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Recycling Old Cell Phones?
TK-421 asks: "With the holidays coming up, I think I've read of organizations that take used cellphones and recycle them for use with battered women and other organizations. Does anyone know of the URLs of these places so I can mail out old cellphones I have so they can be put to good use?" Awesome idea! I've got two old phones that I've been wondering what to do with and this is better than tossing them in the trash. What organizations are willing to accept cell phones as donations?
Here's the link that has the story below:
The Minnesota Wireless Foundation is joining a statewide effort to collect used cellular telephones for the victims of domestic violence. The wireless service providers hope to collect 2,000 used cell phones by the end of the year. The phones will be donated to "Call to Protect," and reprogrammed to dial local emergency services and domestic-violence hot lines using airtime donated by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association. The phones collected this year will be activated by early 2001 and distributed to violence-prevention organizations. Collection boxes have been placed in more than 30 retail stores around the metro area to collect the phones.
Call to Protect has a page (calltoprotect.org points there also).
Disclaimer: These organizations sound like a great service and I don't want to discourage anyone from donating to them.
I had an old cell phone. I closed the account (with GTE) and at least 6 months later I was out of town and happened to have the phone with me. I thought I would give it a whirl and see what service it could find. I got a menu of choices where I could even place a credit or calling card call. "Neat," I thought and shut off the phone without even placing a real call.
About a month later I get a bill from GTE for the airtime of listening to the voice menus, plus roaming charges. I called them and explained that I no longer had an account with them and did not expect that phone to receive any service nor to receive any bills related to that phone. They dropped the bill.
So what would have happened if I tossed the phone in the trash, sold it, or donated it to some organization? Could GTE still be trying to bill me even though I don't have an account?