another unhappy customer here - was offered £80 for a good as new phone, then when I sent it off, the valuation was reduced to £40 due to cracked case - which is rubbish! Man on phone upped offer to £55 - so we will see if that materialises! Wont be using them again thats for sure

i sent them my iphone 3G, works perfectly, no scratch or anything. It was quoted £134.

They received it fine but emailed me saying they are willing to offer me £0.

Of course they put no reason so I get angry. Try to call, no one picks up the phone. I email them and I do get a reply saying my phone is STOLEN and therefore they cannot offer me money for it NOR send it back to me!!!!

Are they kidding?!! I replied back with my thoughts on the situation and that I've had this hone for a year and half, and was using it as pay as you go. i bought it off a friend (who is still a friend and has a 3GS now) and he never declared it stolen or lost. Plus this phone, when he sold it to me, was not attached to any provider anymore, so there was no way to declare it stolen.

I also asked for a proof of what they said, they replied back that they pretty much don't care and of course didn't provide proof. I replied again, 6 days ago and still no answer.

I am definitely going to Trading Standards.

Tks for this forum topic.

Is anyone still having problems with MPX? Last post was March last year.

Unfortunately, I read this forum two days after receiving my revised offer of £88, for a HTC Desire S in immaculate condition, original offer was £142. It was well packaged and sent special delivery (£5.90), but they have quoted the old chestnut that my screen was suffering from 'excessive wear and tear'. Utter crap, the phone was like new!!!

I have rejected their reduced offer via email and will keep you posted on what transpires:)

Thanks to all who have posted advice on this forum, especially 'chesham', I feel better prepared to deal with these charlatans.

Hello everybody,

Promised an update, so here it is.

I think I was quite lucky, I got the full £142 originally offered, deposited to my bank account. However, they did only pay the reduced offer of £88 (after ignoring my emails advising my refusal to accept this revised offer), they then paid the remaining £54, but only after I sent a further email and phoned and spoke with marc walters.

My phone: HTC Desire S, used but in fantastic condition, apart from the slightest scratch on the top left corner of screen it was unmarked, perfect working order, restored to factory settings, battery fully charged.

Would I use mpx again in the future... No. I did end up getting a good price for my phone, but it took a number of emails, a telephone call, and I'd posted the 14 day return draft letter (mentioned previously in this thread) by recorded delivery, this letter was not needed in the end, but did no harm sending it anyway.

I thought I'd done my research by visiting comparemobilephonerecycling.co.uk, mpx gets a rating of five stars, they also offer the best quote. Why do they get a five star rating? I would like to think there is a number of satisfied customers of mpx out there, but going by my own experience and other disatisfied customers listed on this site and also other forums, there are quite a few people who would certainly not give mpx a five star rating. I have concerns regarding the acuracy of 'ratings' on some comparison websites.

There are a number of phone recycling companies that don't charge you £10 to get your phone back, reduce their original quote if your phone is scratched, and answer the occasional email.

They even sent me an email after everything got sorted, asking me to refer a friend to mpx. Ha ha ha ha ha ha... Ha, mpx take comedy too far!

Prior to mine there's not been any posts for a while, this could indicate that there are fewer dissatisfied customers, who knows. I'm only commenting on my own experience, that bares striking similarities to the experience of many members of this forum.

ATB

Well,

it would seem that I'm one of the latest victims of MPX's rather dubious business practices. Briefly, I had a quote of £115 for my Samsung Galaxy S in spotless condition, sent via Special Delivery in their own packaging, recieved a revised quote of £70 due to a "cracked battery case". Contacted them they said they get the phone rechecked and get back to me in 24 hours. Three days later no response. So I called and spoke to a crap customer service advisor who said he'd speak to his supervisor. Two minutes later he said that they could offer me £83. I refused and saked for the phone to be sent back along with a photographic evidence of the damage (so I could claim on the Royal Mail insurance. The photo I received showed the smallest of scratches, which I'm positive wasn't there when the phone was posted and couldn't have happend in transit due to the nature of the scratch. I also couldn't be sure the photo was of my phone and I wno't know that till I get it back.

The customer advisor said that they would never use a phone recycling company and that they keep their old phones. I found this a very strange thing to be saying. He said that if I wanted the phone back I'd have tp pay the admin charge of £10 but this could only be paid by cheque or PayPal. When I asked for the PayPal email address he said that only his supervisor could give me this info and that he had just gone into a meeting (depsite the advisor speaking to him just two minutes earlier). He gave me the name of his supervisor as Andy Douglas and said he would call me back within 24 hours.

It was then that I thought I'd check out thsi site for any similar experiences with MPX...well what a surprise to find that they've been doing exactly the same thing to many other customers for several years!!

Here's what I think:

They offer a great quote to come up in any comparison sites thus ensuring they get the lions share of customers. They then revise the quote and hope that the additional sweetner will be enough to secure your phone, despite this being considerably less than the original quote.

I'm sure they think "Well they probably got the phone for free so what do they care".

They then make it extremely difficult for you to get your property back by utilising delaying tactics and crappy returns policy hoping that will also secure your property.

End result? They make a huge profit on the phones sent to them knowing that they have you via their questionable T & Cs.

I've written to them via their basic email address but I'm also sending a copty to Marc Walters via recorded delivery. Their business practices suck and appear almost like a virtual mugging.

What's so wrong with expecting a decent service from a business? Particularly one that counts Vodafone as one of their customers?

