acquaintance pleading poverty to scam me ....

Mmmmm - thats' no good, whilst he is having excellent 'free' accommodation, then there is someone who is waiting or having to pay who can't afford it. Maybe you could ask her for a 'donation from his inheritance' to give to a local charity.

Yes, you are. Nobody is scamming you if you are (or were) prepared to give the items away.

This woman may be deceiving whoever is providing means-tested accommodation for her son but she isn't scamming you. Even if she took the CDs and sold them on she wouldn't be scamming you.

If this kind of thing bothers you either sell the items yourself or give them away at arms length to a charity shop.

Sweetie222 You can offer them to someone else who takes the time to answer your post on FB you do not have to offer them to this person.
Have you thought of offering them to a Charity Shop so some funds may be raised for their charity.

Sweetie222 I know how you feel. We freegled DH's violin, the one he had as a child when he was starting to learn, old and not very good.

We gave it to someone who told us his child wanted to learn music and would get lessons at school if he could get hold of a violin.

We went to an auction a few weeks later - and there was the violin, it fetched £20.

If you are offering something free, why worry about who gets it? If you donate to a charity shop do you insist that the items only go to the 'deserving poor'?

There are people who always grab items offered on FB 'pass it on' pages. I've seen it myself and wonder how the same person can possibly need all the different things they ask for, but the bottom line is that these pages are to get rid of unwanted items, and they save you the bother of taking them to the charity shop. I don't think you can get precious about how much the recipient 'needs' them, to be honest.

I was happy to give them free to anyone who could use/enjoy them.. It was just shocking that someone who misunderstood and thought i was selling lied and used her son's disabled status to try to either get the price down or let her have them free.

Cd's aside, this lady is committing fraud.
An anon call to authorities wouldnt be a bad idea

Sweetie222

I was happy to give them free to anyone who could use/enjoy them.. It was just shocking that someone who misunderstood and thought i was selling lied and used her son's disabled status to try to either get the price down or let her have them free.

I agree with what you say. Sweetie222.
I'd be peeved about it too. I can't stand those kind of people.
As they say, liars need good memories.

This person's son is taking up money (or is it actual property?) that could go to someone who can't afford to fund themselves. That is what would bug me.
I don't know why, but I would feel a bit guilty if I informed the DSS, or whatever they're called now.
There also does seem to be something rather 'off' if you give away an item and it's immediately sold for cash - although as some of you pointed out, the CDs were going free anyway, - it just leaves a bad taste.

Even if they were for sale the mother (affluent, several properties) could have bought/not bought them. Bringing the son's lack of income was a deliberate manipulation.

Decided, charity shop it is. Liked the idea of giving the pile to someone who enjoyed 80/90/00 music!

I'm sure the person who buys them from the charity shop will enjoy them, Sweetie222. And you'll have helped out others less fortunate as well.

When I freegle anything, I expect the person who gets it to be the end user. I am not bothered whether they are poor or rich.

We regularly use auctions and car boot sales to buy or sell and give things to a charity shop. But the essence of freegle is the free exchange between donor and end user. If there is money to be made out of something I will do it it myself. I am now putting much less on Freegle

There is just something about being part of a community of freeglers, that is destroyed by knowing that the person you have given something to for free is making money for someone else.

Housing Benefit fraud please telephone the National Fraud Hotline on 0800 854 440. Lines are open Monday to Friday 8am to 6pm.
www.gov.uk/report-benefit-fraud

People like those described above need to know that every lending institution in the country; banks, building societies, any company that takes your money and invests it for you, all of them have to make a return to the Inland Revenue each year giving names and addresses of investors, their balances and how much interest they earned.

When I worked as benfits advisors I had several clients who had to repay benefits because they had not revealed all their savings and investments, the sums involved were quite small. The biggest repayment was just under £1,000 and all were inadvertant, clients were elderly, struggling mentally and often in pain, so all they had to do was repay the money, no sanctions of any kind, but some people have ended up with prison sentences of up to 5 years for cheating like this.