Recycle Your Cell Phones and Electronics For Cash

How many old cell phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, tablets, game consoles and e-readers do you have laying around? I’ll bet it’s more than one. Some people have half a dozen or more cell phones stuck in a desk drawer because they just don’t know what to do with them. How about converting this unwanted technology to cash? You can do that now. It’s quick and easy to sell cell phones and other electronics for quick cash online.

What makes this really easy is a service called uSell that gets you cash for your unwanted electronic gadgets. You may have heard of or seen companies that offer to recycle your stuff for free or make you a cash offer if they happen to want your make or model. This is a similar idea, but with multiple buyers.

You know those travel services that mash up multiple airlines, hotels, and rental car offers so that you can find the best deal? This is something like that. What you do is enter the make and model of your cell phone or other device and then check the boxes on what condition it is in and what accessories you still have. Then click the “find top cash offers” button. Almost instantly, you’ll be presented with one or more offers to buy your phone. These are from a variety of companies in the business of buying, refurbishing and recycling used electronic devices.

I gave the system a try by entering a digital camera that returned one offer. An Apple iPad 32 GB WiFi came back with 7 separate offers. The top offer can be twice or more the lowest offer, confirming the benefit of having more than one vendor to chose from. Sure, you can do a lot of searching yourself, visit a lot of sites, enter a lot of data or even try selling your device through auctions or classified ads. That’s going to take awhile. This took a matter of seconds. Really, the system is so fast that I had the offers as soon as I clicked the button.

It gets even better. Your next move is to pick one of the buyers so you can sell your phone. You’ll probably go immediately to the highest offer, but it makes sense to do a little due diligence and check out reviews of that company from other uSell users who’ve recently dealt with them. This is all provided for you, so it’s still quick and easy.

Ah, but what does it cost for shipping? Shipping is always extra, right? Nope. Shipping is free. You fill out a form and the buyer will send you a free shipping kit that includes a prepaid shipping label and often a box, too. Put your item inside and send it on its way.

What happens next is that your device is received by the buyer and inspected & tested to confirm that it matches your assessment. If so, you’ll get a quick payment, typically by check or PayPal depending on what you prefer. This is typically a week or two, not forever and a day. To get to this point you have invested, what, an hour tops?

Compare this with other methods of selling or disposing of your old electronics. It’s getting to be that you’ll get in trouble with the law if you simply throw electronics in the trash. So, you have to haul it somewhere that accepts such items and do it during their business hours. What do you get for all that trouble? A satisfying feeling, perhaps, but no cash.

Wouldn’t you rather get paid as well as clean out all that old electronics? Of course. Cash is always the most satisfying of all. So, wouldn’t this be a good time to fish through those desk drawers, boxes in the closet, basement or garage? Don’t reject items that are damaged or missing accessories. There may still be a market for them. Enter the make and model number and see if you can get an offer before you give up on that junker.

Cash In Old Gadgets To Buy New Gadgets

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are almost upon us. Just look at all the new smartphones and other electronic gadgets that are going on sale, if they aren’t already. Exciting, isn’t it? Yet we know that times are uncertain and that we should really think about how we are going to pay for those shiny new things. Here’s an idea: Get your old stuff to pay for your new stuff!

Sounds a bit fanciful, but it can work. How? It’s because we all collect... make that hoard... electronics and photography gear of all types. Never mind that we aren’t using this gear anymore. We just have it around. It’s too good to throw away and too much hassle to sell, so there it sits. What we don’t consider is that there is a veritable savings account worth of value in all that unused equipment. There’s your cash source to buy the new, new gadgets this holiday season. Now, if there was only a way to tap it.

You’re in luck! There is a fast and easy way to convert your unwanted gadgets to cash. It’s an online service provided by Gazelle, a leader in recycling high technology gear. What they do is make you an offer based on the current market value of your items. If you elect to sell, you get a free postage paid mailer that you pack up and drop off at the shipper. At the other end, Gazelle will evaluate each item for operation and condition. Once checked out, they send you a check. Now when you get that bill for the new flat screen HDTV or video game, you’ve got the funds to cover it. It’s recycling at its best.

This process actually works all year long, but it’s particularly valuable right now. That’s because we tend to buy big time for ourselves and others through December 24, with the heartburn of credit card bills coming due in January or February. There’s no time to waste.

Start scouring the house and even those desk drawers at work. Look in the bottom drawers, especially. That’s where unused gadgets go to hibernate indefinitely. Get a big bag or box and start filling it with cell phones, video games, laptop computers, movies, MP3 players, digital cameras, PDAs, gaming consoles, GPS devices, camcorders, desktop computers, LCD monitors, calculators, camera lenses, satellite radios, external drives, streaming media, home audio equipment, projectors and Blu-Ray players. I’ll bet you’ve got anywhere between a modest box to half-a-room full.

