Automated Machines To Recycle Phones For Money

judgecorp writes "EcoATM is going to install machines which give money for old phones across the U.S. The system, shown at CES, takes a photo of any phone or other gadget put in its tray, and provides a data cable (for every kind of phone?) to check it is working. The machine offers a quote based on the current used price, and pays up on the spot."

Comments

shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

and take my cellphone

Re:shut up

[durrr]

take my plastic replica with a 5$ microcontroller that pretends it's an iphone

Re:shut up

[admiralranga]

na, sell kits that pretend to be phones. Better money plus it's legal

Re:shut up

[1u3hr]

take my plastic replica with a 5$ microcontroller that pretends it's an iphone

I doubt they'll pay out more than $5 per phone anyway. It's meant ot be an alternative to dropping them in the trash, not a way to get a fair resale price.

Re:shut up

[autocracy]

Using it to knowingly misrepresent for fraud, even to a vending machine or kiosk, definitely isn't legal. I doubt advertising a tool as such is acceptable either.

Re:shut up

[arisvega]

Steal a phone! Now you can get instaCash (tm) for it!

Re:shut up

[duguk]

Steal a phone! Now you can get instaCash (tm) for it!

Yeah, this does seem a very easy for criminals to get rid of stolen phones easily. Still, there's plenty of other ways I suppose.

Re:shut up

[Anonymous Coward]

Like all the Cash4Gold stores and such. Yes they give you cash, but not market value for scrap gold.

Re:shut up

[gnapster]

These are the makings of the worst money laundering scheme ever.

of course not

[donaggie03]

Not every kind of phone. Just the million types that use the micro-USB, mini-USB, and the iphone connector. That's all you need really.

Re:of course not

[iamhassi]

Actually there's only about a dozen connectors that work with 99% of the phones available in the US the last ten years. If the cord doesn't work then the phone is likely too old to be of any use anyway.

But what prevents theft? Steal an iPhone, slip it in the machine and instant money! Currently you have to wait hours to find a craigslist buyer or pawn it fast but at least the phone is still there for recovery. I'm sure you can't open it to see if your stolen phone is in there so you'll never know.

Re:of course not

[PopeRatzo]

But what prevents theft?

These machines are not going to hand out cash like an ATM, because they'd have to be refilled and they'd have to be more secure.

The machines will probably require you to insert an ATM card or credit card, so your identity will be associated with the transaction and the stolen phone you just tried to sell it. Even better, maybe they'll give you a coupon or "gift card" good for 10% off a new phone (upon activation of 2 year contract).

Eventually, the penalty for selling a stolen phone to this machine will be death, because you tried to take money from a corporation. Stealing the phone itself will carry a penalty of a $5 fine because all you did was steal from a human being.

Re:of course not

[delinear]

Maybe you have to provide bank account details or have the money paid onto a debit/credit card or something similarly easy to trace.

Re:of course not

[1u3hr]

But what prevents theft? Steal an iPhone, slip it in the machine and instant money!

Instant pocket money. It will pay a scrap dealer's price, probably a few dollars. Better than nothing, but you'd be a fool to use it for a working (stolen) iPhone. It's meant as alternative to just binning it.

We have a local electronics scrap dealer. He paid me $2 for my old 17" CRT monitor, still on working order. Cost about $200 new, 10 years ago. But I didn't need it and after a week advertising it online, clearly no one else did either, so it was literally $2 or nothing, and at least it'll get recycled rather than just going to a landfill.

Re:of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

It scans your ID, takes your picture, and reads your fingerprint before taking your phone. Pretty risky for a thief. Check out the video at http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/13/ecoatm-offers-instant-money-for-your-old-phone-we-go-hands-on-a/ [engadget.com]

Re:of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

If that were the case, why would they care to check that it was working?

Re:of course not

[gl4ss]

dunno, the vid I saw few months ago, hell, maybe even 8 months+ ago, about these things looked like they'd be placed in places like atm would be placed into. the place would be secure. it would have to be like that anyways, with some human on some desk seeing what's happening. otherwise you could screw with them, cut the connectors etc vandalism.

Re:of course not

[Alter_3d]

That sounds interesting, but would you insert your debit or credit card into any machine that claimed to give you money? Not very safe.

Re:of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

So lift a fingerprint off the shiny surfaces of the iPhone to make a dummy, print out a picture of the owner stored on the phone, and, uh, something-something ID.

Easy! /armchair criminal mastermind

Re:of course not

[dAzED1]

the gas to take it there (and get back) was probably $2 anyway...

Re:of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

I sold mine for $10 on craigslist.

Re:of course not

[PopeRatzo]

dunno, the vid I saw few months ago, hell, maybe even 8 months+ ago, about these things looked like they'd be placed in places like atm would be placed into.

Did you notice if they were dispensing cash or gift cards or writing onto a credit/debit card?

I cannot believe that there will be machines that will dispense cash to an anonymous person who walks up and connects a cellular phone.

Re:of course not

[Anonymous Coward]

That should make it easy to recover though. They could track the IMEI and hold the phone a month or so in case it was reported as stolen.
Though I hear the pro fencers can change the IMEI and serials... Maybe if they pay enough it's worth it.

