Many requests on Freecycle are clothing related or nursery and baby item related. By browsing ones local Freecycle group you will find items listed from aquariums to rock tumblers to baseball cards and match box cars. I wouldn't look to Freecycle if you are a collector looking for collectible or valuable items. Most of the stuff you'll find on free cycle has been heavily used and might be in need of repair. As an example I found a listing for a small cache of matchbox cars and hot wheels and other similar toy cars. The person offering the items said they were of their children's and that they were free for the taking. Upon arriving at their location I found that every single one of the cars was flattened, missing wheels, badly beaten up and basically ready for the trash pile.

None of these cars was something that my son could really play with. Some of them even look like they had had an m-80 or similar large firecracker taped to them and blown up. Some were even charred enough that they'd looked like they'd been in a fire. Now I know that they were free, so I'm not complaining but the only use that they had was probably to go to a metal smelting center where they could've been melted down and maybe turn into newer cars or metal for some other use.

Another thing to watch out for with Freecycle is that many people promise something but don't deliver on it. What I mean by this is that for instance if you put something up there to offer and someone promises to come by and pick up don't count on it. Nine times out of 10 or even worse they won't come. I put up some asked for moving boxes that I had that were basically laying around gathering dust. Several people said that they would come by and pick them up numerous times. I never saw one of them until one day one person came by and took the boxes and then started to try and take some planters that we had upfront they were completely unrelated to the boxes and were never offered in the first place.

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That is something else he has to watch out for with Freecycle and this has been in the news in numerous cities as of recent - it's that you need to be very careful and make sure there's nothing else accessible to these folks accept for exactly what you're offering. Otherwise they will take that too and anything else they can get their hands on. The best advice is to put the items at the farthest end of your curb set where there is not even the slightest hint that there's anything else for them to pick up or take.

So that is the basics of Freecycle. Is easy-to-use, doesn't cost anything and you can basically request or offer anything set for of course illegal drugs, and other items which would not be allowed or a part of their terms of service. Craigslist does offer the same thing as Freecycle in bartering and allows much more description, pictures of the items and more detail. Also Craigslist offers more of a community and of course items and services for sale. So in this aspect Craigslist has more to offer. However, just like with Freecycle, Craigslist has its share of problems, outright scams, and more.

One thing that definitely watch out for in craigslist and it is very unfortunate that people do stupid these levels of pranks, fortunately Craigslist and the police have gotten very adept at catching these criminals, but the pranks and I'm talking about here are the ones where someone finds out a enemy of theirs or person they gravely dislike is out of town and puts their home, belongings, etc. in a post on craigslist and then states that all items are free for the taking or something similar. This happened recently in a man had a bunch of his possessions including horse and other things taken from his property.

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Fortunately the police caught the varmints that did that and they now have a nice criminal record to boot. I hope they ended up doing some jail time for that to as that is just plumb wrong. Other things to watch out for in Craigslist are typical scams like people advertising themselves as local business people when in fact they're not. Usually you can root this out by looking for a local phone number and then going from Craigslist and look them up separately on the Internet or in your local phone book.

The rule was Craigslist - and Craigslist even posts this on numerous pages on their site - is that if they are foreign or even nonlocal it is probably a scam. In fact, if it is foreign then it most likely is a scam. The foreign ads can be in the form of a Nigerian scam or even lately these Obama is giving out refund checks or bailout checks or stimulus checks ads and what not. What amazes me is that Google with their Google ads program has not ousted these ads as of yet. Just look at any set of Google ads and are probably see in there somewhere something about stimulus checks, someone claiming that they've received $30,000 from the stimulus package for their own personal use and how you can get it too, etc.  These are all scams.

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Another thing to watch out for in Craigslist is some of the people offering services are not licensed to do those services. That doesn't mean that they can't do them but that does mean that you're taking a larger risk because they may not be bonded and insured. This means that if they have an accident while working at your house or on your car you can be held responsible for any and all medical payments and bills that they receive because they were doing work for you. You need to always make sure that someone is licensed to do the work that you need to have done.

Now this does not mean that every person that has services for sale or offer on Craigslist is not licensed. Actually, you will find quite a few of them are, just beware of those that are and make sure that you know whether they are licensed or not because in the end you're the one that fits the bill if something goes wrong and that can be a very large bill very fast. Basically, as with anything else, do your due diligence with Craigslist offers.

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So in the end it isn't really that one is better than the other they're two different services. Freecycle is a very easy-to-use no-frills free bartering service. Craigslist has a lot more users, has been around a lot longer and does have more to offer, but it also has a lot more fraud and other stuff you need to watch out for. It's kind of like the TV ads you saw or had seen of the PC version of the Mac. The PC has millions of viruses written for it and worms, Trojan horses, and other malware programs. The Mac has fewer users and thusly has very few viruses and malware programs written for it. So free cycle there isn't a lot to watch out for except for maybe the people coming by your property and trying to help themselves to more than they're entitled to, whereas on craigslist where you just basically need to be alert from the moment that you logon.