posted on December 17, 2000 09:00:29 PM new
This is a bit odd as an ebay with a feedback of over 300. i am looking to replace my lost digital cell phone. the company wants $170 for one and I see them on ebay for $50. Now what is up with all these sellers with 0 to 20 feedback (mostly zero's) selling phones that retailed for over $200 and now go near $100. Are these generall legitamate?
posted on December 18, 2000 03:55:41 AM newspuddy: Thank you for starting this thread. I have a cellular phone that I found last New Years Eve night when the concert we were attending was over. The battery was dead and I have no way of knowing who it belonged to. I haven't checked in several months but these phones were selling in the $250-$350 range on eBay. I have no use for it because it is not compatible with my cellular service. I would love to sell it, but have not for fear that someone would think it was stolen.
I should point out that I sold a cell phone once on eBay for about $50. The deal with that one was that my husband lost his phone and we replaced (and upgraded) it immediately. About a week later, it was found so we had no use for it and sold it on eBay. We did, however, have much higher feedback than the sellers you are talking about.
Is there anyone out there knowledgable on the resell of cell phones?
posted on December 18, 2000 04:43:44 AM new
If you take your phone into a service supplier they can check and see if it is on a list of lost/stolen phones. When we left Verizon to go to another company the phone we had been sold at the Verizon was on the list and could not be used but two we bought for $5 each at garage sale were clean. I don't know if they will help actually find the owner if it is on the list.
posted on December 18, 2000 05:01:01 AM new
I looked at the bellsouth wireless site quickly. It appears they are associated with Celllar one, My provider. They use what is called TDMA service. I don't know what it means but that is the kind of phone you need like the startac and the ericsson T18d that my cell one provider sells. (as well as some other nokia phones. Perhaps some phones are suitable for TDMA and CDMA or GSM. I don't know what that all means but I guess they are different types of services. Now I think the TDMA is then trimode meaning that they work with digital and analog depending on your particular phone.
posted on December 18, 2000 08:53:11 AM new
I bought a "prepaid" cell phone on Ebay a few months ago. Even with this "disposable" phone, when I called to activate it, they wouldn't do so unless I knew the name of the previous owner.
Luckily, the guy who sold it to me had been legitimate and it worked fine.
If you are considering buying one, I would suggest emailing the seller to verify the history of the phone, then using a payment service that allows chargebacks, in case you get burned.
