A used cell phone might be the perfect connection

A used cell phone might be the perfect connection
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

Want to equip the whole family with cell phones without going into
debt?

With a little digging, you can find great deals on used cell phones
with voice mail, caller ID and call waiting, all without the things
you don't want: monthly bills, credit checks, lengthy contracts, age
restrictions, activation fees and complicated minutes plans.

Cellular providers such as AT&T Wireless, Cingular and U.S. Cellular,
as well as resellers such as TracFone, frequently run online specials
on refurbished phones as a way to boost sales, particularly of prepaid
calling plans.

Granted, your used mobile phone won't have all the
up-to-the-nanosecond bells and whistles of the latest camera phones
and gaming models. But for basic calling, voice mail and even text
messaging, your used unit will be indistinguishable from the top of
the line. Only you will know that you paid little or no money for it.

Case in point: TracFone offers a reconditioned Nokia 5125 cell phone
and 100 prepaid anytime, anywhere minutes for $29.99 at its online
store. Since that's the normal retail price of 100 TracFone minutes,
you in effect get the Nokia handset for free.

"It's a value, especially if it's an emergency phone," says TracFone's
Sherri Pfefer. "Take families traveling in the summer: You go to a big
amusement park and everybody splits up. For $30, you can give the
other group a phone and be in constant communication with them and not
have to worry. There's no monthly bill, no contract, no worry. You can
activate the phone to whatever state you're going to, as long as the
technologies match."

Although your refurbished TracFone comes with a 30-day warranty
instead of the usual one-year coverage, Pfefer says there's little
risk involved.

"A majority of our refurbs are returns from customers back to the
retailers that then get sent here," she says. "The majority of our
phones have never been used; they were the wrong technology, they got
them as a gift, things like that."

If you're not averse to signing on for a monthly plan, AT&T Wireless
recently offered a refurbished Siemens C56 for $29.99 as part of its
GoPhone plan. Cingular and U.S. Cellular also have made reconditioned
cell phones available through their retail outlets.

Used-wireless world
Used cellular phones may be little more than a curiosity here in the
United States, but there is an unquenchable market for our castoffs in
developing countries where landline phones are prohibitively
expensive, according to Chuck Newman, CEO of ReCellular Inc. of
Dexter, Mich., the nation's oldest and largest cell phone refurbishing
company.

"Price becomes a very attractive feature for anybody trying, often for
the first time in their life, to have access to basic telephony," says
Newman. "Certainly for the phones we are selling, this is more often
than not their only phone."

ReCellular takes discarded handsets from charitable collection drives,
retailer returns and trade-ins, refurbishes them, and sells them to
buyers around the world. The discards they receive run the gamut from
antique to tricked-out.

"The typical phone that we receive is maybe 18 months old. The newer
ones, we tend to remanufacture and sell here in the U.S. and the older
ones go overseas to be used for basic voice telephony," he says.
"About 70 percent of our products end up overseas somewhere: South
America, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, China, India."

This year, ReCellular will recycle over 4 million handsets and return
$10 million to the charities that collect them.

"For us, change is good," Newman says. "The shorter the period of time
that someone owns a phone before they change it, the better it is for
us. Unlike conventional manufacturers, our sales are not limited by
the number of units we can sell; it's the number of units we can buy.
The market is pretty much insatiable relative to the number of phones
that we can get our hands on."

That's because, until recently, most U.S. cellular phones operated on
either TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) or CDMA (Code Division
Multiple Access) technology, while the rest of the world's cell phones
were GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications).

