Unfortunately laptops don't last forever, whether they're Macs or PC's. Eventually a laptop just looses it's usefulness. Perhaps it becomes outdated, physically damaged, or replaced by the latest and greatest and ends up collecting dust in your closet. Most used laptops, damaged or not, have at least some resale value. eBay is a very popular way to try to pick up some cash for that old computer. Unfortunately, eBay has it's downsides. It's a bit of a hassel, there are fees involved, and often times you may not sell an item for all you feel it is worth. In addition, there may be thousands of laptops on eBay just like yours. What makes some one more likely to bid on yours over some one else's? Or what if your laptop's just plain broken, who's going to pay money for that?

About three weeks ago I found two laptops amongst my heaps of gadgets that I just wasn't going to ever use again. One was an Inspiron 1420 that once belonged to my mother. It has long since been abandoned after she got a new desktop and I had no use for it. The other was my old Dell XPS M1330. A few months back the screen went dead. I haven't bothered to replace it because I just don't need it any more. It hadn't been used for almost a year prior to it's malfunction anyway.

I had a dilemma. I needed to get rid of these things. I really didn't feel like giving them away, they had to be worth something. Normally I use eBay to sell electronics I no longer want or need, so I checked out others' listings for the same laptops I had in my possession. NONE of the Inspirons were moving (go figure.. they're kinda crappy) and very few M1330's were selling either.. only good working ones. I decided to avoid eBay since I knew it would be difficult to even get rid of these things. And if I did, I wasn't going to get paid much money.

A couple minutes later I found cashinyourlaptop.com (thanks to Google). The site was clean and well organized. After entering my laptops' model numbers, the site gave me an instant quote for my machines. $306 for the Inspiron and $154 for the broken XPS. WHAT!? That's pretty darn good! I decided to give it a try. I entered my information, set up an account, and placed my "order". Next day I got a shipping confirmation on two empty boxes with packaging materials and return shipping labels enclosed- free. Long story short, they arrived a few days later, I packed them and applied the labels, shipped them back from my local UPS store (FREE), and about a week later I got an email saying that my machines had arrived, been examined, and were approved for payment of the online quotes I was given. Cool!

Cash In Your Laptop offered to mail me a check or directly transfer the money to a PayPal account (even cooler). I opted for the PayPal option. I received an instant payment of $460 in cold- hard- eCash. Nice!

Cash In Your Laptop is amazing. I stumbled across it online one day, and now will use it in the future if I have any "subpar" laptops to despose of that I feel I would not get much for on eBay. A few weeks later, I ended up with a direct PayPal transfer of $460 for a heap of junk and a broken notebook. That's a pretty good deal. No I'm not some marketing agent secretly disguised as a Geek. I just wanted to let you guys know that there are some great laptop buy-back companies out there that offer good alternatives to eBay. It looked a little hokey at first, but now, $460 richer, I'm a true believer. Cash In Your Laptop will buy back laptops in almost any condition, even terribly damaged. Apparently even a laptop with a broken screen is still worth $154. Someone out there might have paid more for it, but it's unlikely I would have found them on eBay. I saved myself a lot of hassel and made myself some nice cash. I'm not complaining!

0 members like this

< Previous Post

Comment

You need to be a member of Geeks to add comments!

Join Geeks

Comment by drtydv on August 9, 2010 at 12:26pm: going to give it a try, thanks

Comment by LADYTECH on August 8, 2010 at 8:10am: I did. I sold it for $200. Nothing wrong with it. 15.4"Dell red Centrino core2 duo cpu,4gb ram, 500gb HD bla, blah. In excellent condition. Got it like 2yrs ago. But I want the new i7.

Comment by ionflux on August 7, 2010 at 5:51pm: you think is possible to collect old gadgets for the future look at the sdram they cost more then the ddr2 you know

Comment by Ian Singleton on August 7, 2010 at 5:38pm: I was checking a graphics card for the old PC I bought. A 64 mb one and on ebay in the Uk it was for sale for about £20 which is crazy who would pay that for such an old card I don't understand some of the prices on ebay, I guess it's like RAM the older it is the more expensive it gets.

Comment by Peter Murphy on August 7, 2010 at 11:53am: If you were to use Cash In Your Laptop with PayPal you would have needed a credit card or an attached bank account anyway (preferably both according to PayPal). Though they will mail you a check for a slight fee. I've had excellent luck with eBay. As I mentioned, it is a little bit of work, but well worth it if you have an item that's worth a decent junk of change. In general, they're easy to work with. They have buyer protection etc, and I have yet to run across even one non-compliant or unfriendly "client". But, I suppose I can see why some try to avoid it.

Comment by James A. Epp on August 7, 2010 at 11:43am: I dont have a credit card or anything, and I just hate ebay period. I would never sell anything there.

Comment by Peter Murphy on August 7, 2010 at 11:42am: Cash In Your Laptop is a good way to get rid of older or under powered computers. AKA kinda crappy ones. They don't care what kind of CPU, GPU, RAM, or HDD it has. They just want the parts. They buy broken laptops which is the biggest attraction. If your laptop is newer or has really good hardware, you're going to get a ton of more money for it on eBay. Cash In Your Laptop is a great alternative for laptops that otherwise just wouldn't move at all on a site like eBay. Better of with the cash they give you than none!

Comment by James A. Epp on August 7, 2010 at 10:44am: I have a computer in perfect condition and they said $235. what a rip off. emailed them direct for a better price for me. it rlly is in great condition. less than a year

Comment by Ian Singleton on August 7, 2010 at 4:23am: That sounds good. I'm in the UK so I don't know if there is anything like that over here. At the moment I am cannibalizing an old desktop, it's old but there are some good parts in there. I went to a local shop and they wanted to charge me to recycle it! So I'm going to buy a really cheap second hand desktop and stick the RAM and cards in there. It should run Unbuntu nicely!

RSS

Badges | Report an Issue | Terms of Service