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Posting a mobile phone off to be recycled

It’s one of the latest environmentally friendly crazes, but getting cash for your old mobile phone can prove more of a struggle than it’s worth.

More than 200,000 phones in the UK are sent off every month in exchange for money but it’s thought there are still around 68 million handsets lying around our homes, with an average value of £66.

But with more and more companies offering the service, how do you know who to use?

Carlene Carlson from Cardiff chose internet company Fonecraze. She told us, “They offered me £81.50 on website so I thought good price, told me what address to send mobile to, so immediately that’s what I did.�

But a month later they got back to her telling her they would only give her £61 for the handset or charge her £12 if she wanted it back.

She said, “They contacted me saying the £81.50 we're not giving you, we're giving you £61 instead because of a few scratches. I was outraged because I'd said the phone was used.�

She reluctantly accepted their lower offer but is still waiting for her money.

She says it’s left her very frustrated, “They haven't given me anything back, almost like I've been robbed. It's the principle, if someone is going to do something they should do what they say. They have my phone and what do I have in return?�

But Carlene’s not the only one to have contacted X-Ray about this. James Price was a cash strapped student so he contacted Skyphones to get money for his old iPhone 3.

He said, “I found them online, they told me they'd offer £227. It was a little higher than everyone else, good price, so I was very happy.�

But again once the company had the phone they wrote back to him with a lower offer, else it was £12 to get the handset back.Ìý

James told us, “When we sent if off there were no scratches, no marks on the phone so we were bit annoyed but we accepted that offer again - they sent me email saying they were going to transfer money to my bank account just never received it.

“I'm at university at the moment so £200 is a lot of money.�

But when X-Ray started to investigate these two companies we found they had the same London address and telephone number. We contacted them, but we’ve had no response.

We asked Kier McConomy, who runs the comparison site for his advice.

He offered the following tips:

BE WARY ON PRICE

Kier says, “I think the old saying - if something looks to good to be true, it probably is, is very true here.

“What I would advise, when selling your old mobile is to use a price comparison site. We noticed that on main handsets the difference in price from all the different companies is just a few pounds.

“So if you see a site advertising prices much, much higher than these I’d be wary of that.�

LOOK FOR STARS

Here Kier says, “Price comparison sites work hard to ensure the companies they deal with are reputable companies and they tend to give them star ratings so that’s a guide as to the good companies.�

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Kier tells us people should check out the background to any company they want to send their phone to, “Search for the company name on Google and in public forums to see if there is any bad feedback about the company.