Find your gadget and share information about its condition to get an instant estimate. If you want to move forward, click “Submit” to receive your prepaid shipping label and next steps. The estimate is valid for 30 days.
On a daily basis, we analyze hundreds of items from different marketplaces and competitors to make sure you get the best price for your gadget.
An estimate is what it sounds like: an estimate of how much your gadget is worth. If when we receive your gadget the condition is different than described, we’ll send you a revised estimate and you’ll have five business days to either accept or decline. If you decline the new offer and want your gadget returned, return shipping fees may apply (please see our Terms of Service).
If you think we’ve made a mistake in evaluating your gadget, let us know by replying to the confirmation email or submit a request. If we decide to change your estimate, you’ll have five days to accept or decline the offer. If we don’t hear from you after five days, we’ll assume you’re accepting our offer and your gadget will be automatically processed. If you decline the offer within five days, your gadget will be sent back to you.
We offer free returns with few exceptions: incorrect model selection; phones and tablets with unpaid balances; or gadgets linked to accounts and locked with passcodes.
If your gadget is less than eight years old, please email us at [email protected] We will give you a custom estimate and add your model to our website (so you’ll be helping out future customers to boot).
Currently we only serve customers in the U.S.
Before you send us your gadget, we ask that you do the following:
Remove your gadget’s password. How to do this will depend on the type of gadget. We recommend looking on the company’s support page or using our old friend Google.
Delete all your personal files or better yet, reset your gadget to its factory settings. Don’t wipe the operative system completely. If you’ve already done this, just be sure to select “No Operating System” under “Other” on our estimate calculator or—if you have it—pre-install the original software.
Note that as a part of our inspection process, we will erase and reformat each storage drive and destroy and recycle the defective ones, as well as any forgotten SIM and memory cards. Gadget Salvation does not sell or share any of your personal data.
You don’t need to ship your gadget in its original box. All that we do is ask that you include plenty of padding and the following:
Laptops: Power adapter.
Desktops: Keyboard, mouse and power cord.
Gaming consoles: Check-mark accessories you will be including with your console in our estimate calculator.
Phones:Wall charger and data cable.
Though we’re sure you have a sweet phone case, it does not increase the value of your estimate. However it does provide extra impact protection in transit.
Don’t worry about your personal data falling into the wrong hands. We reset your gadget to the factory settings as part of the testing process. Each drive once again gets wiped clean once we purchase your gadget and before it leaves our facility.
Before you ship your iOS gadget, make sure that you’ve removed all of your personal information. Follow these steps to protect your data and get your gadget back to its factory settings.
Sign out of iCloud.
Tap Settings > iCloud, scroll down, and tap Sign Out. In iOS 7 or earlier, tap Delete Account.
Tap Sign Out again, tap Delete from My iPhone, then enter your password.
Wipe your data by going to Settings > General > Reset, then tap Erase All Content and Settings.
This will completely erase your gadget, including any credit or debit cards you added for Apple Pay and any photos, contacts, music or apps. It will also turn off iCloud, iMessage, FaceTime, Game Center and other services.
If you’re using iOS 7 or later and have Find My iPhone turned on, your Apple ID and password will be required. After you provide your password, the gadget will be erased and removed from your account so that the next owner can activate it.
Your content won’t be deleted from iCloud when you erase your gadget.
Don’t manually delete contacts, calendars, reminders, documents, photo streams or any other iCloud data while signed in to your iCloud account, or the content will also be deleted from the iCloud servers and all of your gadgets that are signed in to iCloud.
If you’re using Apple Pay, you can also remove your credit or debit cards at iCloud.com. Just choose Settings to see which gadgets are using Apple Pay, then click your gadget and click Remove next to Apple Pay.
Please note that we cannot purchase iCloud-locked, firmware-locked or remotely managed Apple products.
To check your iPhone’s storage capacity, go to Settings > General > About.
Click on the Apple icon in the upper left hand corner of the screen, and select About This Mac from the menu. This will then show you an overview of your Mac, including the name and version of its operating system, its model name and its serial number.
Most laptop brands post the specific model number on the bottom of the laptop. If you do not see it or are not sure about it, please send us a quick text or email.
If your laptop is BIOS-password locked, you will need to remove this password first in order to get an estimate. If you don’t know the password, you will need to select “Defective Motherboard” in our estimate calculator, because a laptop locked with a BIOS password is unusable. This password is set on the motherboard itself, not on the hard drive, which means that not even a new OS installation will clear the password, and unfortunately, there’s no way around it.
