Most Electronic device recycle and Trade-ins are for-profit ripoffs. It is much better to sell yourself on ebay or sell local for the maximum return. No time you say? Doing the trade-in will take just as much time as above reporter showed.

@FrugalFreak: I tried selling myself on eBay, but they banned me for violating their terms. Now that craigslist is taking down the erotic services section, I've nowhere to go.

@youbastid: May I ask what terms you violated? I'm curious because I know ebay has become seriously anti-seller, that's why I stopped bothering with Ebay a couple of years ago.

Most retail trade in programs or even pawn shops aren't going to give you top dollar for used stuff. Their job is buy your stuff cheap enough to turn around and sell it AGAIN to make a profit.

Cut out the middleman and sell it yourself for the best results.

Come on people. You expect Radio Shaft to do anything right? They are a corporation.

@dragonfire81: I think you missed something

Don't forget you can donate used phones to domestic violence programs -- and get a tax writeoff.

It looks like Radio Shack's program is run by a third-party company called cexchange (do you pronounce it sex change?)

It's actually one of the few that ISN'T run by DealTree, whose business model is just to resell the stuff on eBay - which pretty much tells you you are going to get a bunch less than eBay.

Uh. You know they do the same the in store right? They give you an estimate before they make the gift card for you and the store handles all the shipping. It's a pittance, but if you were just planning on recycling an old phone anyway, it's worth it. Plus, in California, if the gift card has a balance of less than $10 they have to give you cash.

Considering the current state of radioshack and the cellphone business (big corps have pulled out allowing them to resale), I would just steer clear. Your BB Storm would have been better off on ebay afterall, despite fees.

@FrugalFreak: For profit ripoffs? Umm, doesn't that practically apply to all business models, being the "buy low, sell high" aspect?

@youbastid: Time to do it the old fashion way, then. After all, the boulevard did exist before the internet.

@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): The program I worked for was inundated with used cell phones, most of which were newer and in better condition than mine at the time. We really only handed out a handful of them a month, but were getting 50-100 in the same span of time, so, we ended up boxing up the older ones and sending them to a recycler and getting a few bucks a pop for each of them. We'd just keep a handful of the smallest/newer ones around to give to clients as 9-1-1 phones.

@reynwrap582: It's still benefiting your program, even if you're recycling the phone. There are drop-offs at a lot of cell phone retailers for this.

@Skaperen: They are also Radio Shack. That alone explains volumes.

"which you can then turn around and use to buy 7,000 house brand AAA batteries."

Does this take into account the number of free batteries awarded when you show your Radio Shack Battery Card at time of purchase?

@madanthony: Good to see they keep their website up to date with links to such highly-successful retailers such as Tweeter.

@Eyebrows McGee (popping ~May 29): There is also one to send phones to troops.

@reynwrap582: Yes, the program I typically donate through makes clear they sell/recycle some of them and distribute others ... I'd just as soon the charity get the dollars for recycling it. :)

@Who wants chowdah??: Do they still have the Battery Club? When I was a kid I had a Radio Shack battery card, every month I could go to the store and get one free battery.

@dragonfire81: Just mention "money order" in an auction for something other than a car, boat, motorcycle, or other titled vehicle and they will dump you...

@Joseph Beck: Naw, they canned the club years ago. I was going through some old files recently and found my last battery club card that I had missed two months of getting free batteries. It was from around '91 or '92 era...

@econobiker: I'm surprised anyone in the business of selling themselves would accept anything other than cash.

@Rectilinear Propagation: I'm willing to accept my weight in langostino lobster.

@RandomHookup: Yeah, ok, I see what I did there. Oops.

This is nothing compared to my experience with HP. It took six months and three phone calls, in addition to several faxes, to get my $100 refund.

Of course, GameStop was technically worse...back in the days when they had refunds for brand new titles, I sent in five refund applications for $10 each and never received a single one back.

Do you still have Radio Shack in the states?? Up here in Canada they were bought out by Circuit City & renamed to 'the source'.

Radio Shack was always my favourite place to buy electronics because they always had knowledgeable staff (usually VERY knowledgeable). Now they have a few people who are still competent but their customer service has suffered in that the really competent staff seem... lonely - in that they're never there with anyone else who's competent.. That was the real ticket when I was a kid - walking into a store with a BUNCH of people who loved what they did...