Giving stuff away on GT

When I have previously given stuff away on GT (eg an old workbench) there have usually been half a dozen enquiries and have always offered items to the first enquirer. Sometimes its pretty obvious that these people are going to just onsell them eg the guy that came to pick up the filthy old bench with his BMW 4WD straight up said he was taking it to his wife's antique shop. I'd rather see these items go direct to someone that would use it.

Last night I advertised a free antique looking dresser and within an hour I had 39 enquiries (I read none of the enquiries) and this time I decided to offer it first to the 39th caller.

I don't want to get into reading dozens of possibly BS sob stories etc and don't really want to just put the stuff on the verge with the weather they way it is - just wondering how other people select who they give stuff away to.

Put a nominal price on it. My neighbour does this occasionally and found the same as you. Some people will take anything if it's free. As soon as it's $5 the inquiries drop away.

We have a box of stuff on the verge atm, paperbacks, some old flippers and rollerblades etc. but I'm reluctant to offer anything to anyone after some ah came into my front yard a couple of months back and stole a perfectly good panasonic air conditioner, almost certainly for scrap metal. You are lucky I'm typing this and you're not hearing it. Even now there are lots of extra words involved
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I agree that it’s worth listing it with a nominal price. Even if you don’t charge the buyer when they collect it will instantly filter out a lot of tire kickers.

I think that there is a search function on Gumtree for free items so anything advertised as such will reach plenty of people with the auto notification settings.

Well that seemed to work nicely.
AT 9am I advertised 3 things on GT but this time put a price on them of ~2/3rd to 1/2 the average GT asking prices for said items.
The have been some 20 visitors to the ads but zero enquiries.