Complaint Review: uSell

I went to Gazelle.com to sell my old iPhone 5 16GB Black AT&T phone. Gazelle came back with $113.40 from uSell.com. The rate is supposed to be guaranteed as long as you do it within the time frame they give you, which I did.

There were three options for condition: Excellent, Good, and Damaged. Excellent meant "like new". Good was normal wear and tear, but powers on and no cracks to screen or case. Damaged was described as does not power on, or is cracked. I selected Good: It powered on and was not cracked, no scratches on screen, etc.

Evidently Gazelle sets you up with uSell, then uSell sets you up with another buyer: Second Hand Cellular. They send you a shipping kit in the mail for free with bubble wrap, etc.

They receive the phone and tell me they've revised their offer to $72 because the phone is damaged. It is cracked, they say. Well, I know this was bulls* so I tell them to send it back. There's no way it was damaged in shipping, it had good padding - unless the mailman got in a wreck or something. I'm waiting to hear from them regarding that whole return process. Something tells me the returns don't work as smoothly but we'll see.

Here's what I think the scam is: The whole process takes 2 or 3 weeks depending on speed of mail. By the time they come back to you, if the price of the phone has dropped, they go back on their guarantee. I checked Gazelle again and a phone with the same "good" description is only worth $65 now, just 2 or 3 weeks later. The highest I could find on a different website was $100. I think that despite the "guarantee" price, they drop it to a new price thats just above the new going rate on their sites. They only offer you two options: "Accept" or "Return My Phone." They don't allow you to challenge their condition assessment. So, you're left going back to Gazelle or uSell, seeing that the rate is dropped and their offer is still higher, and they hope you've fallen for their initial "guarantee": the classic bait and switch. I worry that all these companies do the same thing, but I signed up for the $100 offer on a different site. We'll see what happens there.