How can eBay's Instant Sale possibly be offering $125 for my old 3G?

M

mstrze

macrumors 68000
I sold back my wife's 3G this past spring to buy her the iPhone 4 and we got $138. I thought when I sold mine after I got my 4S that I would be lucky to get $40 due to the cheapness of the 3GS and the lower price of the 4, but NO...an offer of $125 was made, and accepted by me. I printed the FedEx label and the phone will be on its way tomorrow.

How can a refurbisher possibly offer $125 for a 3yo iPhone??? Especially when brand new, faster models are going for less? Where are they selling them to be able to make a profit? Any thoughts?

Site is instantsale.ebay.com
 
mstrze said:
Where are they selling them to be able to make a profit?
Click to expand...

Overseas, I presume. Considering that the iPhone 4S retails for $649, the 4 retails for $549, the 3GS retails for $449 - there is a lot of room under that for a cheaper alternative.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

the instant sale crap is crap. I tried it with my i4 - they originally offered me $360, and when they received & evaluated it, they said the following:

"Item is in used cosmetic condition: Scratches or blemishes to its exterior can be readily seen without close inspection.
The exterior housing of the unit has sustained mild, normal wear."

the phone is just over a month old, and was in a skin & case since day one. needless to say, I declined their new offer of $275. I'll just jailbreak & unlock when I get it back, and sell it on eBay or craigslist
 
iPhone resale prices are awsome. I get a new iphone every year and by selling my old one I basically get the new one at the "upgrade" price.

On Instant Sale Right Now (up to depending on condition)

iPhone 2G 16GB - $65
3G 16GB- $164
3GS 16GB- $162 (dont know why the 3G has a higher offer than the 3GS)
4 16GB - $207

Compare to
EVO 4G - $70
Atrix 4G - $150
Samsung Captivate - $97.50
Nexus S - $72.28

I don't use instant sale, I do craigslist and can get much more then these prices. But the comparison applies.
 
Fusion79 said:
I don't use instant sale, I do craigslist and can get much more then these prices. But the comparison applies.
Click to expand...

I use instant sale to avoid the crap of having to deal with unscrupulous folks on CL or eBay. Selling electronics there is fraught with danger and the extra money I could get in that way is not worth it. I look at it as paying a little premium for ease of transaction. To each his or her own.

And my previous transactions with this site have been terrific and worry-free. Maybe whiskeyvol, you judged the condition of your iPhone 4 too generously?
 
mstrze said:
I use instant sale to avoid the crap of having to deal with unscrupulous folks on CL or eBay. Selling electronics there is fraught with danger and the extra money I could get in that way is not worth it.
Click to expand...


I sell on Craigslist often, People are extra polite when they come into your house and Your wearing a sidearm.
 
I sold my 36 iPhone on Craigslist for about $160 last month, but it was unlocked and 16 gig

iPhones tend to have a good resale value
 
mstrze said:
I sold back my wife's 3G this past spring to buy her the iPhone 4 and we got $138. I thought when I sold mine after I got my 4S that I would be lucky to get $40 due to the cheapness of the 3GS and the lower price of the 4, but NO...an offer of $125 was made, and accepted by me. I printed the FedEx label and the phone will be on its way tomorrow.

How can a refurbisher possibly offer $125 for a 3yo iPhone??? Especially when brand new, faster models are going for less? Where are they selling them to be able to make a profit? Any thoughts?

Site is instantsale.ebay.com
Click to expand...

I sold mine to a worthy customer on eBay for $170 :D
 
I picked up a 4S on the 14th and immediately put my 3G 8GB on ebay. I started the bidding at $50 and a buy it now price of $125, a boy can dream can't he? Anyway, three hours later it was bought for $125 and I was ecstatic!
 
tcphoto said:
I picked up a 4S on the 14th and immediately put my 3G 8GB on ebay. I started the bidding at $50 and a buy it now price of $125, a boy can dream can't he? Anyway, three hours later it was bought for $125 and I was ecstatic!
Click to expand...