Re:of course not

[PopeRatzo]

but would you insert your debit or credit card into any machine that claimed to give you money?

I do several times a week. They're called "ATMs" and they seem to work pretty well. Just pop that sucker in there, type in a PIN number (mine is 1234) and then hit the Fast Cash, $100 button on the touch screen. Crisp bills come flying out. If you listen carefully, you can hear the machine licking it's robotic thumb as it snaps off those five double-sawbucks like a pimp at a rolling crap game.

I don't know, does anyone have a dedicated "ATM card" any more or are they all debit or credit cards?

Re:of course not

[toddestan]

You got $2 for an old CRT? Around here, you generally have to pay the recyclers to take the things off your hands. While they may have valuable materials in them, it costs more to extract them (safely) than they are worth hence the reason you have to pay to recycle them. It's also illegal to throw them in the landfill, though people do it.

Also, good luck selling one. If it is in good working order, is clean, and is a high end screen like a Sony Trinitron you might be able to get someone to take it off your hands for free. If it's something that cost $200 in 2001 it's pretty much junk.

Great.

[Anonymous Coward]

All that, and still no Suicide Booths.

Re:Great.

[Eraesr]

Bite my shiny metal ass

Re:Great.

[FranktehReaver]

You are now dead. Please take your receipt.

Stealing phones?

[AliasMrAlias]

Seems stealing phones just got a lot less risky...

Re:Stealing phones?

[deniable]

AFM = Automatic Fencing Machine

Re:Stealing phones?

[digitrev]

No kidding. I'd suggest holding the phones for at least one month before they're allowed to be processed. That being said, I'm sure someone could find a way to make this work without running into the theft issue.

Re:Stealing phones?

[erroneus]

That too was my initial reaction to the idea. I guess it's not hard to imagine how this could be used for bad purposes.

Re:Stealing phones?

[BasilBrush]

From their FAQ:

What happens if my phone is stolen and someone tries to cash it in?
ecoATM kiosks have a variety of features in place specifically to deter stolen phones from entering our system. These features include the ability to capture;
Drivers License or Govt ID
Credit card
Digital signature
Fingerprint
Picture / Video of consumer via webcam
Address & email
Date & location of transaction
Details of what was collected, including the serial number
ecoATM kiosks are also capable of refusing to transact any phones found in the databases that tract reported stolen phones.

Presumably which ones are actually used will vary from country to country and according to the agreement with the retailer who hosts the unit.

I'm sure the determined thief can find their way around these. But then they can already sell to a pawn broker or on ebay. A few of the dumber criminals might get caught.

Re:Stealing phones?

[TheRaven64]

The obvious way of avoiding that would be to require the payments to a traceable bank account, rather than in cash. That said, most operators will flag an IMEI as stolen quite quickly, and the machine can query the IMEI quite easily. It would be easy to report all IMEIs as soon as the phone was inserted and reverse the payment if it was reported stolen within a week.

Re:Stealing phones?

[vlm]

Seems stealing phones just got a lot less risky...

Also setting someone up to take the fall. If they're not complete idiots they'll demand an address to send a check to.

So, let say I want to set up AliasMrAlias and I know his address (This is 100% hypothetical, I have nothing against you, no idea where you live other than probably planet Earth, it just makes a better story). Buy a burner phone, maybe a $20 virgin mobile phone at Target or whatever. Recycle it and provide AliasMrAlias's public available address and contact information. File a police report that someone stole my phone from my jacket while I'm at the bar, sorry I got no description but I do happen to have the serial number, model number, ESN, whatever, basically all the stuff the automated fencing machine collects. AliasMrAlias gets busted for theft / stolen property / whatever / maybe even forced by court to send me the money "he earned" from selling my phone. It was funny to use AliasMrAlias's name in the example, but I suspect they're will be a heck of a lot more examples of ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-spouses, angry coworkers, angry neighbors, angry landlords, practical jokers getting way the heck out of hand, etc.

Once its well known that its non-prosecutable due to this little problem, the real thieves and muggers will then move into that market. I'm not sure if ANY "real civilians" will ever use this service. Kind of like check cashing loanshark places are mostly used to profit off identity theft.

Re:Stealing phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can the corporation be prosecuted for receiving stolen property?

Re:Stealing phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, so the thief uses a stolen account credentials, and transfers the money out of the account ASAP so the account owner is stuck with the reversed transaction.

Re:Stealing phones?

[delinear]

Demand a credit or debit card and make the payment to that account? Sure you can drop a stolen phone in there if you want the police to pay a visit to the account holder.

Re:Stealing phones?

[DigiShaman]

Criminals aren't just dumb, some really don't give a rats ass about being identified. If they can run in, collect cash, and scram in less than a minute, it would be a productive day for them. Evidence and whatnot is meaningless as it only addresses the issue after the crime has already happened. So unless this only activates after performing a DB lookup of a citizen, there's nothing to prevent someone forging a false ID.

I think the root problem with this idea is the fact it's offering instant cash. Why in such a hurry? Just cut them a check which would imply proper shipping and traceable bank account. Which brings up another point. Sometime in the future, it's quite possible that we will live in a cashless society. Lord knows the Federal Gov want's to tract each and every transaction. It would cut down on violent crime, drug abuse, and prevent tax evasion. It would also save by not having the Treasury create physical currency. It would also allow them to inject more money (inflation) in real-time into the system via a few keystrokes sort of speak.

Re:Stealing phones?

[linuxwolf69]

Wow... that actually makes it sound worse... "Sell us your phone... and don't worry... we'll just create a database of your name, address, email, CC, DL, fingerprint, and just to be safe... we'll even take a picture to attach to your file..."

Sounds to me more like a great way to build a large database of people that wouldn't normally have things like prints on file.

Re:Stealing phones?

[g0bshiTe]

En garde!

Re:Stealing phones?

[FatdogHaiku]

Apple can have their own version:
iPhence

Re:Stealing phones?

[ArsenneLupin]

That said, most operators will flag an IMEI as stolen quite quickly

These machines will be found in shopping malls. What if the thief tries to fence the phone to a machine in the same mall as where he "found" it in a handbag? The victim may not yet know that her phone is gone, much less made a deposition at the police station and listed the IMEI...

Re:Stealing phones?

[DanCo]

So I paid cash for a prepaid debit card. Now what?

Re:Stealing phones?

[TheRaven64]

That's why I said it would need the delay. If the payment is not cash, but some form of electronic transfer (most credit cards support payments to them as well as from) then it could be reversed if the phone is reported stolen before the period is up. If you pay into someone else's stolen credit card, then you can't get the funds, so it's not a major issue.

Re:Stealing phones?

[oldmac31310]

Just make sure you're holding it the right way!

Re:Stealing phones?

[Baloroth]

Ok, I'm not a grammar nazi or anything and wouldn't normally even bring this up, but you are the second person in a row to use the word "tract", so at this point I can't just assume it is a typo. "Tract" refers to a section of land, a short work of literature (usually political or religious in nature), or a section of certain body parts (such as the intestinal tract). Also, it's a noun, not a verb. The word you and your parent poster are looking for is the verb "track", which means (in this case, it has lots of meanings) to record and follow the history and movements of.

Re:Stealing phones?

[Baloroth]

The follow up to your little hypothetical story is that the police examine the video footage of the automated fencing machine, see it was you, not him that sold the phone to it, and give you (or the hypothetical individual) 5-10 for identity theft (or whatever the hell framing someone for a crime falls under). Or compare fingerprints that the machine required. Either would be pretty easy to require (via face recognition or a thumb-scanner). In any case, they certainly wouldn't take the information the seller gives the machine as proof of identity in the case of a theft. Most criminals aren't that stupid, you could simply assume the information was fake in the case of a theft, barring other evidence, so that little problem would never appear.

Re:Stealing phones?

[DigiShaman]

Correct. It wasn't a typo. My bad. It's rare, but I've noticed that I will substitute the correct spelling of one word for another when they phonetically sound similar. While I do make a best effort to proofread prior to posting, I do screw up from time to time. And honestly, I try not to put too much effort into this. It is after all a public forum, not a dissertation. Life is too short. Call me lazy if you want.

Re:Stealing phones?

[robot256]

Do prepaid debit cards allow non-charge-back deposits by third parties? Sounds like that would be pretty easy to prevent.

Re:Stealing phones?

[Cylix]

I'll foil the system by using a stolen bank card!

You'll never catch me, nyaaah!

Re:Stealing phones?

[tepples]

Not everybody is a professional merchant who can afford the monthly fee that a credit card processor charges. In the cashless society you put forward, how would individuals pay other individuals?

Re:Stealing phones?

[tlhIngan]

I'm sure the determined thief can find their way around these. But then they can already sell to a pawn broker or on ebay. A few of the dumber criminals might get caught.

eBay's far less risky. A pawnshop and this machine have very good reasons to want to make their systems either lowball stolen phones or not accept them at all - it costs the company money.

Stolen property may be taken to be returned to the owner. This means the new owner (the pawnshop or the company behind this machine) will lose possession of the device, AND be out the money they paid for it, and have no legal recourse except going after the person who defrauded them (i.e., the thief).

So if this machine becomes a haven for stolen phones ,the company won't be in business for very long paying out money and not getting anything in return.

eBay things are murkier - the theif may be able to get away, though Paypal will probalby have a record of the sale, and the payment - who they sent the money to and where the money came from. Or the bank information they sent the payment to. But it's murkier as eBay leaves the local area - most pawns and this device, the phone will be from the local area.

Re:Stealing phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in such a hurry?

Perhaps you're not aware of the increased sales that occur when someone's phone gets stolen... Replacement rarely costs anyone but the consumer, and in the case of insurance, who wouldn't want motivation for people to buy it? "That's a nice phone, shame if someone took it from you..." and such.

Re:Stealing phones?

[DigiShaman]

In the cashless society you put forward, how would individuals pay other individuals?

