Search for "preventing no shows"
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How do I prevent no-shows?
When someone arranges to come and pickup an item you're offering and then doesn't show up, it can be very annoying. Here are a few tips that long-time members use to reduce no-shows:
- Don't simply choose the first person to respond¹. Gather a few replies and choose someone who you think is most likely to show up. Good things to take into account are how well each person communicates with you and information on their profile including their feedback score², their posting history and how long they've been a member.
- When people reply to your Offer, they are required to provide a pick-up date and time. Try choosing someone who provides more specific dates and times that work for you. And make sure that when you post, you provide a more accurate post location as well as days or times when you are available.
- You can ask for a phone number to make it easy to remind people about the pickup and find out what's happening if they are late.
¹ You can use the Fair Chance Policy checkbox when posting to make it clear to everyone that you will wait before choosing a recipient.
² Feedback scores usually show up next to a persons' profile photo on the messages page and in the emails you receive from that person. Some members have not received any feedback and they won't have a visible feedback score.
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How do I choose who to give my offer to?
It's completely up to you! Some people choose the first person to respond but we usually recommend choosing someone who communicates clearly and makes it easy to schedule the pickup.
When you're choosing, you might want to keep some of the no-show prevention tips in mind to help you choose someone who is more likely to show up.
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How do I handle no-shows?
If you're offering an item and someone misses the arranged pick up, it's up to you how to handle it.
You can give the person a 2nd chance if you think it was an honest mistake and the other person communicated what happened.
Otherwise, you should offer your item to the next person in line* and make sure to leave feedback on the person who didn't show up. Feedback is anonymous and when you leave feedback, there's an option to say that they were a no show. This helps the moderators find and remove people who are repeat offenders.
If it's been a day or two and you don't have replies from other people, you should repost your post to encourage more replies.
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How does the Fair Chance Policy work?
The Fair Chance Policy is an optional policy that you can use when posting Offers. By using the policy, you agree to wait before choosing a recipient to give more people a chance to reply.
If you're not in a rush to give away your item, it's recommended to use the Fair Chance Policy as it can reduce no shows by helping you choose a person who is more likely to show up. It also gives people who receive the digest emails, or those who are online less frequently, a fair chance to reply.
The waiting time is usually just one day though some people may choose to wait shorter times.
As part of how the policy works, Trash Nothing will remind you how much longer you agreed to wait before choosing a recipient when you receive messages. But you can still reply to messages from other members before the wait time is up.
If you changed your mind and decide that you don't want to use the policy for a specific post, you can edit your post to turn off the policy for that post.
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I replied to a few posts but I never got any responses?
Sometimes emails end up in people's spam or junk mail folders so make sure you check the messages page and your spam mail folder for replies (sadly it's impossible to know if an email ends up in a recipients spam mail folder). And it never hurts to resend your message if you don't hear back within a day or two.
This can also happen when someone posts a popular item that causes them to get a lot of replies. Rather than reply to everyone, people often only reply to the person they choose to gift the item to. It's always up to the person giving away an item to choose who they want to receive their item so responding first doesn't mean you'll receive an item. Your best bet is to always send polite messages and be clear about when you can collect.
Other times, you won't receive responses because people forget to mark their offers as gifted. This causes their offers to stay published when they should have been removed. To help prevent this, posts are automatically removed from the listings after 90 days.
And a lot of posts get claimed within a few hours or days of being posted. So you're more likely to get a response if you reply soon after a post is published. You can see new posts more quickly by getting the digest emails more frequently or creating email alerts or by enabling push notifications.