Guess you should have put in a higher buy-it-now price. :/
 
arbitrage

This is most likely a regional arbitrage, I sold my 3gs a few months ago in germany for 275 euro, about 400$ today. That market has higher AFTER TAX (VAT) pricing so they are more willing to pay what is a higher DOLLAR price
 
I would never meet a craigslister in my house for an iPhone. I usually like to meet people outside of Best Buy. That way when they are late I can kill a few minutes easier.

jjlannoo said:
I sell on Craigslist often, People are extra polite when they come into your house and Your wearing a sidearm.
Click to expand...
 
early

bigjnyc said:
They offered me $227 for my iphone 4 32gb. in perfect like new condition lol.
Click to expand...


yeah, you gotta get a jump on new releases. I sold my iphone 4 16GB for 325$ on monday of the announcement, had 10 days to deliver it in the mail.
 
I considered selling my iPhone 4 as an Instant Sale on eBay until I read a lot of stories on the web about low balling the agreed price once the iPhone was received by the Instant Sale Buyer. I can't remember the name of the Electronics firm buying up all the iPhones but they don't have a very good reputation.

There was no way I was going to chance selling my iP4 at $270 (that's what I was offered) and then risk receiving a $200 offer once I shipped it out.

I listed and sold my 16 month old iP4 for $300 in five minutes on eBay.
 
Good luck using Instant Scam, oops, I mean Instant Sale. I was offered $357 for my like new iPhone 4... After they received it, they said the phone was in excellent condition, everything was functioning, but the OS wasn't up to their standards... WHAT!? So they offered me... $35. Yes... $35.

I'm now waiting for them to ship it back. It's been a week and I haven't received a shipping confirmation.

I'm not the only person with issues. Just Google "Instant Sale Scam" to read other's trouble with this program.
 
jjlannoo said:
I sell on Craigslist often, People are extra polite when they come into your house and Your wearing a sidearm.
Click to expand...

If I showed up at someone's house and they were wearing a side arm, I would leave immediately without completing the sale.
 
gsampson85 said:
Good luck using Instant Scam, oops, I mean Instant Sale. I was offered $357 for my like new iPhone 4... After they received it, they said the phone was in excellent condition, everything was functioning, but the OS wasn't up to their standards... WHAT!? So they offered me... $35. Yes... $35.

I'm now waiting for them to ship it back. It's been a week and I haven't received a shipping confirmation.

I'm not the only person with issues. Just Google "Instant Sale Scam" to read other's trouble with this program.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would definitely caution anyone thinking of using Instant Sale to think twice about other options.

I sent in my PRISTINE 3GS with everything originally included and when AllTech Wholesale got it they claimed it was "in used cosmetic condition: Scratches or blemishes to its exterior can be readily seen without close inspection. The exterior housing of the unit has sustained mild, normal wear." Except my phone was perfect, not even ONE mark, scratch, blemish, ding or even a spec of dust!

AllTech's CSR insisted that no matter how much I complained, they would NEVER review my case and live up to the original offer. She said it in such a way as to make me believe this was a normal "technique" of theirs.

All efforts to get a supervisor from AllTech to call me back have been useless. Ditto for anyone from eBay, apparently they just don't want to discuss this situation. I've been to eBay hdqtrs and nobody will come out to talk to me, they just hide behind their voicemail. I showed the phone to the eBay security guards and they even used the word SCAM when they saw the condition.

I guess if it looks like a scam, walks like a scam, talks like a scam and smells like a scam....
 
twice

I can say, I have used them twice now. I found them when the ipad 2 came out and I wanted to sell my excellent ipad 1 32GB for fast cash. The ebay instantsale site had the best rate - and this was a few days prior to the ipad 2 announcement. I think I got 425$ or something for the ipad 1 32gd. NQA, paypal payment, no emails about condition, nothing.

this time, I did the same with GF iphone 4. 32GB, excellent condition, no scratches, always in case, ios 4. got a 325$ offer and now have 325$ in the paypal account.

Not sure why some would say they get screwed or 35$, that just doesn't make sense. Come on, 35$?

A broken phone is worth more than 35$
 
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