Everyone would be forced to have a bank account. In the event no bank wants you as a customer, the individual's last option is to have an account with the Federal Government. Only this account wouldn't provide any other services or payback on interest. To the citizen, a Federal account is nothing more than a financial holding tank. Equivalent to a virtual wallet or safe.

I'm a firm believer that's where we are headed. For better or for worse.

Re:Stealing phones?

[geminidomino]

I've been having the same problem recently. I used to be quite good about "you're/your" and now I'm doing things like "flease (fleece)."

Not sure if getting old, or need emergency CT Scan... </Fry>

Re:Stealing phones?

[roc97007]

So let me get this straight -- the machine can verify my driver's license and my credit card and my finger print? Hell with stealing mere cell phones, it's the machine itself that's the real gem.

Re:Stealing phones?

[roc97007]

> Sometime in the future, it's quite possible that we will live in a cashless society. Lord knows the Federal Gov want's to tract each and every transaction. It would cut down on violent crime, drug abuse, and prevent tax evasion. It would also save by not having the Treasury create physical currency. It would also allow them to inject more money (inflation) in real-time into the system via a few keystrokes sort of speak.

Um, ... good?

The first thing that occurs to me is that the very first thing that will be done after converting to an all cashless society is that a couple hundred ways will be found to game the system. In fact, I can see where it might be *easier* to break a cashless system than is would be to print money that would pass a reasonable check. (Even in these days of high resolution color copiers.)

Re:Stealing phones?

[roc97007]

Agreed. Also you're putting a machine out in the wild that has intimate access to all these sources of information. Someone creating false ids would really *need* one 'a' those.

Re:Stealing phones?

[mattack2]

Not everybody is a professional merchant who can afford the monthly fee that a credit card processor charges.

Why is Square (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_(application)) doing gangbusters then?

Re:Stealing phones?

[vlm]

No go. If you live in socal this won't work but up north just wear a coat and hat. Unless they have a human examine your picture before completing the order, you simply put on a ski mask.

Obviously they'll find my fingerprints all over my phone, after all I was using it until supposedly AliasMrAlias stole it.

Thumb scanner biometrics are soooooooo owned and easily falsifiable that they're meaningless. They're like lie detectors, people outside the business think they're god and people inside the business know they're utterly useless other than for intimidation purposes.

Re:Stealing phones?

[cduffy]

Not fingerprints on the phone, fingerprints recorded in the machine -- it has a scanner and requires a fingerprint from the seller (among other measures, such as scanning an ID card / driver's license). Read their FAQ.

Re:Stealing phones?

[Anonymous Coward]

And honestly, I try not to put too much effort into this. It is after all a public forum, not a dissertation.

More people will read your writing here than any dissertation. Still, the effort it takes to be perfect isn't worth it. You certainly don't get close to the level of lazy you see around here.

Re:Stealing phones?

[tepples]

Now that the strike is over for now, as promised:

"Square charges a fee of 2.75% on every credit card transaction." This is in addition to the roughly $350 per year that I'd have to pay to upgrade from a $7 per month* dumbphone to a $35 per month** smartphone capable of running the application.

* Virgin Mobile USA's cheapest advertised payLo (dumbphone) plan costs $20 per 90 days.
** Virgin Mobile USA's cheapest advertised Beyond Talk (smartphone) plan.

Yay, $5

[Nimey]

that's what my 2-year-old feature phone was worth used.

Re:Yay, $5

[BasilBrush]

Yea! Profit! Given that if was almost certainly free* when you got it.

(*Free with a contract.)

Re:Yay, $5

[Nimey]

And? I paid the contract price; the carrier got its money back and then some. The phone by itself is obviously worth more than $5.

It's the same sort of artificially distorted used market you see in college textbooks here in the States.

Re:Yay, $5

[kullnd]

No, an object is worth whatever people are willing to pay for it... Your 2 year old feature phone is not worth going to sell to anyone for more than $5, so it is not worth more than $5.

Re:Yay, $5

[Baloroth]

The phone was worth more than $5 dollars. Now it is two years old and the market is flooded with old feature phones which no one wants, it actually is worth about that. Simply for parts and materials, most likely, unless it is in really good shape or a really nice feature phone.

Re:Yay, $5

[bemymonkey]

Yes, but that may change in the future - with smartphones all popular, who wants a feature phone these days? In a year or two it'll be an iPhone 3GS that's "at the end of its life", and that'll be worth much more than $5 (or at least I should hope so)...

Cracked screen?

[Rik Sweeney]

This is a nice idea, but surely the condition of the device matters too? I'm sure a cracked iPhone 4S wouldn't be worth as much as one in mint condition.

What do these recycling companies do with these phones anyway?

Re:Cracked screen?

[Kjella]

This is a nice idea, but surely the condition of the device matters too? I'm sure a cracked iPhone 4S wouldn't be worth as much as one in mint condition.

That's what I was thinking too, the glass might be cracked, the display broken but it could still "work" for this machine. Perhaps they will take photos as well and compare against a reference? If you control the camera, lighting, distance and have an exact model reference picture you should be able to see most kinds of visual damage...

Re:Cracked screen?

