I know I talk about the Facebook yard sale sites pretty frequently, but I just HAVE to pass on this warning after talking to my friend about her experience.
My friend recently posted a bunch of boxes on the site for FREE to people who needed moving boxes. She lives in a military community, so the demand for sturdy cardboard is pretty high. As expected, someone responded right away and picked up the boxes. She gave away about 3 lots of boxes total.
Well, a few weeks later she's getting ready for work and a cop appears at her door with a piece of paper. Apparently she had left a sales receipt from an online order in one of the boxes. It had her name and address on it. The boxes she had given away were illegally dumped along with some other trash. The paper with her name and address was found in the pile, leading the police to her door.
She explained the situation and was told that she could either clean it up that day or pay a $500 littering fee and face other penalties as well.
She wound up cleaning the trash up to avoid the trouble, but she'll probably be hesitant to give stuff away on the site again. Let that be a warning - giving away something as seemingly unimportant as some moving boxes can bite you in the butt. Be careful what you give away and make sure there's no personal information attached to it.
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