Are you getting ripped off when you Sell your Cell Phone?

"Sell your old cell phone for cash! Up to $300 paid!"
Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? Almost as good as the promise of getting thousands of dollars for all that scrap gold everyone has sitting around the house that can be sold through the mail. Truth and advertising though are often different stories as we all know.
Well I am a believer that when it comes to recycling, cash is king. The idea of being rewarded for good behaviour (like recycling) is great and the fact is that fewer than 15% of all cell phones are currently recycled in North America. Globally it's a larger problem - a 2008 study by Nokia suggests that fewer than 3% of all old devices are recycled worldwide either through reuse or actual resource recovery and while awareness of the importance of recycling has undoubtedly increased, the results of various efforts are still suspect.
With over a billion mobile users worldwide the environmental toll of these waste devices, most of which contain toxic substances, is extremely high on our shared land, air, and water.
Consider that the average North American upgrades their phone at the most every 24 months and there is a substantial problem on our hands. The amazing thing is that most of the so-called obsolete phones that we deactivate in North America are still usable, and with a little effort we could get paid for them.
Which brings me to the point.
Like any business, the "sell your old cell phone for cash" services have to make money. This means that they are obviously paying you less than your cell phone is worth. In many cases many services will actually pay you nothing if your phone's battery is dead, even though it's a matter of $5 to replace with a little investigation. To give you an idea of the kind of difference in price though, a leading company offers $20 for a 3 year old BlackBerry Pearl. The same phone will sell online for $60 in the same condition. That means they're only giving you 30% of it's actual value and this is not an isolated case.
If you're starved for time selling your phone to one of those services might be ok for you but if you're like me, you might be open to investing a few minutes to sell it for triple the cash is something I would try. Unfortunately the options up until now have been limited to a few online sites - and if your item doesn't sell you're stuck paying for the ad.
For this reason I put together CellKitty.com a niche online marketplace which is open for anyone to exchange cell phones, buy or sell accessories, offer plans for takeover, or advertise cell phone related services.
Because I've spent a lot of money over the years on auction ads that didn't result in sales, I've configured this service to only charge fees if your sale is successful so no worries if it doesn't work out. Worst case scenario, you can always sell your phone to one of the "Sell your old cell phone for cash" services.

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