(continued on next page)
-- Posted: July 12, 2004

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/20040712a1.asp


===
"Until last October, Christ had a very limited involvement in my life. I believed in God; I just never had to prove I believed. Belief is an absence of proof."
-- Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling

---

› See More: A used cell phone might be the perfect connection

Shameless ad by TracPhone spammer scum


"Ablang" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> A used cell phone might be the perfect connection
> By Jay MacDonald . Bankrate.com
>
> Want to equip the whole family with cell phones without going into
> debt?
>
> With a little digging, you can find great deals on used cell phones
> with voice mail, caller ID and call waiting, all without the things
> you don't want: monthly bills, credit checks, lengthy contracts, age
> restrictions, activation fees and complicated minutes plans.
>
> Cellular providers such as AT&T Wireless, Cingular and U.S. Cellular,
> as well as resellers such as TracFone, frequently run online specials
> on refurbished phones as a way to boost sales, particularly of prepaid
> calling plans.
>
> Granted, your used mobile phone won't have all the
> up-to-the-nanosecond bells and whistles of the latest camera phones
> and gaming models. But for basic calling, voice mail and even text
> messaging, your used unit will be indistinguishable from the top of
> the line. Only you will know that you paid little or no money for it.
>
> Case in point: TracFone offers a reconditioned Nokia 5125 cell phone
> and 100 prepaid anytime, anywhere minutes for $29.99 at its online
> store. Since that's the normal retail price of 100 TracFone minutes,
> you in effect get the Nokia handset for free.
>
> "It's a value, especially if it's an emergency phone," says TracFone's
> Sherri Pfefer. "Take families traveling in the summer: You go to a big
> amusement park and everybody splits up. For $30, you can give the
> other group a phone and be in constant communication with them and not
> have to worry. There's no monthly bill, no contract, no worry. You can
> activate the phone to whatever state you're going to, as long as the
> technologies match."
>
> Although your refurbished TracFone comes with a 30-day warranty
> instead of the usual one-year coverage, Pfefer says there's little
> risk involved.
>
> "A majority of our refurbs are returns from customers back to the
> retailers that then get sent here," she says. "The majority of our
> phones have never been used; they were the wrong technology, they got
> them as a gift, things like that."
>
> If you're not averse to signing on for a monthly plan, AT&T Wireless
> recently offered a refurbished Siemens C56 for $29.99 as part of its
> GoPhone plan. Cingular and U.S. Cellular also have made reconditioned
> cell phones available through their retail outlets.
>
> Used-wireless world
> Used cellular phones may be little more than a curiosity here in the
> United States, but there is an unquenchable market for our castoffs in
> developing countries where landline phones are prohibitively
> expensive, according to Chuck Newman, CEO of ReCellular Inc. of
> Dexter, Mich., the nation's oldest and largest cell phone refurbishing
> company.
>
> "Price becomes a very attractive feature for anybody trying, often for
> the first time in their life, to have access to basic telephony," says
> Newman. "Certainly for the phones we are selling, this is more often
> than not their only phone."
>
> ReCellular takes discarded handsets from charitable collection drives,
> retailer returns and trade-ins, refurbishes them, and sells them to
> buyers around the world. The discards they receive run the gamut from
> antique to tricked-out.
>
> "The typical phone that we receive is maybe 18 months old. The newer
> ones, we tend to remanufacture and sell here in the U.S. and the older
> ones go overseas to be used for basic voice telephony," he says.
> "About 70 percent of our products end up overseas somewhere: South
> America, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan, China, India."
>
> This year, ReCellular will recycle over 4 million handsets and return
> $10 million to the charities that collect them.
>
> "For us, change is good," Newman says. "The shorter the period of time
> that someone owns a phone before they change it, the better it is for
> us. Unlike conventional manufacturers, our sales are not limited by
> the number of units we can sell; it's the number of units we can buy.
> The market is pretty much insatiable relative to the number of phones
> that we can get our hands on."
>
> That's because, until recently, most U.S. cellular phones operated on
> either TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) or CDMA (Code Division
> Multiple Access) technology, while the rest of the world's cell phones
> were GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications).
>
> (continued on next page)
> -- Posted: July 12, 2004
>
> http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/advice/20040712a1.asp
>
>
> ===
> "Until last October, Christ had a very limited involvement in my
life. I believed in God; I just never had to prove I believed. Belief is
an absence of proof."
> -- Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling