SellCell

SellCell Review:

SellCell is a shopping comparison site for people who want to peddle a used cell phone, gaming device, tablet, computer or other electronics.

The site also maintains that if you could have sold your device for more, it will pay you double the difference through its “best price guarantee.”  (More on that under the section titled “not guaranteed.”)

How it works

You plug in whatever you want to sell and the site will come back with offers from half a dozen different resellers willing to buy your device. The idea is to make comparison shopping easier.

Cautions

However, realize that no comparison shopping site surveys every buyer. Like airline comparison shopping sites, there are some significant players who are overlooked.

As a result, the site does not necessarily bring up the best-paying or best-rated buyers for your phone.

And because SellCell is not the actual buyer — just a comparison site —  it does not take responsibility for the transaction. From the site’s terms: “Information on this Website is provided for general information purposes only...”

In other words, you may click on the highest offer listed at SellCell, but it’s an estimate not an offer. And the offer is not coming from SellCell. As a result, when consumers complain about a transaction that started on SellCell, SellCell disclaims any responsibility for it. (See “what their users say” below)

And…

You should independently check out any buyer you select before you send in your phone. Some of the third-party sites that come up in random searches on SellCell have been accused of engaging in bait-and-switch tactics, where they rescind seemingly high offers once the cell phone is in their hands.

To be sure, subjective decisions about the condition of a used cell phone can have an impact on pricing. But, some sites are far more likely to generate complaints about those subjective decisions than others.

Not guaranteed

But what of SellCell guarantee that you’ll get the best price here? There is a lot of fine print that goes with that offer that makes this guarantee worthless, in our estimation. Specifically:

The terms of the deal require that you (a) sell your phone through a link on their site even though you know you could do better; (b) file a claim within 24 hours; (c) meet a bunch of other terms that could knock most transactions out of the running.  And finally their guarantee says: “The decision whether or not to honour a claim is at the sole discretion of SellCell.com Ltd.” 

Recommendations

In our opinion, comparison sites like SellCell and Flipsy are best used as a way of narrowing down the number of sites that you need to check for offers. Look here and at Flipsy when price-comparing. And then go directly to some of the sites they recommend.

But also be careful to check reviews of any site you’re considering. This arena seems rife with bait-and-switch operators. There are a handful of sites that truly do get good reviews — ItsWorthMore, The Whiz Cells and Swappa among them.

But other sites, like Gazelle, EcoATM and Decluttr have terrible reputations. Because used cell phones are valuable, selling to the wrong site can be a costly mistake.

What their users say: (from RipOffReport)

SellCell’s response:

“This report contains false information….SellCell is a price comparison site only and does not accept phones direct. Please remove any mention of SellCell.com in this complaint as we have no legal connection to Flipswap.com”

A similar complaint, also from RipOff Report

“Orange Offer and SellCell. This company is a rip off scam artist. They will take your phone and pay you nothing.

SellCell response:

“In this report we have been connected with Orange Offer for the services they provide. SellCell.com is a completely separate company to Orange Offer. SellCell.com acts as a comparison website for cell phone recycling, and compares a range of phone recycling companies such as Orange Offer.”

Updated 2/12/2023