October 7, 2020 • 9 mins
Using your current iPhone to help you fund your next one? Here are the steps to take to get your phone ready for maximum cash back when you sell!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rich Demiro here Rich on Tech with another interview. And
this is the time when everyone is thinking about upgrading
their iPhone, because Apple has announced that we will now
get our look at the new iPhone on October thirteenth,
twenty twenty, that's Tuesday, at ten am. They sent out
an invitation to journalists, but anyone can watch it. This
(00:22):
is their new virtual event that's happening from Apple Park.
And the tagline this time around was high Comma speed,
which is most likely a nod to, of course, faster processors,
but also the first time that iPhones will have those
speedy or promise to be speedy five G connections. Here
to discuss what to do with your current phone is
(00:44):
Sarah Bean. She works with Swapa, one of the places
where you can sell your existing phone for some cash. Sarah,
thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hi Rich, thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
All right, so explain first off what swapa is, because
I've always known Swapa to be kind of like the
insider place where I guess more techies sell their stuff
because you get higher amounts for your phone.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. Well, swapa is a user to user marketplace for
gently used or like we as we like to say,
Newish Tech. So we're a marketplace where you can buy
both online and in person if you want to buy
or sell a used device.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And so what's the difference between something like Swapa and
like Gazelle or eBay.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you can buy with confidence when you buy through Swapa.
The biggest difference between us and other marketplaces is that
we vet every item that is listed for sale. We
require a lot of criteria to meet, and you can
know that you are buying a safe device. Not all
marketplaces do an Imicheck, for instance, that checks the fifteen
(01:46):
digit number on an iPhone or on a phone in general.
So this is important difference between US and other marketplaces.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So not only do you know as a buyer that
it's a bit more secure, but it's also as a
seller you're getting a little bit of a premium because
you're going through some of these hoops. Well, let's talk
about what to do with the iPhone, because I'm looking
at the prices here and let's see. So I've got
the iPhone eleven Pro Max that would get me about
seven hundred and eighty six dollars on Swapa. That sounds
(02:15):
like a pretty good deal considering I paid about thirteen
hundred for it, iPhone eleven Pro seven hundred dollars, iPhone
eleven five twenty nine, ten S Max four seventy, iPhone
ten R three sixty nine. Then down to the success swich.
You're only going to get seventy three bucks for that one.
Maybe better to give it to a child. So let's
talk about how to prepare our phone. Number one, make
(02:38):
sure your device is eligible for sale? What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So you want to check with your carrier to see
whether your device is fully paid off, and you want
to perform an IMI check to verify that your phone
hasn't been reported lost or stolen. And Swap offers free
IMEI checks to anyone on our site.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All right, now, this is a big one. Back up
your phone. I know folks that generally, you know, sometimes
they don't up their phone when they're using it. But
if you're gonna sell it, you have to back it up. Now.
This is interesting because as I'm talking to you, I'm
checking on my phone because a lot of times people
don't realize that their iCloud backup has not fully like
if they're doing it iCloud, you know, which is wireless,
(03:15):
generally your phone does that at night when you're asleep
and it's charging. But sometimes that doesn't happen because you know,
you may not have a Wi Fi connection, you may
not have enough storage in your iCloud. And as I
talk to you, Sarah, I'm looking at my If you
go into your settings Apple id iCloud and then you
scroll down to iCloud backup, mine is actually turned off.
(03:36):
I have no idea why my backup is turned off,
but I'm gonna turn that on and make sure that
my phone is backed up, because I'm surprised that that's
turned off. But anyway, check that that's backed up. And
when it is on, it will give you the last
date that your phone was backed up, so you can
confirm that if it was the night before. You know,
everything should be backed up and safe and sound now
(03:59):
once your phone is bad. And I don't take that
lightly because you want to like triple check that everything's
backed up. You can do that on your computer as well,
which I'd probably recommend if you want like a real
nice you know, a whole file of your whole phone,
that's a nice way to do it as well. In
addition to iCloud. The next step here is a factory reset.
Why is that so important?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, you want to just when you sell a phone,
you want to make sure that you know everything is
wiped off of it. You don't want any of your
personal information left over.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And that's why. Okay, so let's move on to the
next one, which is clean your phone. So this is
a big one, especially with COVID times.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Definitely. You know, if cleanliness wasn't important before, it certainly
is right now that you know. We don't want to
do any harsh chemicals around your phone, that sort of thing.