[vlm]

What do these recycling companies do with these phones anyway?

One division of a cell phone seller that I'm familiar with wipes them with windex, therefore marks the value up on the books to about $150 because its now "reconditioned", donates them to battered women, homeless people, etc, as 911 emergency phones, marks the $150 loss/donation on their tax return, and uses that to balance against their income earned from selling phones. Essentially its a tax dodge. Don't know how it works with separate companies or non-profit, all the donation credits in the world are useless from a tax perspective unless you have taxable profits...

The only dodge I can think of for a church would be something like take an income stream of $1M of sunday donations and 1000 junk cellphones, mark up the value of the phones to $1000 each using some windex and give them away, so you gave away $1000 * 1000 phones = $1M. Now you've got $1M cash unaccountable for, which as a good christian evangelist televangelist you can spend on cocaine and male prostitutes, in other words, blow and ... blow, I guess, while publishing that you took in $1M and some phones and send out $1M and some phones so superficially there's nothing fishy going on with the finances.

Re:Cracked screen?

[mjr167]

Churches are tax exempt anyway. And the hookers and blow are part of the religion. Stop repressing my religion!

Re:Cracked screen?

[vlm]

Sorry for the follow up to my post but I hit post too early... the other dodge I'm aware of, is those "new" batteries on ebay actually are shipped in "new" plastic baggies, but guess where the batteries came from?

Never buy a battery (of any sort, not just cellphone) on ebay unless you see and can verify the manufacturing date code and that date isn't like 3 years old. Even if you see that, a bit of white plastic shrink wrap and a computer printed label has an excellent profit return if you sell the "new" battery for $25.

Re:Cracked screen?

[Eraesr]

I guess they're not interested in the phone as it being a phone but in the materials that it was made up of. There's still a good amount of materials in a phone that can be recycled and sold again. They probably check if the phone still works to make sure that it isn't just an empty casing of a phone.

Re:Cracked screen?

[BasilBrush]

Yes, as it says in the summary, they take photos. And they do it with the data cable plugged in, so presumably they can force the phone display to change, and check that the screen image looks right.

They'll accept the machine whatever condition it is in, but the value will be less if it's damaged.

Re:Cracked screen?

[BasilBrush]

They sell them on auction sites, in whatever part of the world they'll have the highest value.

If they're broken or worthless for resale as phones, they sell them to recyclers who extract the gold and other precious materials in them.

Re:Cracked screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

ever heard of tag mobile? they take recycled phones and give them to people who are on food stamps. They get 100 or so minutes per month paid for by a surcharge that is on your phone bill.

Re:Cracked screen?

[DerekLyons]

Never buy a battery (of any sort, not just cellphone) on ebay. Period.

There, fixed that for you.
 
Seriously, there's so much 'spam' on eBay, that it's become virtually worthless. The last time I tried to buy anything useful from there, I spent so much time sorting through the knockoffs, scams, idiots who put unrelated keywords in their description, etc... that ('paying' myself a fair hourly wage) I wasn't saving all that much money unless I got the item at a low price on the first auction I bid in. (And frequently, there's competition, so it takes multiple attempts, and thus multiple passes at sorting, before winning.)

Re:Cracked screen?

[DerekLyons]

One division of a cell phone seller that I'm familiar with wipes them with windex, therefore marks the value up on the books to about $150 because its now "reconditioned", donates them to battered women, homeless people, etc, as 911 emergency phones, marks the $150 loss/donation on their tax return, and uses that to balance against their income earned from selling phones and prays like hell that they never get audited.

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Cracked screen?

[Cylix]

My understanding is when transferring goods to a non-profit you can write off the full original value of the merchandise. However, someone actually has to accept the goods in the first place. Obviously, you can keep junking the same place twice.

However, it's been a while since I've dealt with a non-profit, but that is what I remember anyway.

Re:Cracked screen?

[j-beda]

One division of a cell phone seller that I'm familiar with wipes them with windex, therefore marks the value up on the books to about $150 because its now "reconditioned", donates them to battered women, homeless people, etc, as 911 emergency phones, marks the $150 loss/donation on their tax return, and uses that to balance against their income earned from selling phones and prays like hell that they never get audited.

There, fixed that for you.

Definitely - the audit will kill you. Even if they actually did something to create a phone with a "value" of $150, they can't claim that as a loss/donation when they give it away. Giving away an item does not generate a transaction on your books that you can enter into any of your expenses categories. Giving money does. The expenses associated with reconditioned the device have already been captured by you accounting system when you bought the windex and the paper-towels.

I suppose you might be able to play with some "depreciation of inventory" type of thing, but in order to make that work, at some point you have to count that "reconditinging" process of generating $148 of value (with the $2 you paid out to the seller of the old phone to get to the $150 value as inventory on your books) as income - so when you give them away at $150, you really haven't scammed any balance against income.

If you are going to cook your books, you might as well just go whole hog and inflate your "legitimate" expenses, or decrease your "legitimate" income. Get into a largely cash business and then you've got some great scam opportunities.

Re:Cracked screen?

[roc97007]

...so I download a nice photo of a pristine iphone, print it at 1:1 scale, and paste it to the front of my broken phone.

