Do you still fill them and leave them out?

After many local reports of scammers taking these and selling the contents I always take my stuff in directly and use the bags as dustbin liners.

Is it the same in other parts of the country?

same here Laurie cheers Penny

And here too Laurie, blooming Scammers are into anything these days.

I use them as bin liners, take my stuff straight into charity shop.

Anything useable goes to a charity shop or disposed of on Freebie. We get at least 2 or 3 of those 'charity' bags each week (there really should be limits on the numbers!) and they're all quite clear that it's a commercial operation and that only 5% or 10% or, sometimes , not even a specified amount of the proceeds goes to the charity. Many of the charities named are obscure overseas ones - or just obscure - and mostly seem to involve medical research. We don't even bother using the bags for him liners, they're very fragile and tear easily. Straight in the recycling!

I stopped using the "freebie " type sites.

I put my dishwasher on one, fwo, and the guy that came for it, in his sixties in a car I certainly couldn't afford, berated me because the inlet hose was perished!