Mrs Zoo Keeper has not used her iPad mini (1st gen, 16GB, white) for a number of months now, so she decided to start the process of offloading it. Apple products tend to hold their value well, so selling it seemed to be a good idea.
Having had not too great an experience with fleaBay recently, when selling an old Apple iPhone 5S, we considered some of the various recycling sites. After trying a few companies, and getting pretty poor prices compared to the auction sites, we came across https://www.ipad-recycle.co.uk/. They were offering £15 more than their closest rival, and not too far off the expected selling price on fleaBay. They had some great TrustPilot reviews, so we thought we’d give them a shot.
Wow – what an amazing experience (if not worrying, sending off a bit of Apple kit through the post to a total unknown). The whole thing was so simple, end to end. Put details of the device on the website (type, memory, generation etc), along with your payment preference, name and address, and the process is started. A prepaid postage label (insured up to £50) is emailed out to you (or posted if you prefer) and you’re ready to go. Package up your item, stick the label on the outside, take it to the Post Office, get a receipt, and wait. We waited less than two days, the email came through to say they’d received it, then a couple of hours later, another email came through to say we’d been paid. A quick log in to the bank’s website confirmed the deposit. I cannot find a single thing to criticise about this company or process, other than perhaps I wish the insurance would cover the whole cost of the device, but I could pay extra for that at the Post Office if I wanted.
The guys behind the site are PhoneSmart Limited, and they have a number of years of experience recycling phone products. They seem to focus on iPads now, and sell their recycled products via their Freestyll business. The intake side of the business is called Plunc. They say they don’t use the comparison sites, so can pay more – our experience certainly backs that up.
I always think it’s important to tell the world when a company does things right, so I added my own Trust Pilot review, and published this post – I can’t recommend them enough.