The next step is to get price offers for each item. Consider it a game that pays. Perhaps you can engage family members or co-workers to help evaluate a massive tech collection, especially if they think they might benefit from the proceeds. Find your item through a search on the Gazelle site. Find the exact model you have and then check the radio buttons for functionality, condition and available accessories. Click the “Calculate” button and you’ll see how much they’ll pay you. I just tried a Nikon camera lens and saw I could sell it for $90. If you think that price is fair and want to cash-in, click the orange “Add to Box” button to lock in the offer. Then move on to the next item.

Procrastination is not to your advantage. Technology, like milk and most everything else, loses value over time. Chances are that you’ll get a better offer today than you will in a week or a month from now as your unused gear just gets more and more obsolete. Word to the wise!

Once you have evaluated your collection and see the now substantial total offer, all you need is that pre-paid shipping box. You get that by clicking on the “Checkout” button. When your container arrives, pack each item carefully using recycled newspaper or other soft packing material and sent it in. Congratulations, the hard work is done! Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the moola.

Can it get any easier? Not unless someone came over, ransacked your place while you watched TV, and peeled off a roll of bills on their way out. This is the next best thing. It takes minimal effort compared to running ads, dealing with people at the door or dragging everything through the auction process. When you’re done, you have cash in hand, the satisfaction of recycling things you don’t need anymore, plus all that extra shelf and drawer space you’ll need for your new acquisitions.

Are you motivated to start the process? Gather your gear and get recycling offers for your gadgets now. Those big sales are about to start!

WiFi in a Memory Card

How many SD memory cards have you seen that sport an FCC ID on the front? This one does because it's more than a mere 2 GB digital memory card. It's also a WiFi transceiver. Configure it with your computer using the included USB adaptor, then pop the card into your digital camera. Now take all the pictures you want and they'll automatically upload to your computer or the online photo sharing or social networking site of your choice when you get within range of your home network. Poof, they're out of the camera and uploaded before you even know it.

The Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Card solves the age-old problem of photography: Pictures that never come out of the camera. I say age-old, because I've discovered undeveloped rolls of film in cameras buried in the closet decades later. Digital photography is worse. It's easy to take snapshots. It's hard to dig out that special USB cord and plug your camera into the computer. Most cameras have lots of memory and none of them bug you to do anything with the pictures you take. Pretty soon, there you are out in the middle of nowhere with a nearly full memory card and no option but to delete older photos to take new ones. Oh, yeah, those pictures would sure look good on Flickr. But it's soooo much work to get them there.

Now you have no excuses for not doing something with the pictures you take. The Eye-Fi card takes care of all the tedium involved in formating and uploading photos to photo sites. That includes printing sites such as Costco.com, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish and Wal-Mart. You don't have to print them, but they'll be there whenever you want to.

So how does it work? The Eye-Fi actually contains a WiFi networking chip within the confines of a standard SD memory card measuring 32mm x 24mm x 2.1mm and weighing a mere tenth of an ounce. Many cameras accept this standard size memory card. It gets its power from the camera. There's also 2.0 GB of memory onboard, so it's a real memory card too.

The Wireless networking specs are impressive for something that looks like a little orange wafer. The range is over 90 feet outdoors and 45 feet indoors. Both 802.11b and 802.11g networks are supported, as are 802.11n networks that are backwards compatible. Security is built-in and includes support for Static WEP 40/104/128, WPA-PSK and WPA2-PSK configured networks. Keep you networked locked down and still be able to upload photos any time you want.

The other piece of magic is the Eye-Fi software. It runs on both PCs and Macs, and works with IE, Firefox and Safari browsers. You'll need your computer on and running the Eye-Fi Manager software when you want to transfer photos from your camera to your computer. The card remains inside the camera. The transfer is wireless. You just tell the software what folder to put your photos in and it takes care of the rest.

But that's only half the story. The other way to transfer photos is directly to the Internet. Your computer doesn't need to be on for this activity. You just need a working WiFi network. Your camera talks directly to your router and sends the pictures to the Eye-Fi server, where they are then formated and sent on to one of many sharing and printing Websites of your choosing. Logging in, passwords, and resizing are all handled automatically. Want to get those pix on Facebook as quickly as possible? Once you've set it up, all you need to do is get your camera within range of your network and up they go. Or send them to your TypePad blog for instant photojournalism.

Does Wireless photo transfer sound like it would be a time and effort saver for you? Learn more and get your Eye-Fi Card, Wireless 2 GB SD Memory Card now.