My contract with Cingular is drawing to a close and my Treo 650 is feeling long in the tooth, so I've been prowling the shopping pages on Cingular.com. Lately, nestled between the GoPhones and the PDA/smart phones, I've noticed a new category: refurbished phones.
Now, I'm the type of person who's willing to pay for the latest and greatest when I get a new phone. But looking over Cingular's list of refurbished handsets made me wonder. What exactly are refurbished phones? Who sells them? Are they really a good bargain? And in an era when carriers routinely offer great deals on new phones, when does it make sense to consider a refurbished model?
It turns out that Cingular's modest refurbished-phone program (only 14 models of phone were available) is just the tip of the iceberg: The used-phone business is booming, which, if you think about it, isn't surprising. "The refurbished-phone market growth is mirroring the growth in recycling programs for old phones," says Mike Newman, vice president at ReCellular, a phone recycling business. "People are returning their old phones instead of just throwing them in the trash."
In the case of a major wireless carrier such as Cingular, people are returning new cell phones, too. Cingular spokesperson Kelleigh Beal explains that customers who purchase a new phone have 30 days to return it, no questions asked. If a phone has been used, even once, and it is returned during this 30-day period, it can't be resold as new.
When this happens, Cingular removes all data from the phone, repairs any damage (which can include replacing the case or display), and runs a series of tests to make sure it works like new, Beal wrote in response to my e-mail queries. "These are high-quality phones," she noted. "They are a great deal to customers, however, because they are discounted." One key difference with a refurbished model (and this is true wherever you buy it) is that warranty protection typically lasts only 90 days, if it's offered at all. Most new handsets carry a one-year warranty.
With some refurbished models, you get the best deal only if you sign up for a contract, as with any new phone. For example, Cingular at this writing is offering refurbished Treo 650 units for $100 if you commit to a two-year contract--these discontinued phones still cost $400 if bought without a contract. The $100 price may not seem like such a bargain, since you can find the same handset sold used by individuals on eBay for $200 or less, no contract required (again, at this February writing). On the other hand, most used handsets on eBay are sold as is--you don't get a single day of warranty protection.
Cingular sells a new LG CU500--a flip phone that supports the high-speed HSDPA network--for $150 with a two-year contract (a $50 mail-in rebate brings it down to $100); a refurbished model is $50 with a two-year contract, no mail rebate required (or available).
But the most inexpensive refurbs on Cingular's site are for the carrier's GoPhone prepaid services. In fact, refurbished GoPhone handsets all cost $30 (after instant online discounts). Of course, these phones are pretty inexpensive to begin with: Cingular's GoPhone handset page, for example, offers a refurbished Nokia 6030 for $30--right next to the $70 new version.
My repeated queries over several weeks to the other major national carriers--Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon--about refurbished phones went unanswered: If they sell them, it's not obvious from their Web sites. Cingular's Beal says that the carrier has been selling refurbished models for at least a year and a half, though it only recently began promoting them as a category on its Web site. Once you look around, however, you'll find plenty of places to buy refurbished phones.
Charity HandsetsReCellular's Newman says that his Michigan-based company now processes some 15,000 phones a day, from recent models to oldies dating back to the Motorola Star-tac. Most of them arrive via carrier recycling programs: "Virgin Mobile, for example, includes a recycling envelope with every phone that they sell," Newman says. Companies such as Best Buy and Verizon Wireless encourage phone recycling by giving any proceeds from the donated phones to charity.
Older phones that are still functional but banged up typically go to third-world countries, Newman says. But ReCellular also spruces up more-recent handsets and distributes them to U.S. resellers.
Houston-based Wireless Galaxy sells a variety of refurbished handsets (as well as new ones) online, says manager Shabaz Khan. Customers who buy refurbished phones often are people who have lost or damaged a fairly high-end phone midway through a contract and don't want to pay the unsubsidized price the carrier will charge for a replacement, Khan says. A cheap, refurbished phone can bridge the gap between the loss of the expensive phone and the end of a contract, at which time the customer can again qualify for a carrier subsidy on a new high-end model.
The other big market for refurbs is the prepaid-service business (hence the high proportion of $30 GoPhones in Cingular's refurbished-handset list). Pay-as-you-go customers are usually the most price-sensitive of cell phone users: Many cannot qualify for contracts and subsidized phones, and are trying to keep their up-front costs down, Khan says.
Regardless of where you purchase your phone, a reputable dealer will typically offer at least some warranty protection: "Buying from [Wireless Galaxy] gives you a 30-day warranty, and we usually extend that to 90 days," Khan says.
If you are contemplating buying a refurbished phone, check the warranty closely--and not just its length. Find out exactly what it covers, and who's going to be responsible for it. Don't expect support from the manufacturer; you'll probably be at the mercy of the outfit that manages the refurbishing program. Get all the details in writing, Newman says.
A good phone-refurbishing company will supply all of the equipment and manuals you'd get with a new handset. And reputable factory refurbishers will always properly remove data from old phones. (If you're giving away a phone and are concerned about protecting your privacy, ReCellular provides free data-erasing software for assorted popular models at its WirelessRecycling.com Web site).
And if you're shopping for a refurbished phone, don't expect to see a lot of superhot models. Carriers typically use refurbished versions of popular new handsets as replacements for defective phones under warranty, and ReCellular's Newman says that there simply aren't enough of them left over to satisfy the demand. Oh, well--it's back to prowling the shopping pages for me.
Yardena Arar
