Re-selling

It occasionally comes to light that a member has been reselling goods that they have obtained on Freegle. Claiming or asking for items in order to resell or redistribute them does not violate Freegle guidelines directly, but many members prefer to give their items to people who will be using them not selling them.

Resellers should disclose their intention to resell/redistribute any item when accepting an offer and when making requests.

If you discover (or think) a member is failing to disclose this information when asked or when posting a wanted, you may wish to:

• Keep the member on permanent moderation.

• Write to the member informing them of the guidelines and warning them not to do it again.

• Issue a strike: a strike is warning for a serious misdemeanour; two strikes can lead to a member being unsubscribed - at the owner's discretion. (link to banning vs moderation)

• Send an admin to the group reminding them of the reselling guidelines.

Members can:

• Ask responders if they intend to resell an item before agreeing to gift it.

• Select the member they believe has sold their item when marking the post as taken, and adding a feedback comment for volunteers, so it can noted for any further action.

• A few groups do choose to have a policy of no reselling. It's worth bearing in mind that it is hard to prove that a member has been reselling goods that have been acquired via Freegle.

Tip: watch out for posts including links to sites like Ebay, Gumtree and Facebook.

Trashnothing

Here is an extract from Trashnothing help pages:

Is reselling allowed?

Resellers are members who receive free items and then sell them outside of trash nothing. Buying and selling on trash nothing is not allowed but reselling free items is a valid way to reuse items and keep them out of the landfill as long as resellers follow the rule below.

People who resell items must say in their posts and messages that they plan to resell items they receive. This gives the people giving away items the chance to decide whether they want their item to be resold or not.

To help them, there is a setting which can be ticked which puts the sentence you are asking about on to the member's posts.

If you have a question about your local groups' rules, please contact the moderators. If a post is breaking this rule, please report the post. If another member has broken this rule, please report the member.

See also

• Re-seller (sample messages to send to individual members)
• Reseller-admins (sample messages to send to the community)
• Scrap Metal (guidance on Freegle position on reselling metals)

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