Moreover, I'm thinking it wouldn't necessarily detect the issues with my daughter's last Galaxy S, which had a wonky (but not broken) display, dead compass, dead position sensor, and dead GPS. But still worked as a phone if you could dial blind.

Re:Cracked screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Best guess I've had is when your phone breaks the warranty replacement is one of these phones "refurbished".

Otherwise I can't think why. There are loads of companies advertising on tv to buy your phones in the uk, its a mystery.

Selling stoles phones for money

[Anonymous Coward]

This is making it even easier to dispose of stolen phones in return for money, hooray!

Re:Selling stoles phones for money

[digitrev]

Sadly, this was my first thought. Unless there is some sort of holding period, like with pawn shops, this could easily be abused. My second thought was issues with personal data. Will the phones be wiped when received? Or only when they are prepared to be sold. This could work, but they'd need to handle these issues, along with the others that I'm sure I'm forgetting.

Thieves?

[Nimey]

One wonders how the machine will deal with thieves who've just stolen someone's newish iPhone.

Re:Thieves?

[Anonymous Coward]

keep your god damn mouth shut, this is my retirement plan. don't ruin it for me.

Re:Thieves?

[Anonymous Coward]

Immediate and brutal justice.

Re:Thieves?

[synthparadox]

I would love it if, after connecting the cable, it detects the stolen MSIN, takes the phone, and notifies the police.

Re:Thieves?

[delinear]

Bonus points if it opens a little drawer full of cash and, as the seller is reaching for it, slaps them in handcuffs to await the arrival of the police.

Re:Thieves?

[skids]

Here's a question: if your phone was stolen and someone showed up with it at one of these stations, which would you rather the station do:

1) Lowball the price, get the phone, notify the police, notify you and return the phone to you if you want, for a service fee (one might arrange to agree to this ahead of time when reporting the phone stolen.)

2) Tell the guy to go scram, taking your phone with him, and notify the police.

Well now.

[Black Parrot]

There's just about not anything a machine won't do for money.

EcoATM you're welcome to India :D

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish EcoATM will also spread installations of these type of machines across the world..specifically in India.

I gotta loads-of cellphones (in my closet) to cashon :D

btw: nice thought onbehalf of EcoATM :)

Stupid.

[ledow]

Stupid idea that has a number of scams and will be a greater target for them (and just general theft).

1) Insert cardboard-box phone for photo.
2) When data cable arrives, plug into equivalent model.
3) Deposit cardboard box, walk away with cash.
4) Profit!

Who needs to insert stolen phones when the verificaiton will never be 100% accurate? What? Fraud? But the buyer saw and agreed to what they would buy! Caveat emptor!

Doing these sorts of things "human-less" is an incredibly stupid idea that's going to be rife with abuse. And, to be honest, the machine probably cost more to make than putting someone in a shopping centre or even the recycled-cost of the phones it will collect in a year.

People should stop trying to automate things just for the sake of it, especially with dumb ideas like this.

Re:Stupid.

[BasilBrush]

Your plan won't work. Once the data cable is plugged in, the door closes and you don't get access to your phone again unless you decide to decline the transaction.

Re:Stupid.

[delinear]

I'm pretty sure they will have considered at least some of the more obvious scams and figured out ways around them. Once your phone is inside the machine they could run some diagnostics on the screen with the data cable plugged in and scan that to ensure it's a properly working model. They could even use this opportunity to test things like the bluetooth/wifi/speakers/audio jack if those things affect the price sufficiently.

Re:Stupid.

[gl4ss]

actually, that's highly model dependent. on most models they'd just be able to check that the usb id's are "right".

Automated Pawn Shops

[na1led]

And all those phones will go on Ebay marked up 1000%

Re:Automated Pawn Shops

[vlm]

And all those phones will go on Ebay marked up 1000%

Probably just their batteries, relabeled and marked as "new".

Re:Automated Pawn Shops

[BasilBrush]

So go to ebay first, check the price.

If the difference in price isn't enough to cover P&P, and your time in listing, packaging and visiting the post office, then you might as well take the money from the machine.

doesn't recycle

[dutchwhizzman]

The machine just collects, it doesn't recycle one bit.

Also, given the cost of labor, I'd say you'll have a hard time getting this machine to be cheaper and less error prone than some shop clerk that does this work and checks your ID to make sure you're not anonymously selling stolen phones.

Re:doesn't recycle

[delinear]

The difference is the shop clerk needs a shop to operate out of. This just needs a couple of square feet of floorspace in a mall. They could even do a deal with people who operate those change converting machines to put both systems in one (share the running costs and rental overheads for machines that probably sit unused for 90% of the time).

Re:doesn't recycle

[ArsenneLupin]

The difference is the shop clerk needs a shop to operate out of.

The recycling companies won't set up shops extra for this, but instead partner with existing shops. So, the newsstand, the photo shop, or the place where you buy new phones also takes used phones on the side.

Advantage:

• no need for extra space (apart from the actual storage bin where the used phones go)
• no need to pay a clerk full time for maybe 3 phones per day...

