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DanBlake

Gazelle is worthless and preys on the poor and uneducated. You get less than 50% what you would from selling on ebay.

http://www.gazelle.com/iphone/iphone-4s/at-t/iphone-4s-64gb-...

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Cell-Phones-Smartphones-/9355/i.html...

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I sold my iPhone 4 on Gazelle. I know I could have got more through Craigslist or eBay, but it wasn't worth my time.

With eBay I have to photograph it, write it up, list it, answer ridiculous questions about shipping it to the 3rd world and take payment in the form of casino chips mailed to me in a few months. Then I have to deal with the buyer, ship it, and the whole time I have to be worried about scammers. All the time I'm competing against companies that are listing 50 iPhones a day because that's their fulltime job and my account hasn't been used in 4 years. I wouldn't buy from me in that circumstance.

With Craigslist, things are a bit worse. Not only do you get occasional scammer emails, but I have to meet the person to physically sell the item. I've had people stand me up numerous times, be continually able to schedule, etc. And when I do meet up with someone, they could give me fake money, or just steal the item, or refuse to buy it meaning I have to go through the whole thing again.

With Gazelle I got a perfectly fair bid. I hit accept and in a day or two a box showed up on my door. Put the phone in it, dropped it off at a UPS store, and in a few days I got my Amazon gift card. No weird fraudsters, and I spent a total of about 10 minutes of my time. In return I got a price I was quite happy with, an easy experience, and I was able to use the money to help support my Amazon habit.

Worst case scenario, Gazelle could have said no and shipped the phone back to me. I wouldn't be out any money (unlike if I paid for eBay shipping), and I could have sold it on Craigslist.

If you were willing to take $250 less for saving 5 minutes time, by all means. Most of your complaints are made up though (casino chips, third world, etc.. )

I dont use craigslist, so I cant answer to that. I find the eBay process mostly fine, with the exception of not being able to specify who can bid/buy. If they did that it would be a way more reliable experience.

It was two years old and it wasn't in great condition. I priced it out and I think it cost me about $50 or so, which was worth it for the total lack of hassle.

The complaints for eBay etc. are exaggerated, but they are a problem. The last few times I listed things on eBay it didn't matter that I set the item to only be sold in the US, only paid through PayPal, etc. I got messages from people offering to buy it if I would just ship it out of the country and accept a money order. Then there are the messages offering to buy it if I contact them directly and cancel the auction so they can save the fee. You see that kind of stuff now and then on Craigslist too.

The amount of time and hassle I saved was worth far more than $50. If it had been $250, I would have certainly gone with Craigslist.

Unless you're a regular eBay seller, selling one phone on eBay is going to eat up a lot more than 5 minutes of your time. And that's the whole point - eBay is terrible for selling newish electronics unless you're a frequent eBay seller like yourself. To the point that people will willingly accept $200 less (eBay fees!) to avoid it.

Which in this case is zero, because eBay is rife with scammers preying on the *well-educated?

Gazelle and Amazon present almost zero risk to the seller, hence the price differential.

The chance of getting scammed like this on eBay is less than 2% (maximum chargeback rate)

Hence you are better selling 100 iPhones on eBay and taking the hit for two then sell all 100 on gazelle and not.

That's not quite genuine. You need to look at probability of a scammer winning your auction, not the probability that a scammer still has room under his/her chargeback cap. And even after that, I somehow doubt that those statistics are satisfying to the person who lost 100% of their money after selling 100% of their phone inventory (one phone).

It's less than 2% in the aggregate across eBay, but it's probably significantly higher for small high-value electronics like recent smartphones, especially if you're a small seller relying on eBay to detect scammers.

If you plan to sell 100 iPhones, you are absolutely right.

If you are selling an iPhone and actually need the money, a 2% risk of being left with neither may be worse than just getting 50% of the money, safely.

2% is a way higher number than reality. The amount of fraud on eBay is well, well below a 10th of a percent.

Selling on craigslist and gazelle does not solve the issue. It could be lost in the mail or you could be robbed. Il take a 99% chance at getting twice my money than a 100% chance of getting half. To each his own though./

It's heavily skewed by category. For every Macbook or iPhone sale that goes awry, 10,000 Beanie Babies are traded between elderly housewives without incident.

I would think selling on Craigslist for cash would be a much better option if you live in any sort of city.

isn't that the point, you're paying a premium for security.

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