Are Music Magpie and such just ruthless scammers?

[HRHQueenMe]

Third time trying to shift unwanted tech, and was offered a good price on Music Magpie, again. Sent it off, and they got back within a day saying the item had multiple invisible faults bringing the price down from £81 to £16.20. Seriously? The item has ZERO faults. Same with an Iphone 3. from £33 to £1.20. Do they think we are stupid? Has anyone had good experiences with them, and is there a reputable company that will purchase old tech for recycling? Thank you for any tips!

They pay very little for anything. Utter crap. Better going to CEX

Pre Covid we also used Cex and went in person. We've sold two phones that way and got what was offered both times, but then I guess if you are there in person there's less incentive for them to give less.

I sold a parcel of CDs to them and they paid up as promised (all low prices, as I already knew and they had quoted). However, I later sent them another package that I'd pre-registered with them, all items and prices agreed etc., but they refused to pay for two CD singles as they claimed they only accepted albums (then why did you quote based on the barcodes I entered?) and also docked the money for two 'missing CDs (erm, they're in the box, inside the packaging - I double-checked them five times).

They only short-paid me by about 20p in total for those four items, which actually seemed to make it even worse - so very petty indeed.

I sent a lot of DVDs to webuydvds.com. I don't know if they're still going, but if they are, avoid, avoid, avoid. They would offer you a few pence more for each DVD, but then take forever to pay you, after constant chasing. IIRC, they also reduced the price they paid out for some DVDs on account of their being in poor condition - still in their shrink-wrapping. OTOH, webuybooks.com were very pleasant to deal with - and they don't just buy books.

Bear in mind, though, that if you use their website and they offer you more than £1 for any item, that probably means it's very rare and that you might be able to get £20-£30 on eBay for it, so hold those items back. I think they work on multiples values, so if they offer you 5p for an item, they'll expect to sell it for £1, £1.50 or so - fair enough, it's not worth your hassle for that; but if they offer you £1, the x20, x30 (or whatever it is) multiple still applies, so sell it separately yourself!

We used Cex. The phone was in good condition and we got full quoted price

Quick and easy.

Yes, I'd be much more inclined to use CEX another time. I've never sold to them, but I have bought things from them and felt treated very fairly. Any disagreement on condition or value, though, you can just walk away with your item; the postal ones will 'kindly' promise to 'recycle it for you at no extra cost' - make of that what you will.

CEX have a better reputation - but I don’t think you’ll get anywhere near £33 for an iPhone 3. They sell for about £16 on CEX so they’ll probably offer you a fiver or so, if they’ll take it.

Can you walk in to a branch of CEX to sell some CDs? I'd prefer to do it in person because then at least I know they'll either pay or they won't. Sadly I've heard this complaint about Music Magpie lots of times.

I've no issue at all with their business model - CEX, MM and all the others - and the prices they pay are always going to be low to make it financially viable for them to sell used goods with a mark-up to cover their costs and make a profit.

It's just the ones that employ sharp practices and then make false claims about the condition/missing items to get away with paying far less than the agreed already-low prices. I'm sure it works the other way as well, and they do get CF customers trying it on and lying to them about condition, not sending them all of the agreed items etc.; but as somebody who tried to deal with MM scrupulously honestly, I was not happy at all. They lost my goodwill for the sake of 20p - that 20p was the difference between me cautioning against them (which I am) or endorsing them (which I don't) on this huge, internationally-popular forum.

I've sold 3 Galaxy phones to Music Magpie. Each time they've paid up the promised amount as soon as they received the phone. All were in perfect condition and no more than 2 years old, don't know if that makes a difference?

They pay piss all but it's great for offloading large numbers of books, CDs and DVDs you have no use for and don't want to bother selling individually. We got £50 for two boxes of crap we never used and an ancient iPod.

I second the recommendation for webuybooks.com I've used them 3 times now. Some of the prices they offered were too low for a good book and I've held those books back, but I ended up with a few quid in my pocket and a load of books collected, rather than having to take them on a slog to find a charity shop who are accepting.