Failed business model

[pbrooks100]

Cash on the spot? I think not... Considering the issues of stolen devices, carrier account transfer/deactivation, forgotten SIM and purging of personal data; this is a business model that will not fly. These are human problems that will not be easily overcome by some image acquisition and USB port hacking... One business opportunity for this may be to create a service to collect lost phones found by a good samaritan. Insurance carriers for policies that people buy for their phone could report SNs and pay a small fee to ecoATM for the return of a lost device. If the lost device was already replaced, the insurer would be free to dispose of the device as fit (sell to ecoATM). Add a feature to collect the finder's data to optionally allow payment for a finder's fee and place it next to a Redbox or Coinstar and this MAY have a SMALL chance.

No need for step ???

[Anonymous Coward]

Step 1) Plug in perfectly working device.
Step 2) Deposit old device new one replaced.
Step 3) Profit.

No need for a ??? step, gold mine right here.

Recycled data

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what exactly will they do with all the used data bits? Sell the addresses and phone numbers and cashed key logger data to the highest bidder?

Infrastructure for phone thieves?

[hlavac]

Reminds me of some of the shady second hand phone/electronics shops here in Czech Republic, that are open all night. Sure, you want to sell your old phone in the middle of the night, right?

Re:Infrastructure for phone thieves?

[delinear]

Erm, for anyone who works all week and also has to commute so doesn't have time to get to the shop, and doesn't want to waste their weekend making a special journey to the shop just to sell their phone - yeah it would be nice to sell old phones in the middle of the night. After all, I can already go to supermarkets and buy phones in the middle of the night, so it's only logical.

Re:Infrastructure for phone thieves?

[azgard]

Sure, sure.. apparently not from Czech Republic, eh?

Automated machines to recycle votes for Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

Or was it just me who read it like that?

How much do they pay though?

[King_TJ]

The big complaint I have with used cellphones, at least here in the USA, is this:

Most people obtain their new phone with a 1 or 2 year contract, so the phone's price is heavily subsidized up-front. You might get a $700 phone for $200, or a $400 phone for $50. You wind up paying its full price, of course, but only as you pay your monthly bills to finish off your contract (or pay the ETF to get out of it sooner).

Problem is, the used market generally views these devices as though their actual VALUE is relative to the subsidized prices, not the TRUE prices.

As just one example? My Sprint HTC Evo 4G is just under 1 year old right now, and when I got it, it was the "rock star" of phones on the Sprint network. There was really nothing better they could sell you, even if you wanted it. Currently, Sprint has a "trade in" offer where you can send back your old phone for credit on your future bills (not even cash!), and my Evo is worth a whopping $80, if in "excellent condition". Never-mind I'm probably still paying Sprint more than that for the phone, as I use up the remainder of the 2 year contract I had with it!

And judging from my experiences with most of the "cellphone recyclers" out there I'd talked to, I suspect they pay even LESS on average. Their business models usually revolve around the idea that plenty of people value their used phones at "basically zero", considering them a waste of space, or extra junk lying around.

If you've got a plain old flip-phone of some sort (hardly matters what make, model or how new) -- because it's used and not a "smartphone", I'd say you'd be lucky to get even $5 - $10 for it from most recyclers. That's one hell of a depreciation rate, when you consider a lot of those were "military spec" Nextels and such, that their owners only recently got done paying hundreds for in their contracts.

I've consistently found I got FAR more out of semi-recent model used cellphones by reselling them on Craigslist or even eBay, vs. recycling them. People who don't want long contracts but need reliable cellular service with a major carrier quickly realize the real value of these used phones, and are essentially the only customers you'll have who'll pay you a fair price for one.

Re:How much do they pay though?

[Anonymous Coward]

People are clueless about the true value of their phones. When I tell people that I have an $800 phone (iPhone 4S 32GB) people look at me in surprise. Some people claim it's only a $300 phone (subsidized by my $2,000 2yr contract with AT&T) but it's just not true. If it broke tomorrow and I had to replace it it would cost me $800. And to a thief, I'm walking around with an $800 computer in my hand.

Re:How much do they pay though?

[laffer1]

Worse yet, many providers still charge the same price even if you have a phone already you want to use on their network. If you don't take the contract phone, you're out even more money. That system doesn't make sense to me. I should get a discount because I didn't get a phone.

Re:How much do they pay though?

[DerekLyons]

The word you're looking for is depreceation, and it's been a fact of life in reselling electronics since the dawn of mass consumer digital/electronic devices back in the 1980's.

Re:How much do they pay though?

[iampiti]

I guess things are a bit different in Europe (like in many other things). I've used this company twice and, while they didn't pay too much for my used phones it seems they do value them relative to the real unsubsidized price.
For instance, a few current prices for used phones (must be working, all models refer to international versions): Samsung Galaxy S: 115 €.
Iphone 4: 201 €
Blackberry bold touch 9900: 196 €
Not bad, huh?

Re:How much do they pay though?

[zippthorne]

Pfft., no. The phones may have a retail price higher than the "with subsidy" price, but the real cost to the retailer is somewhere between (or less...).

