You should never want to do a trade in with any company out to make a profit off of you.
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Apple's Trade-In Partner Phobio Has Reportedly Faced an 'Alarming Uptick' in Complaints
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I suffered last summer from Phobio's bait-and-switch. They claimed damage to my laptop's display and cut the offer upon inspection. When I declined the revised offer, they sent the laptop back to me without my charging cord and very dirty. I also hope Apple drops them. I got much better treatment at another trade-in company, which did not find the same problems claimed by Phobio and which I have subsequently used again.
Relieved not to have had any trouble at all with recent trade-in on a couple of Series 4 Apple Watch, an iPhone 11 and an 11 Pro.
But it seems Apple uses a different partner for EU/UK trade-ins – Brightstar – who upheld the estimated value on all four of those trades, thankfully, and were pretty quick about it too.
But it seems Apple uses a different partner for EU/UK trade-ins – Brightstar – who upheld the estimated value on all four of those trades, thankfully, and were pretty quick about it too.
Best bet if you have the time & savvy - sell it on eBay or a local Craigslist as you'll get far more than Apple or any other outfits ever state.
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If this is the case, they can surely send very precise reports on the failures, as the ATE machine produces these reports. People telling they send photos of wrong units does tell a slightly different story, doesn’t it.
It is unlikely Phobio would be a scam. However, if someone in the chain is incentivized in a bad way, very strange things may happen. Is someone being paid bonuses for something?
And this is why with apple trade in Im going to do it in store..since I want to get the new ipad pro going to trade in my 2018 model to get it..will trade it in person
The $200M company behind device trade-in programs - Business Podcast for Startups
I used to think if I went to the store to buy a new phone and traded in my old phone that my phone was going back to the manufacturer to be refurbished and resold. It turns out that is not at all true. Turns out whoever you got your phone from is actually using another company to handle all...
Andrew: All right. The name, Phobio, what is it?
Stephen: Man, officially, it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just kind of made up nonsense word. Drew, my co-founder, and I had worked in a lot in a . . . We’ve done a lot of marketing, freelance marketing and help people with branding and stuff. And we basically had this very cynical view of branding that it, like, totally doesn’t matter. And we’ve dealt with so many people that were like, “I need an awesome website and my business card needs to be like amazing. Like, as soon as you give it to people they need to be like shocked with how good it is.”
And we were like, “Okay, that’s awesome. What do you guys do?” And we’re like, “We haven’t figured out what we’re doing yet.” Okay. So we just like we resisted this idea that we needed to, like, have an awesome brand or whatever. So we waited as long as possible. I think it was like we had already kind of set up most of the kind of like 3PL stuff, and we had like arrangements in place to do pretty much everything, and it was the last possible minute, we needed to call this something.
And I think we had like 25 text messages going back and forth on like, “Okay. What are we going to do?” And we came up with this like method where we were going to just like, at a random time, one of us was going to assign the other to come up with a name. And so the next time I saw Drew, I was like, “Okay, dude, you have 30 seconds. Give me a name and then we’re never going to talk about it again.” And so he said . . . We gave him 30 seconds and he said, “How about Buzz Saw?” He was like, “You have 30 more seconds,” and like bunch of names came out, like Phone Heap and Phone Hole. And then one of us was like, “Well, why don’t we just make it like nothing? Let’s just call it like Phobio or something.” And like, I don’t even think we agreed on it. It’s just, like, somebody ran with it and, like, that’s just the way it.
Apple just recently started allowing in-store trade-ins again, and just in the last month or so opened it to Macs. Previously, if you wanted to trade in a Mac of any sort - from MacBooks to iMacs - you had to mail it to Phobio. There was no choice if you wanted to do the Apple Trade-In program. The valuation I got at the store and from Phobio were the exact same for my iPad Pro 10.5 I traded in a couple weeks ago.
But the problem is a lot of devices are suddenly showing up with damage that they did not have when they were sent in. It's not just a dead pixel here or there or light bleed - which btw have shown up on brand new products I have purchased - but cracked screens, dented cases, etc. Either Phobio is getting the devices mixed up when it comes in or they are lying to customers about the actual condition of the device when they received it and are paying them less while Apple is paying Phobio the original amount agreed to.
Side note, I almost did a Phobio trade in online through Apple with my iPad Pro a couple weeks ago and I'm so glad I did some research on here and elsewhere because I was able to conclude they are a shady company and did in-store trade in. This option, had I opted to trade in just a month prior, would not have been available to me because the stores were still closed. I believe this is why we're seeing a huge increase in the number of cases we are seeing.
Additionally, the box they sent for my 10.5 iPad Pro looked like it would have barely held the device. The only protection it had was cellophane that you slip the device into to hold onto it. I was expecting something like the white box the replacement devices come in to cradle the device and made sure it arrived in tact. All I got was some cheap, flimsy cardboard box with this cellophane inside that was supposed to hold a device that's basically a sheet of glass.
Obviously doing an in-store trade in would be best. But a lot of Apple stores were closed due to the pandemic. So a lot of people turned to Phobio. Phobio must've seen an opportunity and took advantage of the situation. 🤷♂️
wow, that's like fascinating and stuff. thanks for like sharing this — i see how wrong i like was.
The $200M company behind device trade-in programs - Business Podcast for Startups
I used to think if I went to the store to buy a new phone and traded in my old phone that my phone was going back to the manufacturer to be refurbished and resold. It turns out that is not at all true. Turns out whoever you got your phone from is actually using another company to handle all...mixergy.com
Andrew: All right. The name, Phobio, what is it?
