What would you do in this scenario?

**Mick** · 10-09-2010, 08:33 AM

Got a call yesterday to pick up an appliance in another town about eight miles away - free for the taking. I ask if it's outside as I don't go inside houses. He says it's in the garage. He then emails me directions to the place and in the email notes that the door is unlocked as everyone is "up north" hunting. I check my phone and see he'd called from an out-of-state phone number. I call and ask him where he is and find out he's in New Hampshire - I'm in central Maine and the occupants of where he wants me to pick up the stuff are in northern Maine.

I emailed him to let me know when someone would be there as I don't want to be mistaken for a burglar.

What would you have done?

**ScrapKnowitAll** · 10-09-2010, 09:10 AM

Don't do it. It's only an appliance.

Unless you know the person, or someone you know told that person to call you, I'd say it sounds not only sketchy, but not even worth the drive.

Well it might be good to get some future work, but all in all it sounds like it wouldn't make any money anyways.

**Mick** · 10-09-2010, 10:28 AM

I just got another piece of the puzzle. The guy in NH called and said the people who actually lived(d) there wouldn't be there because they'd been evicted. No way I want in the middle of something like that. I told him that if there would be someone there to let me know, otherwise "No, thanks".

**CAS** · 10-10-2010, 10:15 AM

I wouldn't have touched that one. If it doesn't feel "right", it's better to err on the side of caution.

It sounds like tennant/landlord dispute that could have gotten you into trouble.

**Mick** · 10-10-2010, 10:58 AM

This just got weirder and weirder. He put it back on Craig's List and it had to be gone by 3:00PM yesterday. At 4:00, I got a call from him saying he understood my concern, so his dad was going to drive up from Portland (88.5 miles one-way) to be there for me and gave me his dad's phone # in Portland. I call him to arrange to meet him. He asks if his son had told me that someone was supposed to be coming to pick it up but the son wasn't sure it had been picked up. I said he hadn't. The dad suggested I wait till he got there and called to confirm it was still there. Then we'd meet closer to me. A little over TWO HOURS later he called and said it wasn't there after all. The dad drove 88 miles to get one refrigerator out of a vacant house and give it away. The son had already told me there were other appliances in there and how to identify what I was suppose to take from the garage. The dad said the other people who were supposedly picking it up wasn't answering the son's calls to confirm pickup.

I thanked him for calling to let me know and went out for a nice supper.