I always trade my phone in for ease and peace of mind. I've always sold stuff either here on the forums (always have happy buyers) or traded into Gazelle.
This year I sold my flawless 6 (and my wife's). Gazelle was doing $225, and NextWorth was doing $240, both with free shipping. I answered the questions on their questionnaire truthfully in order to arrive at a quote of $240 for each of our phones. My stuff is always, always flawless, because I'm super anal-retentive. Their short questionnaire is pretty standard - just asking about cracked screens, find my iPhone deactivated, etc. (note it looks like just in the last few days they've added a question about dents/scratches, but this was not present the other day when I assessed my trade value). Basically they just seem to care if the phone works, which is on par with most trade in places.
I figured I'd try NextWorth since they were paying more than Gazelle, and they were partnered with Swappa as their trade in company, and we all know Swappa is a forum darling. So I decided to give them a try this year.
Well, Gazelle sends you a box to send the stuff in, Nextworth doesn't. $15 later for a roll of tape, two boxes, and some bubble wrap at UPS, and the phones were in the mail, off to NextWorth. Pretty much a wash price-wise once you factor that in, oh well.
They received our phones last Thursday. I didn't hear anything until 9 PM Monday night, 4 days later, when I was told that my wife would be receiving $240, but that I would be receiving $120. They said the discrepancy was regarding the following question: "Powers on and fully functional (including buttons)?" where they said "No" to my "Yes" and they had a vague note from the inspector that said "WHITE SPOTS". I know for a fact there were no "WHITE SPOTS" on the display or the casing anywhere to be found.
So I emailed them back to inquire, because A) I *know* there were no defects, and B) None of their questions had anything to do with cosmetic condition beyond a cracked LCD. I told them that they would need to be able to present a picture of an obvious defect detrimental to the phone's functionality because the answer to the question regarding functionality was indeed yes, no matter what "WHITE SPOTS" there were. The phone powered on, the buttons worked, and there was no task that couldn't be completed with the phone - it works as Apple intended, so supposed white spots notwithstanding, the answer to that question was still yes, and I should receive the $240.
According to the criteria on their own questionnaire, I should receive $240.
To shorten things up, after some back and forth they said there was a white spot on the display (...), would send me a picture - but never did - and ultimately in the end agreed to pay me the $240, citing that they "didn't realize none of their questions were regarding the LCD condition."
So yes, they did the right thing in the end after some push on my end, but I don't believe for a second that they didn't know their own 5 question questionnaire, and were playing quality control police and were/are diminishing/rejecting trade values based on petty things or even non-issues, most importantly diminishing trade values for things that aren't on their own questionnaire that therefore should not be considered in the evaluation. Looking into this further, there are a LOT of reviews out there indicating that they diminished trade values due to yellow or pink tinted displays, among other things, which again are not on their questionnaire. Seems like a bit of a bait and switch.
Seller beware. I will be going back to using Gazelle in the future.
This year I sold my flawless 6 (and my wife's). Gazelle was doing $225, and NextWorth was doing $240, both with free shipping. I answered the questions on their questionnaire truthfully in order to arrive at a quote of $240 for each of our phones. My stuff is always, always flawless, because I'm super anal-retentive. Their short questionnaire is pretty standard - just asking about cracked screens, find my iPhone deactivated, etc. (note it looks like just in the last few days they've added a question about dents/scratches, but this was not present the other day when I assessed my trade value). Basically they just seem to care if the phone works, which is on par with most trade in places.
I figured I'd try NextWorth since they were paying more than Gazelle, and they were partnered with Swappa as their trade in company, and we all know Swappa is a forum darling. So I decided to give them a try this year.
Well, Gazelle sends you a box to send the stuff in, Nextworth doesn't. $15 later for a roll of tape, two boxes, and some bubble wrap at UPS, and the phones were in the mail, off to NextWorth. Pretty much a wash price-wise once you factor that in, oh well.
They received our phones last Thursday. I didn't hear anything until 9 PM Monday night, 4 days later, when I was told that my wife would be receiving $240, but that I would be receiving $120. They said the discrepancy was regarding the following question: "Powers on and fully functional (including buttons)?" where they said "No" to my "Yes" and they had a vague note from the inspector that said "WHITE SPOTS". I know for a fact there were no "WHITE SPOTS" on the display or the casing anywhere to be found.
So I emailed them back to inquire, because A) I *know* there were no defects, and B) None of their questions had anything to do with cosmetic condition beyond a cracked LCD. I told them that they would need to be able to present a picture of an obvious defect detrimental to the phone's functionality because the answer to the question regarding functionality was indeed yes, no matter what "WHITE SPOTS" there were. The phone powered on, the buttons worked, and there was no task that couldn't be completed with the phone - it works as Apple intended, so supposed white spots notwithstanding, the answer to that question was still yes, and I should receive the $240.
According to the criteria on their own questionnaire, I should receive $240.
To shorten things up, after some back and forth they said there was a white spot on the display (...), would send me a picture - but never did - and ultimately in the end agreed to pay me the $240, citing that they "didn't realize none of their questions were regarding the LCD condition."
So yes, they did the right thing in the end after some push on my end, but I don't believe for a second that they didn't know their own 5 question questionnaire, and were playing quality control police and were/are diminishing/rejecting trade values based on petty things or even non-issues, most importantly diminishing trade values for things that aren't on their own questionnaire that therefore should not be considered in the evaluation. Looking into this further, there are a LOT of reviews out there indicating that they diminished trade values due to yellow or pink tinted displays, among other things, which again are not on their questionnaire. Seems like a bit of a bait and switch.
Seller beware. I will be going back to using Gazelle in the future.