Stephen: Man, officially, it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just kind of made up nonsense word. Drew, my co-founder, and I had worked in a lot in a . . . We’ve done a lot of marketing, freelance marketing and help people with branding and stuff. And we basically had this very cynical view of branding that it, like, totally doesn’t matter. And we’ve dealt with so many people that were like, “I need an awesome website and my business card needs to be like amazing. Like, as soon as you give it to people they need to be like shocked with how good it is.”
And we were like, “Okay, that’s awesome. What do you guys do?” And we’re like, “We haven’t figured out what we’re doing yet.” Okay. So we just like we resisted this idea that we needed to, like, have an awesome brand or whatever. So we waited as long as possible. I think it was like we had already kind of set up most of the kind of like 3PL stuff, and we had like arrangements in place to do pretty much everything, and it was the last possible minute, we needed to call this something.
And I think we had like 25 text messages going back and forth on like, “Okay. What are we going to do?” And we came up with this like method where we were going to just like, at a random time, one of us was going to assign the other to come up with a name. And so the next time I saw Drew, I was like, “Okay, dude, you have 30 seconds. Give me a name and then we’re never going to talk about it again.” And so he said . . . We gave him 30 seconds and he said, “How about Buzz Saw?” He was like, “You have 30 more seconds,” and like bunch of names came out, like Phone Heap and Phone Hole. And then one of us was like, “Well, why don’t we just make it like nothing? Let’s just call it like Phobio or something.” And like, I don’t even think we agreed on it. It’s just, like, somebody ran with it and, like, that’s just the way it.
I'm not surprised at all to see this. I traded in an Apple Watch Series 5 last Fall that was in as mint of condition as something a year old could possibly be and they said it arrived with the screen broken. I asked for them to send it back to me where it was, in fact, still in mint condition and I just sold it on my own. Super shady.
Costco also uses Phobio for their trade in program in exchange for a Costco Shop Card. Oddly enough, the Phobio quote through Costco was $50 higher than Apple for my 2015 27" iMac i5/8GB/2TB Fusion last December 2020. Receiving the shipping box from Phobio took weeks. When the iMac was received by Phobio, the offer was dropped from $485 to $0. They claimed they could not securely erase the hard drive. I refused the offer for them to recycle the iMac. It took a few more weeks for the iMac to be returned to me. Fortunately, it was returned in the same physical condition. The Fusion drive was split and had to be re-created, but otherwise, the iMac works fine.
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Just heads up you quoted the wrong person. I was actually pointing this out to the person you meant to quote. But yes, you're right.
They tried pulling this **** with me a few years back and i almost decided to give them a 2nd chance with my Imac and i am glad i did not because of this nonsense. Apple needs to offer in house trade ins on all their products directly!
I've done 3 trades with Phobio and am pretty frustrated with the process. They lack the ability to put any kind of note our comments attached to your trade, the final trade value is always considerably less than their initial offer, and to their own admission *their website isn't compatible with Safari!* The online chat doesn't work and they don't reply to emails. Frustrating across the board. I didn't get anything for my last trade and didn't gee the device back either. Be warned.
In other news, just got confirmation from Samsung that my iPad 2 trade-in for $250 was successfully completed. Apple only offered to recycle it.
I got the same run-around. Originally quoted $330 for a 2017 macbook air. Then mysteriously dropped to $130 after the "3 white spots" thing. They even included a picture of a display that clearly was not a 2017 macbook air.
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They aren't the only ones pulling this scam. A quick google search for any of these trade-in companies will give similar complaints.
Years ago I sent an unlocked iPhone to one of them (not this one) and they contacted me with a much lower offer because the phone wasn't unlocked. Quite funny since I bought the phone in full from Apple as SIM-free. Used the phone on both AT&T and Verizon no problem. After I told them that they quickly changed their tune with some excuse and gave me the initial offer price.
It seems these companies just randomly pick a % of devices to claim something is wrong and offer less just to see if they can get away with it. Always stick up for yourself if you are in the right!
Years ago I sent an unlocked iPhone to one of them (not this one) and they contacted me with a much lower offer because the phone wasn't unlocked. Quite funny since I bought the phone in full from Apple as SIM-free. Used the phone on both AT&T and Verizon no problem. After I told them that they quickly changed their tune with some excuse and gave me the initial offer price.
It seems these companies just randomly pick a % of devices to claim something is wrong and offer less just to see if they can get away with it. Always stick up for yourself if you are in the right!
They are a company that is driven like insurance companies. Every $ saved on a claim is a 10c bonus to someone for getting the customer to accept a lower amount.
I had this exact experience with them. I purchased an M1 MacBook Pro and traded in my 2018 MBP. I was informed that there were "three or more white spots" which did not exist. I took that same computer into an Apple store to see if it could be traded in and, lo and behold, three people from the store inspected the computer and could find nothing wrong. I walked out with money in my pocket.
I had this experience last year when I traded in my iMac Pro. They said that it was not in working condition so they gave it 1/2 of their original asking price. I had already purchased my next computer needed the money to cover the difference. I was very displeased.
So clever of Apple to divert all this heat from themselves. Almost no negative comments about Apple in this thread.
Phobio goes under, while Apple sales skyrocket with trade-in incentives.
kudos
Phobio goes under, while Apple sales skyrocket with trade-in incentives.
kudos