Once you check out, we’ll send you a confirmation email with shipping instructions and a prepaid shipping label. If you prefer, we can also print and mail the label to you. All you need to do is to package your gadget with plenty of padding, attach our prepaid label to the box and drop it off at any UPS location. We highly encourage you to obtain a receipt from the UPS store clerk.
Pro tip: re-using your Amazon delivery boxes is a great way to minimize their environmental impact!
All packages are insured for up to $100, but customers are responsible for proper packaging. Gadget Salvation is not liable for damage or loss of goods in transit, and any damage due to poor packaging is not covered by UPS and upon receipt, we will have to revise your estimate based on the condition of the gadget.
Of course. Just log in to your account.
If you’ve received a prepaid shipping label but have not yet shipped your gadget, then there’s no need to cancel. We’re not charged for shipping labels until they’re scanned by UPS. If you’ve already shipped your gadget and would like to cancel your transaction, email us and we’ll be happy to help.
Don’t sweat it. As soon as your gadget is delivered and tested, we’ll email you with a revised estimate.
At Gadget Salvation, our mission is to contribute to the reselling market as much as possible so that we can diminish electronics waste. When we receive your gadget, we’ll give it a new life by repairing and selling it, or recycling the components by material type so they can be reused for other products. No gadgets end up in landfills.
Your payment will be sent within two business days of us receiving your gadget. Once we receive and inspect your gadget, we’ll send you an email with the following payment options:
We cannot send payment until we receive and inspect your gadget, as the amount is subject to its condition.
Sorry, your phone must be paid off before you can sell it. Phones with an unpaid balance are locked by your phone carrier as soon as you miss a payment, rendering the phone useless.
These are very unspecific signs that can be caused by a million different things. However, regardless of what the issue behind these symptoms is, it is recommended that you immediately make a backup. If these problems occur after a fresh installations or in Windows Safe Mode, it is almost certain that it is due to bad hardware, and possibly a failing hard drive. How To Start In Windows Safe Mode & Its Uses Read More.
If you’re beginning to find files that fail to open and are corrupted even though they saved without errors or if files suddenly disappear, you should get worried. While again this could be due to a multitude of issues, it is also a typical sign for a gradual hard drive failure.
Bad sectors are areas of the hard drive that do not maintain data integrity. They are automatically masked by the operating system and thus hard to identify, especially if large amounts of the disk are currently in use. If you actually run into bad sectors, however, that certainly is a bad sign.
You can run a manual disk check to identify errors that Windows has not spotted, yet. In Windows 7, go to > Start > Computer and right-click on the disk or partition you wish to check. Select > Properties, in the window that opens switch to the > Tools tab and click > Check now… In the Checking Disk window place a checkmark next to > Automatically fix file system errors and > Scan for an attempt recovery of bad sectors.
Windows will also check for bad sectors, when you perform a full format or chkdsk command. See this article – The Difference Between Windows Full Format & Quick Format [Technology Explained]. The Difference Between Windows Full Format & Quick Format [Technology Explained] The Difference Between Windows Full Format & Quick Format [Technology Explained] When installing Windows, the installer will ask you a strange question – how do you want to format your hard drive? For Windows systems, there are only a few possible answer choices. You either format… READ MORE
When you hear strange noises coming from your hard drive, it may be too late already. A repetitive sound also known as the click of death is caused by the head as it is trying to write data and recovers from errors in doing so. Grinding or screeching noises indicate that parts of the hardware, for example the bearings or spindle motor, are failing.
There are tools that aim to predict hard drive failure by reading the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) data that is recorded by the operating system. Unfortunately, like most other methods listed above, S.M.A.R.T. is notoriously unreliable in predicting hard drive failure and the catastrophe will often happen before the warning of S.M.A.R.T. kicks in. If you have a working hard drive, however, and would like to have a look at its S.M.A.R.T. data, check out this article – 4 Tools To Predict and Prevent Hard Drive Failure
Source: Makeusof.com
Simply go to Settings > General > About
These and other details are in About This Mac and System Information.
You might want the model name or serial number of your Mac when checking warranty coverage, searching for specifications or other information about your model, creating a home inventory, and more. Identifying your Mac model is also important when selling or giving away your Mac or learning whether it’s compatible with the latest operating system or other software or hardware.
Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu () in the upper-left corner of your screen. About This Mac shows an overview of your Mac, including the name and version of its operating system, its model name, and its serial number:
If you see an About This Mac window like the following, double-click the version number beneath “OS X” to reveal the serial number:
Open the System Information (or System Profiler) app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or click the System Info (or More Info) button in About This Mac. Select Hardware on the left side of the window, then find the model name and serial number on the right:
If you can’t use About This Mac or System Information because your Mac doesn’t finish starting up, look for a serial number or model name on the outside of your Mac, or on its original packaging, receipt, or invoice. If necessary, get help from an Apple service provider near you.
Shut down your computer and turn it over. The serial number is on the right above the regulatory markings as shown below.
These and other details are in About This Mac and System Information.
You might want the model name or serial number of your Mac when checking warranty coverage, searching for specifications or other information about your model, creating a home inventory, and more. Identifying your Mac model is also important when selling or giving away your Mac or learning whether it’s compatible with the latest operating system or other software or hardware.
Choose About This Mac from the Apple menu () in the upper-left corner of your screen. About This Mac shows an overview of your Mac, including the name and version of its operating system, its model name, and its serial number:
If you see an About This Mac window like the following, double-click the version number beneath “OS X” to reveal the serial number:
Open the System Information (or System Profiler) app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or click the System Info (or More Info) button in About This Mac. Select Hardware on the left side of the window, then find the model name and serial number on the right:
If you can’t use About This Mac or System Information because your Mac doesn’t finish starting up, look for a serial number or model name on the outside of your Mac, or on its original packaging, receipt, or invoice. If necessary, get help from an Apple service provider near you.
We sent the electronics with no cash value to local recycling centers. You can send us your old electronics and we’ll take them to a local recycling center, though we are not able to prepay for shipping. You may be able to find a recycling center near you here: http://recyclenation.com/
Most of Gadget Salvation Store products are pre-owned devices that go through our own certification
process. This process involves a detailed inspection of the cosmetic condition, software and hardware
of the devices, to assure their full functionality. All devices are reset to factory settings.
We ensure that all pre-existing software and operating system is legitimate and free of malicious
software (Malware).
No device is refurbished in any way. We do not replace any components or parts of any device.
All devices sold on our site have original components. All electronics that we receive and that
are not fully functional and/or do not meet our certification standards and devices that have been previously
refurbished by their owners are sold in bulk to refurbishing companies for parts.
Gadget Salvation does not purchase items that have been reported as lost or stolen.
We use CheckMEND, a state-of-the-art tool that includes information from carriers, law enforcement and insurance companies to identify whether a device has been reported either lost or stolen.
CheckMEND is a cutting-edge tool designed to more accurately detect potentially stolen goods, including smartphones, tablets and computers. Developed by Recipero, the largest U.S. consumer electronics background report service, CheckMEND compiles data from major wireless carriers, law enforcement and insurance companies across the country (including the FBI) to provide the most complete database of lost or stolen devices. Gadget Salvation was the first consumer electronics trade-in site to deploy CheckMEND in the United States.
We also regularly assist law enforcement in the investigation of stolen property. We record the device’s electronic serial number for each item we receive, so we can provide a trail for items under inquiry. Also, all devices, regardless of whether they are reported as lost or stolen, go through our data wipe process.
As part of our online trade-in process, each of our customers are required to contractually confirm the device is in fact theirs to sell and has not been reported as lost or stolen. We also remind customers at several points in the process that we do not accept items that have been reported lost or stolen.
If you laptop is BIOS password locked, you will need to remove this password first in order to get a full quote. If you do not know the password, you will need to select on the estimator “Defective motherboard”.
A laptop locked with a BIOS password is unusable. This password is set on the motherboard itself, not on the hard drive, which means that not even a new fresh OS installation will clear the password, and unfortunately, there’s no way around it.
As soon as your device is delivered and tested, you will be contacted by email with a revised offer that is the correct valuation for the device you sent in.
Or, “Is gadgetsalvation.com legit?” … “Has anyone used gadgetsalvation.com before?”
We think these are fair questions. We’re proud of the positive experiences our customers have had with Gadget Salvation since we founded the company in 2008. Hundreds of thousands of customers have shared their feedback about doing business with Gadget Salvation online.But you shouldn’t just take our word for it. Please read reviews of Gadget Salvation. Ask a friend about us, or check us out on Facebook and Twitter to see what others have to say. Here are a few reasons that should help make you feel more comfortable selling your electronics to Gadget Salvation.
We’ve earned an A rating.
Unfortunately, we do not accept electronic parts such as screens, motherboards, circuit boards, etc.
and boast a near-perfect score on Facebook, Reseller Ratings, Trustpilot and Google Reviews.