Your mistake was in assuming that the phone companies were only working' one scam on you....

Darn!

[sandytaru]

I dropped mine off in the recycle bin slot at my phone carrier last time I upgraded. Should have held onto it...

You know what would be even more green?

[roc97007]

Keep your old phone.

Re:You know what would be even more green?

[plopez]

Damn. I wish I hadn't posted before seeing this post, now I can't mod it. Insightful and succinct.

Re:You know what would be even more green?

[TheRaven64]

Or give it to someone else, if you do need to upgrade for some reason. Recycling is hugely wasteful when reuse is possible. It always depresses me that we collect glass bottles, smash them, heat them to a high temperature, and then use the result to make... glass bottles.

Re:You know what would be even more green?

[roc97007]

>p>
> Or give it to someone else, if you do need to upgrade for some reason. Recycling is hugely wasteful when reuse is possible.

Agreed, although giving your old one to others (which I have done under specialized circumstances) sometimes means that they throw away their old phone. Or maybe they give it to someone of even less means, I dunno... it might be like that description of the city of Minas-Trony in Harvard Lampoon's Bored of the Rings. The city was built like a layer cake, so that the rich could throw their garbage over the edge to the next lower class, which threw their garbage over the edge to the next lower, etc. Nobody knew what the bottom layer did with garbage. Some suspected they ate it.

> It always depresses me that we collect glass bottles, smash them, heat them to a high temperature, and then use the result to make... glass bottles.

Remember when... sorry, showing my age here. *I* remember when milk was delivered to your door in glass bottles with paper caps. You set out your empties, which were returned to the outlet which hopefully sterilized them and reused them. No smashing and melting involved. There's a number of reasons we can't do that now, mostly to do with non-standard shapes and brands etched in the glass which would require sorting by make and model, and probably a little bit by overreaction to diseases that we have now that we did not have then. It's sad that we get milk now in cartons that for the most part become landfill.

That's not recycling

[plopez]

It's purchasing. Recycling means breaking the machine down to its components; metal, plastic etc.; then using those components to build more things.

I thought it was going to be a machine that crushes up phones and extracts the metals in a safe controlled manner, then grinds up the plastic for reuse. What was I thinking? The tech world is nothing but hype....

who gives a crap if it works

[Osgeld]

Oh thats cause this is not recycling, instead its a big box of working celphones with all sorts of valuable data on it, sitting in a thin box at the mall ready to steal or resale while your feeding it for free

sorry but fuck that

Re:who gives a crap if it works

[roc97007]

> with all sorts of valuable data on it

How could I have missed this? Ye Gods, this is an automated phishing machine. I mean, us geeks, we'd do a factor reset and pull the SD card (if anything but an iPhone) but Fred and Ethyl Mertz would just drop the phone in the bin without thinking. Holy Carp! I think we just guaranteed the Russian economy for another decade.

Declined

[tepples]

So I paid cash for a prepaid debit card. Now what?

No home billing zip code? Declined.

Pair a grammar correction with a topical reply

[tepples]

PROTIP: It's not considered very nice to reply solely to correct someone's grammar or usage unless the error makes it nearly impossible to understand someone's post. I have found it more polite to include a topical reply to one's point in the same comment as your correction. It might look like the following: "I'll assume that by 'rats ass' you meant 'rat's ass', and by 'tract' you meant 'track'. In that case: Not everybody can afford [etc.]"

Clippy says go prepaid

[tepples]

It looks like you're buying a cellular phone in the U.S. market. Would you like help?

• Buy a prepaid dumbphone and a payLo plan from Virgin Mobile
• Buy a prepaid dumbphone and a Beyond Talk plan from Virgin Mobile
• Buy a phone and a Value Plan from T-Mobile

Wonga!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it also say WONGAA!!

Hmmm.

[forkfail]

Wonder what it would give me for my t-mobile Samsung Galaxy S, with faulty GPS antenna. Probably more than t-mobile....

Re:Hmmm.

[roc97007]

Yeah, we have two of those as well.

So... in final words

[Anonymous Coward]

This whole recycling theory is based on the premise that folks are paying way too much over the contract time for their phones.
So what should we all do? Buy an iPhone as it depreciates the least (according to many experts)?
Sounds like a flawed idea to me - and one that won't catch on like dispensing special gloves and glasses in factories from "vending machines' that cost $10-20k each.
I also don't see any device with a connector that will work for "any" phone - there's simply so many variations over the past 2-3 years

Final Fantasy

[tepples]

Why is Square doing gangbusters then?

Trading on the inertia of Square Enix's Final Fantasy brand, I guess. If you meant some other Square, I don't know because Wikipedia has been shut down. Hopefully I'll have a more thoughtful reply tomorrow.

Easy to hack

[Vrtigo1]

Why not just buy a ton of broken iPhones to put in the machine and then when it asks you to connect the cable to verify the phone works, connect it to your working iPhone that you have no intention of leaving in the machine? I doubt the machine has a method to connect the cable itself, so if the user has to connect the cable, how can the machine verify that the phone that was plugged in is the same one that the user puts in the slot?