You want to thoroughly clean the exterior of your phone,
fully power down your phone, moisten a lent free cloth
with soapy water, and gently wipe down your device.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Now it's interesting because for so many years people would
ask me, you know, can I use alcohol on my phone?
Can I use alcohol? And I'd say no, no, no.
And then when the whole coronavirus thing happened, Apple actually
came out and on their support page and said that
you could use something like a Clorox wipe to clean
your phone. And I thought that was really interesting. So
I'm going to actually go right to the Apple website
(05:10):
and read you what they said is it okay to
use a disinfectant on my Apple product, and it says
using a seventy percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox disinfecting wipes,
you may gently wipe the hard, non porous surfaces of
your Apple products, such as a display, keyboard, or other
exterior surfaces. Don't use bleach, avoid getting moisture in any opening,
(05:31):
and don't submerge your apple product in any cleaning agent. So, Sarah,
we don't want to dunk this in some sort of
you know, like a car wash bucket. You don't want
to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Absolutely not. No, you know, when it comes to cleaning,
you know, less is more. I believe you want to
make sure that you've done it in a safe way
so it doesn't you know, affect the actual phone. And
we recommend on our blog that you use a state
damp lit free cloth.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, that really helps too. I've been wiping down my
phone a lot more. I've also been using that the
phone soap to disinfect my phone. But what's interesting about iPhones,
and I sort of alluded to this at the beginning
when I talked about some of these prices compared to
other devices like an Android, they really don't lose a
ton of their value over time. I mean, they're they're
(06:15):
quite valuable for a while. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, I just think that they just really hold
our value very well. And you can see on our
site by when you look at the prices that's that's
consistently the case.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And the other thing is that so many people keep
these phones in a case and also a screen protector.
So by the time it's, you know, generally time to
sell your phone or hand it over to someone new,
it almost feels like a new phone because we've kept
it in such protective coverings and casings, right.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Correct, Yeah, I mean it's like anything. The more you
take care of something, you know, the more you're going
to get for it when you go to buy it
or go to sell it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
All Right, So we talked a little bit about SWAPA.
So explain to me the difference between going through something
like swap and selling it yourself versus just handing it
back to the carrier, because a lot of people are
on that program where you can sell it back to
your carrier. Do you get as much money for that?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No. We always tell people that you will get about
twice as much for it when you sell it yourself,
then when you trade it back to the carrier.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And what about the concern that people might have of well,
am I actually going to get paid? Am I actually
going to get money for this? They? I feel like
a lot of people just default to the carrier because
they don't want to have to deal with, you know,
a problem. Send your money or you send your product
and nothing happens. Is that a concern here when you're
doing it yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, not through Swapa because we have so many We
have PayPal protections, we have a moderation team that is
with you the whole step of the way, you know,
and we verify. We have a certain you know, criteria
you have to meet. So when you sell on Swapa,
and that's what I can speak to, you can sell
with confidence, you can buy with confidence because we know
that we have all these protections in place.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And what about a commission to Swapa? Take a commission?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Small fee for the buyer and it's built into the price.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Oh so the buyer pays it, not the seller.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Absolutely, that's what also sets us apart.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's interesting. So you get the full amount basically on
your end what about shipping a phone. I mean, not
everyone is shipping electronics all the time. Is it easy
to do that?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, you know a lot of people, you know, use
the post office, they use other ways. That's usually negotiated
between the buyer and the sellers how it's going to
be done, and the seller of course would want to,
you know, consider that when they're setting their price.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Or is it time for the upgrade for you?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I have an iPhone eight, so it is probably going
to be time here soon. But you know, we also
have four people on our plan, so that that makes
a big difference. Of course too when you have all
family of phones.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, it looks like you can get about one hundred
and ninety nine dollars for your phone. So we don't
know how much these new phones are going to cost,
but I'm imagining, you know, we're looking at the thousand
dollars range for some of the top of the line models,
so you can you can get some money towards that.
Sarah Bean with Swapa, thank you so much for chatting
with me today. Can you tell folks how to find swap.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Absolutely go to our website swapa dot com. We have
plenty of information, plenty of blog blog articles, and you
can look up what your phone might be worth.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
All right, thanks for coming on the podcast, and thanks
to you for listening. If you have questions for me,
you can always submit them to Hello at richon tech
dot tv. I'm excited for the new iPhone. Let me
know on social media what you're looking forward to. I'm
at rich on tech. I'll talk to you real soon.
