit the post once I had typed the info and attached the pic. However, once a post is submitted, the poster also gets a screen showing how the post will appear when it goes out and I'm pretty sure I saw that screen. I then sent a message to the moderators, expressing surprise that my third post went right through, that my first post was pending for 11 hours, and my second post mysteriously disappeared. THREE DAYS later I'm still waiting for a reply. Based on other reviews on this site, I guess I shouldn't hold my breath that anyone will ever get back to me.

Another thing that is a change--and not for the better--is that when making a post, one no longer has a large box in which to write. Instead, you get a one-line high horizontal box. You can type a lot--nearly 1000 characters--but you can only see a portion of it. So, when one is done typing and wants to go back to the beginning to proofread, you have to use the cursor and go backwards to the beginning and then cursor back again to the end to read what's typed.

In the last year or so (probably since the new web format came out spring 2021) I've noticed a drop in the number of e-mails for new Freecycle posting. I suspect that people are moving away from Freecycle and to other platforms (i. E., FB buy nothing groups) that don't make users go through as many hoops as Freecycle now does. Not saying that FB is perfect but listing items and responding to others' posts are more user friendly.

So, while I'm not planning to close my Freecycle account (at least not yet), I will probably quit posting items on it and use FB instead. I may still reply if there's an offer of something I'd like.

As a result, we purchased a small waste incinerator from them, which, for example, can be installed and used in a greenhouse. Such a stove is made on the principle of solid fuel stoves. In which garbage mixed with chips is placed. We took small sizes, so after experimenting, we realized that our own garbage was enough to use it, and at first we also intended to dispose of the neighbor's garbage in this way.

This website used to be simple to use, have a slick & easy interface and was user friendly. You were presented with a simple list of items on offer and any you wanted to look at you would click on to see more. Nothing fancy, just simple and functional.

HOWEVER, they decided to mess it all around in May this year, it's now slow, the interface is user hostile and it loads picures of everything, even stuff that has alredy gone (who thought that was a good idea, sucking up one's data for no good reason?) and you only get a few items load and have to keep clicking the 'more' button and the site is a horror to navigate.

I was a regular user, both donating and sometimes collecting items, now this website is so bad I have regretfully been dumping things into landfill at my local tip as the website is so bad!

If the freecycle web designers read this review then PLEASE upload the old website and take the new monstrosity down for good!