Top 5 Things to Be Aware of When Buying Used Cell Phones

We’ve had quite a few customers come in lately with sad stories of great Craigslist Phone Buys Gone Wrong!! Yes, there are times when it makes A LOT of sense to buy off Craigslist, often people need quick cash or things come up and you can buy some awesome phones at half the price of a brand new phone retail. But it can be an expensive “Oops!” if you aren’t careful.

1.BAD IMEI OR ESN: Each phone has a unique number that is called an ESN, MEID, or MEID, but they are all the same thing, it’s the number your carrier needs to attach that specific phone to you and your account. Verizon and Sprint customers are usually already aware of this because their phones aren’t Sim Card Based. However, recently T-Mobile and AT&T have added a Blacklist, so a person can’t still someone’s phone then just put their Sim Card in it and it’s magically yours like could happen before the IMEI Blacklist was instituted. If you buy a phone that is Blacklisted (without your knowledge) you cannot activate this phone on your account! So you just bought a descent iPod or a really pretty paperweight, but not a phone. To avoid this problem call the carrier and ask them to check an ESN or IMEI for you to see if it is clean (it is often nice to do this before you meet the person for the exchange if they are willing to share the IMEI with you.

2. Water Damage: Unfortunately a phone can sometimes work just fine even though it is water damaged, but it is a ticking time bomb! Also, water damage voids any warranty you may have. If you take the back off a phone and remove the battery Solid Red or Red Blotches on the indicator of both the phone and battery indicate water damage. A phone that is free of water damage will either have small solid white stickers or white with nice clear red lines. Unfortunately, this isn’t as easy to check with the phones that don’t have removable batteries such as the iPhone, Droid Razr, and the new Windows 8X phone.

3. Charge port issues. Generally when you are meeting with someone from Craigslist it’s at a public place (like a parking lot) so this isn’t the easiest thing to check. Consider having a car charger and ask that you can plug the phone in to make sure it charges before you buy it. Just because the phone is charged when you look at it doesn’t mean the charging port works.

4. Phones that are Flashed, Jailbroken, or Rooted: Do some homework on the phone before you commit to buy the phone, find out what carrier it is on and what operating system it is running. You can learn a lot about a phone by going to settings and about phone, here it will tell you what operating system it is running and what carrier it is on. Ask if it has ever been jailbroken or flashed, if not then they won’t mind you doing a factory reset, (which will also clear all of their personal data). We had a customer the other day who had bought a really nice phone but it was rooted, so when he tried to sync it with his computer he “bricked” the phone, meaning it wouldn’t get passed the Samsung Screen… Expensive Paper Weight!

5. Correct Carrier or Compatible Prepaid: Phones are carrier specific, obviously if you have Verizon you need to buy a Verizon phone. Go to the settings and about phone to find out. Prepaid phone plans are starting to become very popular and save you a lot of money. Check the list of compatible phones with your prepaid before committing to buy a phone. T-mobile phones work great on Simple Mobile, but Verizon phones are not compatible, so don’t buy the newest and greatest Galaxy S3 on Verizon and try to hook it up with Simple Mobile or Straight Talk, because they are incompatible carriers and phones.

Obviously, always use caution when buying off Craigslist and meet in a public place.

If you feel overwhelmed after reading this blog I would suggest finding a local reputable used cell phone store. They will take care of everything for you. 🙂

http://www.gaduru.com/locations for the Boise and Twin area.

A Mother on a Mission

Owning your own business and being able to work from home is the dream right? You will own your job, you can set your schedule, you will be able to spend time with your family, you won’t have to miss your child’s soccer game because your boss wants you to stay at work. Sounds amazing!
Well I’m half way there, I’m working on two different businesses, I can do quite a bit of work from home, a lot of it I do at night after Maddie goes to sleep, which is great. I need one little thing to complete this picture… A BACK YARD! Preferably with my own house.

Right now when Maddie plays outside it takes her about 30 seconds to get to the parking lot. I can’t get very much work done in 30 seconds, so I have to choose between letting Maddie play outside, and getting any work done. Neither of which are very good options. So what can I do to get a house with a backyard?

I did a little online research and discovered there are a lot of other women like me, who are mothers and running their own business. They work hard to support their families, some are single mothers providing the only source of income for their household, some are like me and supporting their family while their husband is in school, or maybe between jobs, and a lot have just discovered that daycare is generally so expensive that you will work just to pay for daycare! That doesn’t make very much sense! We don’t want to pay someone else to play with our kids while we have it work, we want to play with our own kids!

Imagine how much Mothers could do if they were willing to seek out other female business owners and help each other. If you are going to buy makeup, why not buy it from a fellow mother who is a direct seller of make up. You are going to buy a phone anyway right? Why not buy it from another Mother who is working hard to provide for her family. I know that I am going to be more committed to helping other women and mothers in business, so more of us can have the opportunity to own our own business and to be able to raise our own kids instead of having to pay someone else to raise my kids.

Any mothers that are out there running their own business let me know.
I’m ready to do anything I can to help my family get to a better place, and hopefully in the process help a lot of other mothers do the same for their family.

I have two steps to getting a house:
1. Cut unnecessary costs: so we are selling our car, and I’m learning how to ride a motorocycle. Videos to come!! We’ll still have a company car, so don’t worry Maddie will still be safe 🙂

2. Business success!!! I have two businesses going on first one is gaduru: we buy and sell used cell phones, do cell phone repair, accessorize, and have an awesome bacterial resistant screen protector called gaduru glass. http://www.gaduru.com
Second one is reselling services through an online store such as Home Phone, Internet, and Cell Phone: katebaucom.acndirect.com

Support Women in Business!

By next year, hopefully I’ll be posting these in my fully fenced in, kid proof back yard 🙂