Rich Demiro here Rich on Tech with another interview. And
this is the time when everyone is thinking about upgrading
their iPhone, because Apple has announced that we will now
get our look at the new iPhone on October thirteenth,
twenty twenty, that's Tuesday, at ten am. They sent out
an invitation to journalists, but anyone can watch it. This
(00:22):
is their new virtual event that's happening from Apple Park.
And the tagline this time around was high Comma speed,
which is most likely a nod to, of course, faster processors,
but also the first time that iPhones will have those
speedy or promise to be speedy five G connections. Here
to discuss what to do with your current phone is
(00:44):
Sarah Bean. She works with Swapa, one of the places
where you can sell your existing phone for some cash. Sarah,
thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hi Rich, thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
All right, so explain first off what swapa is, because
I've always known Swapa to be kind of like the
insider place where I guess more techies sell their stuff
because you get higher amounts for your phone.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. Well, swapa is a user to user marketplace for
gently used or like we as we like to say,
Newish Tech. So we're a marketplace where you can buy
both online and in person if you want to buy
or sell a used device.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
And so what's the difference between something like Swapa and
like Gazelle or eBay.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, you can buy with confidence when you buy through Swapa.
The biggest difference between us and other marketplaces is that
we vet every item that is listed for sale. We
require a lot of criteria to meet, and you can
know that you are buying a safe device. Not all
marketplaces do an Imicheck, for instance, that checks the fifteen
(01:46):
digit number on an iPhone or on a phone in general.
So this is important difference between US and other marketplaces.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
So not only do you know as a buyer that
it's a bit more secure, but it's also as a
seller you're getting a little bit of a premium because
you're going through some of these hoops. Well, let's talk
about what to do with the iPhone, because I'm looking
at the prices here and let's see. So I've got
the iPhone eleven Pro Max that would get me about
seven hundred and eighty six dollars on Swapa. That sounds
(02:15):
like a pretty good deal considering I paid about thirteen
hundred for it, iPhone eleven Pro seven hundred dollars, iPhone
eleven five twenty nine, ten S Max four seventy, iPhone
ten R three sixty nine. Then down to the success swich.
You're only going to get seventy three bucks for that one.
Maybe better to give it to a child. So let's
talk about how to prepare our phone. Number one, make
(02:38):
sure your device is eligible for sale? What does that mean?
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So you want to check with your carrier to see
whether your device is fully paid off, and you want
to perform an IMI check to verify that your phone
hasn't been reported lost or stolen. And Swap offers free
IMEI checks to anyone on our site.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
All right, now, this is a big one. Back up
your phone. I know folks that generally, you know, sometimes
they don't up their phone when they're using it. But
if you're gonna sell it, you have to back it up. Now.
This is interesting because as I'm talking to you, I'm
checking on my phone because a lot of times people
don't realize that their iCloud backup has not fully like
if they're doing it iCloud, you know, which is wireless,
(03:15):
generally your phone does that at night when you're asleep
and it's charging. But sometimes that doesn't happen because you know,
you may not have a Wi Fi connection, you may
not have enough storage in your iCloud. And as I
talk to you, Sarah, I'm looking at my If you
go into your settings Apple id iCloud and then you
scroll down to iCloud backup, mine is actually turned off.
(03:36):
I have no idea why my backup is turned off,
but I'm gonna turn that on and make sure that
my phone is backed up, because I'm surprised that that's
turned off. But anyway, check that that's backed up. And
when it is on, it will give you the last
date that your phone was backed up, so you can
confirm that if it was the night before. You know,
everything should be backed up and safe and sound now
(03:59):
once your phone is bad. And I don't take that
lightly because you want to like triple check that everything's
backed up. You can do that on your computer as well,
which I'd probably recommend if you want like a real
nice you know, a whole file of your whole phone,
that's a nice way to do it as well. In
addition to iCloud. The next step here is a factory reset.
Why is that so important?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Yeah, you want to just when you sell a phone,
you want to make sure that you know everything is
wiped off of it. You don't want any of your
personal information left over.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And that's why. Okay, so let's move on to the
next one, which is clean your phone. So this is
a big one, especially with COVID times.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Definitely. You know, if cleanliness wasn't important before, it certainly
is right now that you know. We don't want to
do any harsh chemicals around your phone, that sort of thing.