Brilliant advice people, thank you so much. Waiting to get my tech back now, and will go down to CEX.

Back in March I sent an iPad to Apple as part of their product recycling scheme when I bought a new one, they estimated beforehand that it was worth £80. It was in really good working condition, it just didn’t have enough storage for my needs.

I had an email saying that the backlight wasn’t working so the estimated £80 had changed to £0, and I could either have it returned or they could dispose of it for me. I had it returned to me and it works perfectly, there’s no issue with screen brightness whatsoever so as soon as I get to somewhere with a CEX I’ll be taking it in.

This always happens with these places. Same happened with my old phone - £x them when it arrives the price mysteriously went down. I said not thanks, send it back then’ and went elsewhere. I think maybe they overestimate to get the business - or maybe price you down in the hope you won’t bother to ask for it back.

Shop around!

They offered me £60 for an old iPad and they paid up

I'm convinced they are called MusicMagpie because they are thieving gits! Like Magpies...

I was going to get rid of DVDs which I appreciate aren't worth much - but I put the first one in, a newly released, Oscar winning film we'd bought for full price and watched. They offered 12p.

I just donated to charity. I'd rather Help the Aged got some money!

I had a lot of success selling unwanted books, DVDs and CDs with them but with tech I’ve had the same experience. They had the cheek to tell me that the kindle fire- quoted £40- was now worth absolutely nothing because of, as you say, several invisible faults.... and then even further cheek to write in the email something like “but don’t worry, we will recycle it for you free of charge! I asked for it back and had a bit of a battle getting it back (and they wanted me to pay for postage to get it back which I had to fight). Ended up taking it to CEX and got £43 for it.

I use them to get rid of dvds because it's considerably easier for us to take them to the Hermes point in the shop up the road than to take them to the charity shop (and a lot of the ones around us have stopped accepting dvds). I essentially see them as a free disposable service where I get a very little bit of token money too. Seen like that it all works well, but I wouldn't use them for anything that had actual value to me.

That doesn't surprise me about Apple at all. So much of their business is based around building in obsolescence and wastefully forcing perfectly good older models out of use in order to sell more new ones.

The cycnic in me could even think that this was their plan all along - get people to send used products in to them, offering good prices, then subsequently declare them worthless and 'offer' to recycle them to get them out of circulation, rather than have people sell them on eBay or to CEX, with the result being that there's one fewer potential place in the market for a new one to be bought.

Apple are a bit like the main car dealerships - especially the premium ones - where they will routinely condemn something with the tiniest little bit of wear and declare it in need of replacement - all at top prices, of course. They refuse to use anything other than the brand new product as the yardstick, so they are unwilling to accept that anything that functions perfectly well, but with slightly less speed or battery life than when it was brand new has any value whatsoever.

I'm convinced they are called MusicMagpie because they are thieving gits! Like Magpies...

It wasn't just me, then....!

I essentially see them as a free disposable service where I get a very little bit of token money too.

I think that's how they hope people will see them - and not probe too deeply if they dispute the condition, claim there are missing items or otherwise pay you less than they originally led you to believe; hope you'll just be happy to have £20 for some stuff you didn't want anyway.

I find that, the more they focus their advertising on 'recycling', 'helping the environment' and 'saving the world's resources', the more of a clue it is that they expect you to be grateful to them for taking your old stuff and that should be your main reward in itself - with any pennies they pass down to you as well almost like blood money for you, you filthy. evil, Earth-destroying over-consumer

I made £80 selling CD's to music magpie!

Gosh I've only bought from them and hadn't realised they might not be all they claim....

I've only bought from Music Magpie. I bought a "Very Good" DVD, and got a filthy disc that didn't work in a battered box.

Mazuma are great. I sent my old I-phone on Saturday, got the agreed price today in my bank.

I checked on MSE for best prices when I wanted to sell my iPad Mini about a month ago and MusicMagpie came out top, offering £162, so I sent it to them. It was tracked all the way as part of the deal and they paid me the offer price day after they received it. I'd use them again.