Friend sent a phone for cash but...

henryscat666

Basically what has happened is a mate of mine decided to make some money by "recycling" his mobile phone with an internet company. Instead of going with a mainstream one like Mazuma etc, he went to someone called "selloldphone.co.uk" wuth some of the dodgiest terms and cons I have ever read and they are now saying that his phone is "waterdamaged" and they won't return his phone nor pay any money.

Don't get me wrong, he hasn't been the sharpest tool by just sending it to the highest offering website before checking them out, but what can he possibly do to resolve this? He swears blind the phone was NOT waterdamaged but I bet by now it miraculously has been...

Mechanicus

Well, according to their terms:

If a phone fails to meet our terms and conditions we may have to downgrade the phone accordingly. We will either issue an adjusted payment in the event that the phone is downgraded from Working to Non-Working, or in the event that the phone is graded as a BER phone we will be unable to offer you any price.

Now, that sounds really dodgy to me. Especially as your mate's phone was 'conveniently' water-damaged, which classes it as BER. I don't know if the DSR is applicable to things like this.

Your best bet is to get in touch with Consumer Direct. Give them as much info as you possibly can, and see what they say.

Personally, I don't trust any of theses companies that offer you money for items through the mail. Normally they give you much less than the phone is worth (if, for instance, you sold it privately, or on eBay), and although a lot of them state they return the goods if you are not happy with the price, there are any number of cons and excuses they can use to fob you off once they have your phone/jewellery/etc.