Old Mobile (cell) Phones

[Greg Oman]

While there are a few options to donate your phones, there also are places that may pay you for them (if they're in decent shape and relatively recent). Since I recently upgraded my old Samsung Omnia, that I rarely used due to it's poor OS (yes, I chose it intentionally...) I did some investigation.

I'm not wanting to bash any specific website/retailer program, but as I "googled around" a few that I dug into had quite a few user complaints, and doing a BBB lookup didn't provide a lot of re-assurance.

The elephant in the room is usually that people will complain when they feel they've gotten a bad deal, and who knows, cell phones certainly are devices that can exposed to a fair amount of abuse-- yea, we've all dropped them at one time, it happens. The biggest complaint seemed to be that you fill out a form online, the vendor pays for shipping, and then when they receive the device, they issue a credit-- and that's where the problem generally lies. What you thought you'd get $20 for (or whatever) based on your opinion of the condition, seemed to be a problem when the vendor claimed the item didn't work, or any other opinion that leads them to try to give you $5 instead (or offer to ship it back for an amount that is generally unattractive so you just concede).

So, if you made it this far, and are in a similar quandry, consider Radio Shack. They can do the appraisal in the store and you have nothing to risk. Heck, check they tool out online and see, but then go into the store and if your opinion and their opinion on value/condition match, they'll issue you a gift card on the spot for that value.  Yea, you have to spend this new found money with them, but if you're trolling this forum, I'm betting that you can find something there to spend it on.

As always, it's buyer/seller beware, but this approach seems to address the difference of opinion in valuations of items between a buyer and a seller. My personal experience today was :award

Greg O.