A cautionary Freecycle tale

Most of us on this list are computer professionals, and our most important asset is probably our good name and a reputation for integrity and confidentiality; as such we also often have access to or even first dibs on equipment that's being upgraded or scrapped but is often still quite serviceable and useful once it's been cleaned up, confidential data erased, disks reformatted, etc. Being 'in the business' and having somehow collected 20 or 30 still quite serviceable P4+ systems but having run out of relatives, friends and friends of friends to give them to, I decided to explore and join the local Freecycle group a few weeks ago. After finding a happy new home for some items and also picking up a few items to repair and pass on or keep for myself, the list traffic suddenly stopped; when I inquired I was rudely told that I had been (unjustly) accused off-list of 'stealing' from someone's porch a broken laptop that I had inquired about but that had been promised to someone else, and without any notice or opportunity to respond I had been summarily banned and was even threatened with police involvement. I think as trusted industry professionals we should all ask ourselves whether the risk to our reputation that this sort of thing can have is worth it or if we should just let these items go to Asia or into landfill, and if we do in fact deal with people outside our community we should probably make sure that we maintain a separate identity from our professional one. Has anybody else had any experiences like this, and regretted trying to find new homes for slightly outdated equipment? Comments? mike