This website is for City employees.     |     COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) for Staff Resources

  1. Finance
  2. Surplus Equipment Process—What to Do With Unwanted City Items
  3. Optional: Posting on Online Marketplaces

Optional: Posting on Online Marketplaces

Links: 

www.Craigslist.org 

www.Freecycle.org 

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/ 

 

Remember: 

  • Online postings are only to be attempted once all previous steps (1-5) have been completed 
  • These items are not allowed to be sold, only donated 

 

General Tips: 

  • Facebook Marketplace
    • Facebook Marketplace appears to have less incidence of scammers and fraud due to the requirement that the accounts be linked to a Facebook page 
    • Facebook Marketplace comes with the added bonus of all communication being done through Facebook’s messenger app, meaning that you don’t have to give out any personal info like your email or phone number to complete the trade 
    • If you do choose to use Facebook Marketplace, check out the Facebook page of any users that reach out for signs of suspicious behavior (such as they have no friends, the profile was completed very recently, their profile photo is not of person or is clearly a stock image) 
    • Note: you do not have to become friends with someone on Facebook to complete the sale of an item. Do not accept friend requests from users you’re attempting to complete an exchange with 
  • Craigslist
    • Use the anonymize email feature on Craigslist 
    • Refresh your ads regularly if you don’t get immediate results (currently you can refresh most ads every two days). This puts the ad higher up in people’s search feeds and increases the likelihood of success 
  • All Platforms
    • Remove your ad as soon as you’re successful to save yourself some grief 
    • Minimize flakiness with strategies like “Only contact if you are ready to pick up the item immediately” 
    • Be VERY clear in your descriptions to minimize obnoxious questions 
    • Include something like “If you’re reading this then it’s still available”. Scammers will send “is it still available” notes only to harvest your real email when you reply.  
    • Write appealing but accurate descriptions & take good photos 
    • If you post your phone number, only use your office phone, and put spaces and maybe a couple underscores in it otherwise number harvesters could sell your number to telemarketers. (Ex. 3_1 8 45_2 23 43).  
    • Alternatively, you can also spell out your phone number (Ex. Three one eight, four five two, two three four three).  
    • Otherwise, only give your email when responding to someone’s inquiry 

 

Safety Tips (note this list is by no means comprehensive or exhaustive. Craigslist, Freecycle, and Facebook Marketplace may have other tips):  

  • Avoid transactions at night & set clear expectations of when someone is coming by 
  • Only give your address to someone you’ve talked with by phone, and only use City facility addresses (nothing personal!) 
  • See if your manager will allow you to leave it in an easily accessible place for someone and tell the person to simply pick it up 
  • If you get a bad vibe from someone, figure out a way to move on 
  • Treat people politely and with respect, even when they might be annoying or obnoxious (this one goes a long way to avoiding issues) 
Close window