It's junk. 4 years old. Scratched up, cracked screen. Obsolete. Why do they want it so bad? They say they'll even give me a new phone for free or a heavily discounted one if I'll simply give them my 4 year old old phone. Seems suspicious.
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Look up the fine print. 99% likely they aren't giving you a phone directly for free. What they will do is give you an interest free loan for three years, with a monthly credit for that amount. So a net of zero per month, but it cannot be deal with early without paying off the loan and losing the credit. Therefore it's a much higher barrier for you to leave. That's what they really want.
You turning in your old phone isn't of much other value than narrowing the road you can turn around on so you can't go back. Example--most offer a return policy of some sort 30 days or whatever. 25 days in you decide the new phone, new service, whatever is not suitable, you can return the phone and if you switched carriers your old one will happily take you back. Oh, but wait, you traded in your old phone and sorry it's totally gone into the abyss and will not be coming back to you. Sure, you can leave, but about that loan we gave you for the new phone. We will take our $1000 for that now.
This is all correct but I have one minor addition. They might give you a tiny credit for your old phone. The one they offered me 6 or 7 years ago was $5. So instead of a $1000 loan it's $995. I passed on that.
I was actually in this situation with Xfinity a few years back. They offered me a good deal on bundling my phone and internet but of course my phone wasn't "eligible". I made sure I wasn't locked into a contract and pulled the trigger. It turns out the plan I wanted was $10/month higher than they told me but it was still a good deal so whatever. Several months later I moved places and had to cancel internet. Xfinity's prices are horrible if you're not bundling more than one service, so I looked into canceling. The phones I get are pretty cheap so fortunately the loan was only a couple hundred dollars. It was cheaper to pay that off than spend another 18 months paying Xfinity's inflated monthly prices. Then they made it as difficult as possible within the bounds of the law to port my number to a new carrier when I did switch. I never had a problem with their service but thanks to the bad faith crap they subjected me to on my way out I'll never do business with those faggots again.
They still made you think that getting ass raped by them was to your advantage. ;)
A few reasons.
One, the phones are refurbished and sold in secondary markets and third world countries. They make good money off of this.
Two, it prevents you from handing it to someone else to use or sell, giving them primary access to control secondary market flow, pushing out individuals and small businesses. This is why you see large corporate repair shops opening up.
Three a lot of the parts or materials can be recycled. The amount of precious metals or viable parts is a pittance in one old phone but in ten million it adds up.
Finally, if they get people used to this, and reduce the secondary market into a few select revenue streams they own, they can reduce the amount they "pay" for the old phones and restrict access to used or refurbished devices increasing demand for new ones. Think cash for clunkers.
All good points, with a few more reasons:
Locking you into an 18-24 month contract with them. They are financing you a phone but they will pay the monthly bill. If you ever want to change carriers or phones, you will have to pay the difference.
Because older models, especially non smart phones, can't be used for data collection in various ways.
My 2022 phone is a data mining machine.
they're hoping you forget to factory reset it and they'll steal your data. that's worth more to them than any phone
People tend to not change carriers after they get on one, unless they move and have to. They offer these kinds of things because that's what it tends to take to get people to switch when they don't absolutely have to.
Newer phones have more advanced spying technology.
I'm adjacently involved in this industry.
Here's a small example
C Grade S23 Ultra can still sell for $150-$200 in the b2b market.
A Grade S23 Ultra can still sell for $300+ in the B2B market.
Refurbisher buys it, repairs it. An A grade S23 Ultra can still sell for $400-500 in the USA $600+ in the 2nd and 3rd world markets because Samsung isn't exactly importing a bunch of brand new $1200 phones where people are making $10k a year lol
So.. you've paid off your flagship phone, handed it over to them, get an interest free loan and maybe a discount on a new flagship, but they're totally offsetting or even profiting off your trade in by simply casting a wide net to collect as many trade ins as possible, they're not targeting your phone specifically, just a wide net. Plus they're getting you as a customer for 2-3 years until you pay off the phone.
Their program doesn't care that much about your exact phone, model and condition, they're just playing the numbers and casting a wide net since SOOO many people focused on getting the newest flagship models there's loads In the market.
Then honestly the deal isn't terrible... The S23 Ultra was 1200 new, selling for $300 today in decent condition. If the carrier is giving you a $200 discount or so, fair enough.. about what you'd get or more than if you'd try selling it directly. If you kept it in pristine condition, selling it used directly to a consumer for $400 would be better.
Aren't older phones being phased out with the shutting down of older 2g,3g signals?
nigga, we've been on 4G and 5G for a decade now. Nobody using 2G and 3G phones anymore. Actually 2G and 3G signals still exist, but they are not for consumer cellular service anymore.