It can be fun to recycle your old mobile phone for some cash instead of throwing it in the trash. Phone recycling is easy – you simply need to contact one of the many phone recycling websites on the Internet, send in your phone and collect cash.
These businesses can either resell your phone or at least break them down to use them for parts.
However, if you have a broken phone you can often get more cash back by getting it repaired first.
What kind of fraud occurs?
The average old smartphone can be worth anything from £25 to £100. This is a large enough sum of money to tempt many phone recycling businesses to attempt fraud. The most frequently seen example of fraud occurs when a recycling business promises a reasonable sum of money but finds reasons to whittle the price down when the phone is actually sent in. They can come up with a number of stories why the phone is worth less than what they originally thought.
- Even if you send in a phone in pristine condition, they can lie and claim that your phone is in terrible shape. Some are even known to Photoshop the image of the phones they receive and fake proof of damage.
- If you don’t accept a quote for your phone that’s lower than originally promised, you are asked to pay a very high shipping charge to get your phone back. These shipping charges are usually buried in the terms and conditions in the buyer’s contract in a place that is hard to find.
- They can claim that your phone has some kind of software defect or that it is password/pin-locked and is therefore unusable. If your phone has no password lock, they will put one in themselves. They usually offer very little money for such phones.
Shop around before shipping your phone off
It’s easy to find good, reputable phone recycling services. You simply need to check out the reviews at a user review website like Trust Pilot. Phone recycling services like Mazuma, iPhoneRecycling, and Fonebank have excellent reputations.
You have other alternatives when it comes to selling your phone
If you simply want to get rid of your old phone rather than make some money on it, you can ask a charity shop about Retail Gift Aid. This is a government scheme approved by Revenue and Customs that allows charity shops to sell the gifts they receive and use the money for a legitimate cause.
Getting a trade-in on your old phone can be a good idea, too. Here again, you need to make sure that the store doesn’t try any tricks. Stores are known to quote inflated prices to trade-in customers. You should also watch out to make sure that the salesman doesn’t try any high-pressure sales tactics on you. One particular hard-sell tactic is expressly banned by law now – no salesperson can now tell you to accept a deal quickly because the deal is only on for a short time.
Finally, if you find a phone recycler offering you a much better price than any other competing business, you should be skeptical.
This article was penned by Chris who has been in the phone industry for nearly 10 years, and enjoys to offer his advice to anyone looking to sell on their old electronics.
