I was fascinated when I read about the
ecoATM several months ago. Brilliant idea -- recycling cell phones which are past their prime. But drat! the nearest ecoATM was over 2000 miles away in San Diego. What's not to like, clean out a junk drawer, hug the planet, walk away with some cash. I loved the concept and when another news story ran on Saturday morning I checked again and found there was an ecoATM kiosk at the Pentagon City Mall in Arlington.. The exact place I had promised to take my teenage daughter and friends... but first I headed to the junk drawer and found 7 dead cell phones.
The ecoATM greeted me with a cute little animated robot and a promise of "instant" cash. Not so fast!
As someone who spends my life trying to provide lawyers with "one click" solutions, I was shocked at how very "click filled" the experience was. I knew this wouldn't be as easy as pulling cash from a bank ATM, but this was like a
Rube Goldberg version of Redbox. In addition to an abundance of clicking there are other unexpected elements as well. You have to scan a driver's license, you have to provide a thumb print, you have to remove your glasses while an electric eye validates that you are the person on the drivers license. After an initial scan of the cell phone the machine delivers a QR Code label for you to paste on the phone. Then you are directed where to dispose of the label backing so you don't litter. After identifying the model of the device, the machine delivers up the right jack wire, it swallows up the cell phone and the robot dances across the screen while the machine does more testing. And then about 20 minutes and a dozen clicks into the process you are told what your device is worth.... drum roll please... in my case $1!
So my first trial of the ecoATM cost me about 30 minutes of time and paid me an ROI of about 2 cents a minute.
In truth unless you have a recent model of an IPhone or Android - this is not about making money... you are just being green. And if you are thinking of hauling in a vintage 90s mobile phone with a carrying case, forget it, it won't fit in the slot.
You do have an option at the end of the process to donate the money to a charity, but if you have really old cell phones, is it really worth the time investment even to make a donation?
Note to ecoATM Please just add a donation slot for the seriously time deprived and impatient souls like myself. I had 6 more cell phones in my bag, but I didn't want to invest the approximately 3 hours it would take to "process" them at the kiosk. Plus by the time I finished the first one, a line had formed behind me. I would have been happy to toss the remaining six in a donations bin.
See a Video Demo Below:
Disclosure: screen above is not showing the first step in the process. You are many clicks in by the time you are attaching the wire. But it gives you an idea of how the machine works.
I'll opt to use Cell Phones for Soldiers (http://www.cellphonesforsoldiers.com). No economic benefit for me, but it's recycling AND it yields phone air time to deployed U.S. soldiers.
ReplyDeleteSo you are really donating your time and private information. Ugh. I just give my old phones to a local womens' shelter. They enable them for 911 only and redistribute to the women.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post Jean. My name is Ryan and I work for ecoATM. Sorry it took you nearly a half hour to get through the process. The average time for a new user to complete a transaction on the ecoATM is somewhere between 4 and 5 minutes, so I'm not sure why it took so long for you.
ReplyDeleteThere are four main steps we take users through: 1) ID verification (prevents people from selling stolen phones and helps deter crime in your community) 2) Device identification (so we know what kind of phone you have and what physical condition its in) 3) Electronics check (we give you a cable so we can see if it powers up and if the screen works) and 4) Checkout and payment (the machine gives you cash.)
It's true some phones do not have much value in a secondary market. There's a bin on the side of the ecoATM that you're welcome to drop these phones in if you'd just like to get them recycled and aren't concerned about the cash...but some people really are, so we want to make sure we take care of them too.
Hopefully your transaction will go quicker next time. Thanks for trying the ecoATM and thanks for recycling!
Thanks for the response Ryan. I think it would help if could direct people to the "donate only area" on the front screen and on your website. If is is there, I apologize because I didn't notice it. Don't get me wrong - I still love the idea. And people kept walking up to me asking what I was doing - so this probably slowed me down since I was unfamiliar with the process. I am sure it goes more quickly on the second try.
DeleteHi, Ryan --
DeleteJean's experience with the time that it took to process her transaction was not my issue. My issue was the insultingly small amount of money ecoATM offered for some relatively newer(<18 month old) devices that I paid $300-$400 for when I purchased them. I was only offered $71 for my Motorola Razr Maxx I purchased a year ago. And I won't even conjur up the memory of what I was offered for my in-very good condition Samsung Fascinate (I'm talking single-digit dollars here, my friends). But I'm not mad about any of that. I understand ecoATM wants to preserve, conserve and green-ify. I get that. No problem. And I understand that ecoATM isn't in the business of making millionaires via used cell phones. No sweat. But, aside from Jean's "donate only area," wouldn't it be a good idea to add a "Kelley Blue Book" style estimator on your website so that people can get an estimate/idea of what ecoATM will pay for their phone and so that folks like myself won't WASTE gas, time and energy driving (in my case) 25 miles to find the one of 3 ecoATMs in a 100-mile radius? Simply ask prospective customers the make and model of their phones and give the various estimates for that model based upon the condition of the phone. What do you think?
Are these machines for sale?
ReplyDeleteI tried using the eco atm and every time I go it never have any money
ReplyDeleteThe donation bin is the giant hole on the side of the machines.
ReplyDeleteDon't waste your time. After all the button pushing, it tells me my license/ID is expired. No it is not...it has five years remaining. Total waste. And wanted to give me a whopping $4. for a working Samsung phone. There are plenty of places to donate your phone and not waste time using this NoNoATM.
ReplyDeleteI just tried using the Eco ATM in Culver City and it didn't work. It told me in the final stages that it wasn't the same phone I started with. What the heck? It even gives you a sticker to put on it to identify it-and it didn't recognize its own sticker? Wht a waste of time. I watched the 2 people behind have the same issue.
ReplyDelete