You want to thoroughly clean the exterior of your phone,
fully power down your phone, moisten a lent free cloth
with soapy water, and gently wipe down your device.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Now it's interesting because for so many years people would
ask me, you know, can I use alcohol on my phone?
Can I use alcohol? And I'd say no, no, no.
And then when the whole coronavirus thing happened, Apple actually
came out and on their support page and said that
you could use something like a Clorox wipe to clean
your phone. And I thought that was really interesting. So
I'm going to actually go right to the Apple website
(05:10):
and read you what they said is it okay to
use a disinfectant on my Apple product, and it says
using a seventy percent isopropyl alcohol wipe or Clorox disinfecting wipes,
you may gently wipe the hard, non porous surfaces of
your Apple products, such as a display, keyboard, or other
exterior surfaces. Don't use bleach, avoid getting moisture in any opening,
(05:31):
and don't submerge your apple product in any cleaning agent. So, Sarah,
we don't want to dunk this in some sort of
you know, like a car wash bucket. You don't want
to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Absolutely not. No, you know, when it comes to cleaning,
you know, less is more. I believe you want to
make sure that you've done it in a safe way
so it doesn't you know, affect the actual phone. And
we recommend on our blog that you use a state
damp lit free cloth.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, that really helps too. I've been wiping down my
phone a lot more. I've also been using that the
phone soap to disinfect my phone. But what's interesting about iPhones,
and I sort of alluded to this at the beginning
when I talked about some of these prices compared to
other devices like an Android, they really don't lose a
ton of their value over time. I mean, they're they're
(06:15):
quite valuable for a while. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know, I just think that they just really hold
our value very well. And you can see on our
site by when you look at the prices that's that's
consistently the case.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
And the other thing is that so many people keep
these phones in a case and also a screen protector.
So by the time it's, you know, generally time to
sell your phone or hand it over to someone new,
it almost feels like a new phone because we've kept
it in such protective coverings and casings, right.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Correct, Yeah, I mean it's like anything. The more you
take care of something, you know, the more you're going
to get for it when you go to buy it
or go to sell it.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
All Right, So we talked a little bit about SWAPA.
So explain to me the difference between going through something
like swap and selling it yourself versus just handing it
back to the carrier, because a lot of people are
on that program where you can sell it back to
your carrier. Do you get as much money for that?
Speaker 2 (07:10):
No. We always tell people that you will get about
twice as much for it when you sell it yourself,
then when you trade it back to the carrier.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And what about the concern that people might have of well,
am I actually going to get paid? Am I actually
going to get money for this? They? I feel like
a lot of people just default to the carrier because
they don't want to have to deal with, you know,
a problem. Send your money or you send your product
and nothing happens. Is that a concern here when you're
doing it yourself?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Well, not through Swapa because we have so many We
have PayPal protections, we have a moderation team that is
with you the whole step of the way, you know,
and we verify. We have a certain you know, criteria
you have to meet. So when you sell on Swapa,
and that's what I can speak to, you can sell
with confidence, you can buy with confidence because we know
that we have all these protections in place.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
And what about a commission to Swapa? Take a commission?
How does that work?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Small fee for the buyer and it's built into the price.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Oh so the buyer pays it, not the seller.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Absolutely, that's what also sets us apart.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
That's interesting. So you get the full amount basically on
your end what about shipping a phone. I mean, not
everyone is shipping electronics all the time. Is it easy
to do that?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, you know a lot of people, you know, use
the post office, they use other ways. That's usually negotiated
between the buyer and the sellers how it's going to
be done, and the seller of course would want to,
you know, consider that when they're setting their price.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Or is it time for the upgrade for you?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
I have an iPhone eight, so it is probably going
to be time here soon. But you know, we also
have four people on our plan, so that that makes
a big difference. Of course too when you have all
family of phones.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, it looks like you can get about one hundred
and ninety nine dollars for your phone. So we don't
know how much these new phones are going to cost,
but I'm imagining, you know, we're looking at the thousand
dollars range for some of the top of the line models,
so you can you can get some money towards that.
Sarah Bean with Swapa, thank you so much for chatting
with me today. Can you tell folks how to find swap.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Absolutely go to our website swapa dot com. We have
plenty of information, plenty of blog blog articles, and you
can look up what your phone might be worth.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
All right, thanks for coming on the podcast, and thanks
to you for listening. If you have questions for me,
you can always submit them to Hello at richon tech
dot tv. I'm excited for the new iPhone. Let me
know on social media what you're looking forward to. I'm
at rich on tech. I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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