A couple of days ago, I received a phone that looked like it had been run over by a truck. I don’t know what exactly happened to it along the way, but whatever it went through, it clearly wasn’t gentle.
The surprising part is that I received a refund almost immediately after messaing to the seller. The situation was resolved quickly, and the damaged phone was simply left with me.
And that’s when things got interesting.
I had already posted about the situation on TikTok, and the videos really gained traction. The first one reached around 230,000 views, and suddenly, people were messaging me about the phone.
At that point, I didn’t need to go looking for buyers. It felt more like fishing—just sitting there, casually going through messages and seeing who might actually be serious.
The results were mixed. One person ghosted. Another claimed you could get the same phone brand new for €350, which isn’t true. He was most likely confusing it with a different model, probably a Google Pixel 9A. I didn’t feel like arguing, so I let that one go. A third person said they felt uncomfortable doing any kind of money transfer, which was fair enough.
So I shifted strategy today.
I took clear photos, wrote a completely honest description, and listed the phone on Wallapop, explaining exactly what had happened to it. I set the price at €250, not because I expected to get that, but because people almost always try to negotiate. I was aiming for €200, so I built in a €50 margin, fully expecting a lowball offer that I’d be happy to accept.
Within an hour, that’s exactly what happened. I received an offer for €200—the number I had in mind from the start. I accepted immediately. The buyer was happy, and a couple of hours later, the phone was already shipped.
What happens to it next is no longer my concern.
Maybe it will be repaired. Maybe it will be used for spare parts. Either way, as long as the buyer is satisfied, I’m satisfied. What I really wanted was a reliable phone with a guarantee, and that one clearly wasn’t it.
Thanks to this outcome, the new phone I’ll receive in a couple of weeks will effectively cost me only €360. Now I just have to hope it arrives in one piece, because going through this twice would be a little too much.
So, this is hopefully the end of the phone saga.
I just wanted to remind everyone that even broken electronics have real value. Modern phones are incredibly expensive to manufacture, and even second-hand devices in poor condition can still be worth something.
Screens, cameras, microphones, ports, motherboards, and even the valuable metals inside all have resale potential. So before giving your broken phone away, it’s worth asking any AI for an estimate of its resale value. The answer might actually surprise you.
So next time when you have an unfortunate event on your hands, just turn it into a little extra cash.
