simplydrop.co.uk

What is Simply Drop?
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Simply drop is a new website run by Royal Mail offering a great way to earn money by recycling your old mobile phone, MP3 player or digital camera.
You can receive payments by PayPal, postal order, your nearest Post Office branch or even offer to give it to charity.
It simply doesn’t matter if your device is working or not, you can still make money from phones with broken screens, ...
...with broken buttons (albeit at a reduced rate).
The site will also accept used ink cartridges which they can recycle but no reward is offered for these.

What attracted me to the site?
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The MoneySavingExpert website offered a price comparison for your old mobile and Simply Drop were one of the most competitive on price. After finding out they were run by Royal Mail I knew they were a ... more

What is Simply Drop?
*************************
Simply drop is a new website run by Royal Mail offering a great way to earn money by recycling your old mobile phone, MP3 player or digital camera.
You can receive payments by PayPal, postal order, your nearest Post Office branch or even offer to give it to charity.
It simply doesn’t matter if your device is working or not, you can still make money from phones with broken screens, MP3 players that won’t switch on or even digital cameras with broken buttons (albeit at a reduced rate).
The site will also accept used ink cartridges which they can recycle but no reward is offered for these.

What attracted me to the site?
**********************************
The MoneySavingExpert website offered a price comparison for your old mobile and Simply Drop were one of the most competitive on price. After finding out they were run by Royal Mail I knew they were a company I could trust. I did some research on the web and couldn’t find any negative comments about the site at all. The site itself made it very easy to obtain a quote and had clear instructions of how the process worked.

Recycling
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Rather than bin your old phone (or MP3/digital camera) and risk it ending up at landfill you can do your bit to save the environment. A lot of people already recycle their old phone but don’t realise they could also be earning money form it. If the phone is a very old basic phone with little features then it is unlikely you will get much for it (maybe only a few pounds) but if you’ve got a modern phone for which your contract has recently expired then you could be making a killing. Although you don’t get money for any old ink cartridges, you can still send these off for free and ensure they are recycled correctly. Every workable item they receive is reused and sold on for a small profit but worthless items are recycled accordingly through extraction to raw materials such as copper and lead. Some unusable items can be combined with other non-working devices to make a useable unit. Ink cartridges can be remanufactured up to 3 times and they do not end up in landfill.
Pre-paid envelopes are made from naturally oxy-degradable polythene meaning they can degrade and disintegrate in a short period of time which does not leave fragments, methane or other harmful residues.

The process
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The website design is very impressive and well made. It is modern and attractive, yet simplistic enough to navigate your way around the site.
There are 4 Steps to the process with the first thing you need to do on the site being to obtain a quote which is easily located on the right of the home page.
From the drop-down menu you simply select weather you want a quote for a Mobile, MP3 player or digital camera then select it’s make and model number and specify if the device works or not.
Your quote is then listed which you can add to your basket leaving you the option to add more devices or simply go to the next step.
The next step is to select how many envelopes you require the site to send you. Each pre-paid envelope can hold up to 4 devices and as many ink cartridges as you can fit.
The third step is where you confirm your name and address along with your e-mail address and agree to the sites terms & conditions.
Finally you are presented with your payment options. If you want to receive cash via PayPal then you need to confirm your PayPal e-mail address. If you want to collect your cash at your nearest post office branch then you simply provide them with your mobile number of the phone you currently use so they can text you with all the details. You show this to a clerk along with some photo ID and current proof of address to receive your cash.
Towards the bottom you have the ‘donate’ option to list your chosen charity which I have discussed in more detail in the next section.
You then receive your confirmation along with a unique reference number. You can then use this reference to track your items and just sit back and wait for your envelope to arrive and get it posted as soon as possible.
It is important to note that payments are made within 7 working days of the item being received, although this can be longer during busy periods.

Charity donations
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Doing your bit for charity is easy, there are 5 listed charities on the site to chose from, which are Barnardo’s, World Wildlife Fund, Alzheimer’s Society, Great Ormond Street Hospital or Cancer Research UK.
The charity will receive the full value of every qualifying item from the site depending on the condition, although the value of the device has to be at least £5 to qualify.
If you did decide to drop off your item at your local Post Office branch and you did not intend to receive payment yourself, then Royal Mail will donate £5 to Barnardo’s who are listed as their charity partner.

Tracking
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It’s always nice to be kept in touch about what’s happening with your order and Simply Drop make this very clear when you enter your unique reference number on the site.
Along with your order listing, they outline key status definitions which include ‘Registration’, ‘Received’, ‘Under Review’ and ‘Approved’. These statuses basically cover 4 steps. You complete the initial registration and obtain your reference, items received are processed, devices are reviewed and the condition is confirmed and then payment is approved by your selected method.

What we got for our mobile
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The Nokia N95 which my partner recently recycled was rewarded with a postal order for £91 only 5 days after they received the item. This phone was 2 years old showing some signs of use but still in working order. Initially, the quote we got was £102 but as we left it 3 weeks before deciding to cash in, the value depreciated. I would therefore recommend getting the phone sent off to them as soon as possible.
Both my partner and I were pleased with this reward and we are now putting the money to good use on our newborn baby.

Tips before sending
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I would highly recommend that you send any items using recorded delivery which usually costs around 75p. Even though they send you a pre-paid envelope package its better to be safe than sorry if this got lost in the post. As it’s freepost it is likely that you would not receive compensation if Royal Mail lost the package (how ironic that would be).
Secondly, it is very important that you clear any data currently held on the phone such as personal contact numbers, photos, videos, music, e-mails and text messages. This is not only for the benefit of protecting your data, but also to ensure that you have a backup of this as any SIM cards and memory cards found in your device by Simply Drop are destroyed during the handling process.
Always ensure that the device (if working) contains its cover and battery. Chargers do not need to be sent, although they will accept these with no additional payment.

Legal stuff
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Careful consideration should be made on the items you are sending off for payment. Every device is checked on a national database to identify if it has been reported as lost or stolen. It is no good trying to make a quick buck on something you found in the street or something you know isn’t your own property as it may come back to bite you. If there is evidence of this then your details can be passed onto law enforcement who could take further action.

Recommended?
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I would definitely recommend this site to anyone wishing to cash in on their old phone, MP3 or digital camera. There are plenty of mobile phone recycling sites out there on the web but Simply Drop are the only site that offer the benefit of being able to combine all of these products for recycling. As they are run by Royal Mail they are a company you can trust and they offer a very good price for comparison. They offer so many good ways of receiving payments to make it convenient for you and they do exactly what they say and fulfil their promises.
I particularly like the fact that you don’t have to register with the site in order to receive payments as you simply enter your address details upon application and obtain a reference number within a matter of minutes.
They kept us up-to-date via e-mail to let us know when the items were received and when they had sent a payment.
Overall my first experience with the site has been a good one and I will certainly be using them again in the future.
 

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