Complaint Review: eCycleBest - Sparks Nevada

After using device recycler's/reseller's like Gazelle, Glyde and NextWorth in the past for selling my old mobile devices and having good success with them, I decided to try a new name that popped up on Google this time around: ECycleBest.

On January 13th, they gave me an estimate of $107 on their website for my iPhone 4S 64GB which was a bit high but I thought if I got half that after inspection, it would still be better than Gazelle, which offered me $30. My experience with these sites in the past is that they have never lowered their initial offer to me after inspection. I have always shipped them clean, formatted phones in great condition so I haven't had reason to worry. I figured ECycleBest would be no different.

On January 20th, we shipped the phone out after receiving a box from ECycleBest to ship it in on the 17th. I received an email from them on January 23rd that the phone was received and would be inspected shortly. Saturday January 25th I received that fateful email that it seems so many other of ECycleBest's customers have gotten. They said the final offer for my phone was $8 and that it was fair and per their Terms & Conditions. The following is some of the very misleading text of that email:

"After carefully inspecting your device by hand, seeing its condition, and following up-to-the-minute market conditions—you’re owed $8 for the device."

"This is the same amount we’d pay everyone else for the same device right now, and it follows the Terms & Conditions we agreed upon when you sent your device."

"No more waiting around; our accounting team is processing your cash right now, and within 3 business days we’ll be sending you your PayPal payment."

---

There were no links in the email on how to contact them to dispute my evaluation even though I had read their Terms & Conditions and knew full well that I had 3 days to contest this low-ball offer (i.e. the 3 business days they say in the email that they have to wait to give me my precious $8).

This is when the real fun began. I started calling their Customer Service number on Monday, January 26th, the first business day that I was able to. I called first thing at 7am PST and was told there was an "unusually high call volume" by an automated message. I spoke to a live CS rep after on hold a few minutes who informed me of the same and added that Mondays were their busiest day. I was put on hold to wait to talk to their Purchasing Dept. to dispute my claim. After 10 minutes of waiting, my call was ended and the automated message told me to call back after 1pm PST. I called back 4 more times that day, only to get the same results. Forwarded to Purchasing, kicked off the line. On my last call they claimed that the Purchasing Dept. was having technical difficulties and had left for the day.

I tried back on Tuesday, January 27th 4 more times and tried to get them to let me talk to a manager. They put me on hold and the system kicked me off again. Today was the last day I tried to call (theoretically, the last of my 3 days to contest) and the CS reps were very short with me both times and put me on hold before I had finished asking for assistance.

There were only 2 reps that I spoke to, Brittany & Tabitha, and both had been trained very well. I asked them how much longer I had to dispute and they said that today was my last day. I questioned how I could possibly be held to their bogus T&C when I had been trying feverishly to contact their Purchasing Dept. They said their system indeed kept track of the many times I had tried to contact them. They seem unconcerned and told me that it was just a high call volume and didn't think it was a problem on their end.

At best, these guys are ill-prepared for the type of business they run and at worst they are very illegally scamming innocent consumers. After calling them 10 times and receiving no assistance whatsoever in my claim, I fully believe the latter. ECycleBest needs to be shut down.