Last week, we shared a reader’s story of trade-in woe from his experience trying to sell his old phone to the site CashForiPhones.com. The site also buys other electronics, like portable computers and mobile phones not made by Apple. Reader James reports that he received a very fair quote from the company, followed by an awful offer once the company had his phones in hand.

James writes that he ended up with three Samsung Galaxy Note 3 phones from a vendor. All were sparkling new in their boxes and unused, and he had no need for them, so he decided to cash them in. The company made him a great offer: $1,074 for the three phones. He shipped them to the company, then waited for their final offer after checking the phones over.

Instead of an offer, he received a mysterious PayPal deposit of $163.00 from “Cash4Laptops and eCycleBest.” That was not the amount James agreed on, and it was a crappy offer for any one of the phones, let alone all of them. Naturally, he got on the phone to complain about this.

“I called when they opened and after 2 hours of waiting on hold, I finally reached someone,” he wrote to Consumerist. That sounds unpleasant. Even less pleasant was the company’s counter-offer: they raised their offer for all three phones to $393. “I could take them to at least 3 other sites and get at least $300 for each device,” James grumbled, and he asked for the phones to be sent back.

Sure, it’s phone-trading season, especially for Apple fans, but ask around and be sure to thoroughly check out the company that you choose to recycle your device, especially if it is worth some real cash like James’s phones.

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CashForiPhones Keeps My iPhone, Cuts Cash Offer By $222

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