Best place to trade in old mobile phones? (All in aid of autistic boy)

Access

Posted this over in the mobile/PDA forum... but got no replys

mods feel free to move if needs be...

We have collected a hell of a lot of old working/non working mobile phones for my nephew who is autistic, and basically if we send all (180 approx) into irish autism action (IAA) he will get an Ipad 2 with all the autism apps and a hard case for free delivered to him to aid in his daily life.

Problem is that it has taken well over a year to collect these now and i have been told by work colleagues and friends that if i was just to trade these into one of the phone trade in companies i would prob comes out with about on average about €5 a phone which would equate to about €900!

We would really like to know our best option here, as i see it, we could just trade them in now to IAA, and he would get his Ipad to help him,

But then, if we got more money from some other crowd by trading them in, we could buy him the ipad 2 with all the extras and possibly have enough left over to buy an extra ipad for his brother who is also special needs or at least put the money towards his speech therapy or his occupational therapy.


Does anyone have any advice or expertise on where we could get the best price or value on trading them in, as it took so so long to accumulate these phones and we just want to get the best return on our collecting for the boys.

Thanks.

Mincork

Firslty , best of luck with the collection , as I too have been collecting for a long time but still a way to go. Afraid I have no advice icw your question , but can tell you that I have been to a few mobile repairs places looking for mobiles and was told by them that if I let them choose one of my mobiles they will replace it with two of there phones.

Cheers

M

Access

Thanks for that... was going to look into the mobile phone recycling companies online but am a bit wary of all the horror stories!

mp3ireland2

I've used envirofone before and though they were quite good. Could be awkward with 180 phones though, as you specify each phone you are selling to them and they give you the price they will pay you (if phone is working without any problems) they send you out envelopes to post in the phones and let you know if the price has been revised (if phone is damaged or missing a battery or whatever) I got about €100 fpor 7 or 8 old phones as far as i remember, some prices can be low though if it's a really old phone and is damaged badly! I only got €0.51 for a brick of a nokia which wasn't working....I'd say contact them and let them know your situation...see if they'd send out a courier to collect them or something, save you going through the hassle of identifying all phones online. You are under no obligation to take the price they offer, so you can just get the phones back if they aren't giving you much money. Other sites may also be good but this was the one I happened to use!

Access

mp3ireland2 wrote: »

I've used envirofone before and though they were quite good. Could be awkward with 180 phones though, as you specify each phone you are selling to them and they give you the price they will pay you (if phone is working without any problems) they send you out envelopes to post in the phones and let you know if the price has been revised (if phone is damaged or missing a battery or whatever) I got about €100 fpor 7 or 8 old phones as far as i remember, some prices can be low though if it's a really old phone and is damaged badly! I only got €0.51 for a brick of a nokia which wasn't working....I'd say contact them and let them know your situation...see if they'd send out a courier to collect them or something, save you going through the hassle of identifying all phones online. You are under no obligation to take the price they offer, so you can just get the phones back if they aren't giving you much money. Other sites may also be good but this was the one I happened to use!

Thanks for that info mp3, knew of them but didnt know of anyone who used them. What would have been the turn around time on posting them to receiving payment on the few you sent though?

Any other companies/places people can recommend?

mp3ireland2

Access wrote: »

Thanks for that info mp3, knew of them but didnt know of anyone who used them. What would have been the turn around time on posting them to receiving payment on the few you sent though?

Any other companies/places people can recommend?

from memory it was within a week but it was over 2 years ago so not too sure how long it was. Just on there website there and saw the following:

How many have you got?! You can sell as many as you like. If you have 15 or more mobile phones/devices to sell then call us on 1800550112.

So could be worth calling them and see what they say!

glorified g

Well done on collecting so many! Xtravision have recently started working with a company called swapkit. Basically you go in with the phones, they do a quick check for damage etc and if its ok they will give you a price from the online database. From what I remember it was very reasonable.

The money has to be used in an Xtravision store (put on a giftcard) but they have just started to sell iPads (literally in the last week or two so great timing).

If you decide to go with them I would advise asking for a manager to do it for you as it will be a lot quicker Depending on what store you go to they might not have the iPad in stock but it shouldn't take more than a few days to get you one!

Hope that is of some help to you!
Best of luck!