$3 investment and turning it into an easy $30+ return

**jghilino** · 12-20-2012, 10:38 PM

I buy cell phones for $1 each. I get alot of 3g and 4g smart phones coming in now. The go for about $10 each for parts. The ones i have tested and gotten to work/partially work they go $20-$50 each. GPS can be the same way if the screen is not broken all they usually need is the internal battery replaced, then you can turn around and get the full used price for them. That is if you like to fiddle with electronics.

**jghilino** · 12-20-2012, 10:44 PM

I forgot to mention that if you are doing this right and fixing and reselling used electronics at some point you are going to sell something that has been reported as stolen. It is going to happen its just a matter of time. I had it happen to me last week on a cell phone, fortunatly via the ebay auctions i had a paper trail to prove where it came from. I get gps units in that work that are password protected, open them up and disconnect the internal battery, wait about 10 minutes then reconnect the battery put it back together and turn it back on and it will reset the system.

**GeorgeB** · 12-20-2012, 11:27 PM

Does everything you get (free or paid) generally sell?

**jghilino** · 12-20-2012, 11:58 PM

All of it sells, if not it gets scrapped out. i dont list stuff thats not going to sell. I check the model number in completed listings to see what it has sold for in the past. Then i set my buy it now price 20% below that and its gone within a week. I have 3 cd drives and 1 pcmica card up right now, the rest has sold. Im gonna give them another couple weeks then pull the listings if they havnt sold. All of my cell phones and gps and laptops have sold.

**GeorgeB** · 12-21-2012, 12:03 AM

Originally Posted by jghilino

All of it sells, if not it gets scrapped out. i dont list stuff thats not going to sell. I check the model number in completed listings to see what it has sold for in the past. Then i set my buy it now price 20% below that and its gone within a week. I have 3 cd drives and 1 pcmica card up right now, the rest has sold. Im gonna give them another couple weeks then pull the listings if they havnt sold. All of my cell phones and gps and laptops have sold.

cant beat that.

**GeorgeB** · 12-21-2012, 05:15 PM

So, all the laptops and hard drive sold, minus the really old laptop.

The only one that sold for more than the rest, was my Toshiba Mini which had the battery, hard drive, and everything else but a power cord to it. It sold for almost $64 plus $12.50 for S&H

The other 2 sold for $31 and $21.50 also with Shipping and Handling for both.

Not bad for it all I say. and actually, if you count the hard drive that said for $27 today as well that came from one of the laptops, then 2 of the laptops sold for over $50 a piece. Definitely not bad at all! I will take that any day of the week! Especially when I got them for free or just $1.

I know what I will definitely do with them all from now on.

However, my question is this, when I get laptops that are complete (battery, ram, hard drive), should I wipe the hard drive, and then sell it as a complete unit, or take out the hard drive and ram and sell those separate?

Thanks to jghilino's advice, I will be listing 2 motherboards that I have that look like they sell really well on ebay.