I only wish I'd investigated MPX via this site before getting involved with them. I expect I'll continue to struggle with them for the next few weeks to get either the original quote or my property back.

What I find very worrying is that it seems like the phones are either damaged on purpose by someone (as I said my phone was in mint condition before posting) or that or the damaged was caused by Royal Mail Special Delivery in a padded envelope. But why would MPX not state that the phone arrived in damaged packaging? If I make a claim on the insurance, since this would be the logical thing to do, could it be said that MPX are also defrauding Royal Mail if the damage didn't occur en route? Obviously I have no way of knowing exactly how my phone was damaged but, to keep from being too paranoid I would have to assume it was in the Royal Mail system...wouldn't I?

Just another example of the culture of rip-em-off and get what you can from them that seems to be the culture among so many businesses in this country nowadays.

I believe the delivery address you send your phone to is another company, not mpx. They check your phone and advise mpx, in their opinion, what it's worth. Unfortunately, as posted earlier in this thread, this company is commission based, cheaper the phone the more money they make. Could this lead to false or exaggerated claims of damage?

They also don't make it easy to get your phone back, even the email from mpx advising damage and reduced quote, is a no reply email address.

Good luck.

I've started legal action against the above retailer, in addition to assisting with an investigation with Trading Standards with regards to their conduct and honesty when mobile phones are sent to them for exchange of cash. It would appear that the vast majority of phones (approx 60%) arrive "damaged" and a smaller payment is offered, but refuse to return the phone - instead, a counter offer is made, which has tweaked the interest of a few people, namely Trading Standards and the Office of Fair Trading, as it would appear that one of their terms and conditions may be deemed as unfair (i.e. the return of the phone if you do not agree with the price) and also the phone may have been sold on prior to your acceptance of the offer, which is (obviously) illegal as they have no right to assume ownership until a contract is formed (i.e. agreement and consideration).

 

I was wondering if anyone else here has or is having problems with this customer? All information greatly received surrounding this retailer who I feel may be preying on those who desperately need some cash and who send their mobile phone off for one price, onlyto get far less money or who will never see that phone again.

 

I really appreciate any info, so thanks in advance!

They have stiched me up too i sent them my iphone 16gig 3GS and they are saying i sent them a 8gig 3G they dident even ask me about it just paid me the lesser value. They say they have never received my IMEI Number i thought i might report it as stolen to Apple but i dont know if this will help. Im thinking of going to small claims court to recover the balance + costs

Regards,

Tony

I recently searched mobile comparison sites for the best deal to recycle my Iphone 3gs 16Gb. Mobile phone Xchange looked like a reputable company with a good valuation of £71. I sent the phone in MPX packaging using special delivery as per their recommendations. I tracked the package online an had confirmation that the package had been delivered the following day but MPX set me an email that night stating that the handset hasn't arrived!

I received notification for MPX a few days later saying that the new valuation was £15 due to major damage of the handset with a picture included. I immediately replied stating that this handset has been kept in a rugged case and the screen guards have been regularly replaced since new. Their response was to increase the valuation to £36 because of administration cost they will incur if they have to return the handset.

I have recycled approx 5 personal and 40 commercial handsets in the past 12 months and MPX are by far the worst. I strongly recommend you avoid recycling your handset with MPX regardless of valuation price.

I too have been ripped of by this company! I sent my iphone 4 which was fully functional and was originally offered over £130 yet low and behold they then told me it was faulty and offered just £29!! I fought tooth and nail trying to get my phone back but they refused to send it back saying they had dispatched it in error!! I emailed the CEO of vodafone as i went through vodafone buyback and the adviser I spoke to agreed I had been treated poorly and offered me £100 on the understanding i'd still receive the £29 from MPX...... I've since emailed them 3 times and they have blatantly ignored me!! Con artists! please do yourself a favour and avoid this [problem] you will only regret dealing with them they should be shut down!!

Im afraid to say i wish wish wish i had seen all these posts before i had dealings with MPX. Following an upgrade in October I decided to sell my much loved and well cared for Nokia N95 8gb. After using a few comparison sites i of course opted to go with MPX as i was offered £70 in Argos vouchers. By far the best deal and offer on any of the exchange sites. Bear in mind i had been using my phone up until i decided to get rid of it and then spent ages trying to figure out how to do a hard reset to wipe all data but the phone was working perfectly, no screen scratches, nothing else wrong with it other than being a bit dirty around the edges from usual use. I requested an envelope and one arrived pretty fast. I packaged the phone in loads of extra bubble wrap as the envelope they sent seemed flimsy and posted it off to them. In hindsight i wish i had taken numerous pictures of my phone before hand but i just didnt think. I also did not post it recorded delivery. I waited and waited and heard nothing and finally out of desperation i logged onto their website to 'track my order' to discover that the phone had been received and accepted however they were only prepared to pay £8 as the screen had 'white spots'. I called them to get a fuller explaination as i knew the phone had left me in perfect working order. In all fairness i spoke to a very lovely lady and had no problems getting through to them via telephone. The lady i spoke with said she wasnt sure what my phone should look like but said she could either send it for retesting or have it returned. I asked for it to be retested and following that, if the result was still the same, to be returned. Later that same day i received an email from them with the offer of £8 and a picture of the screen of my phone allegedly showing the 'white spots' The only white spots on the screen were the reflections of the strip lights in the room the picture was taken! I immediately emailed them back as the email was received at about 8.30pm, asking if this email was the result of the initial test or the retest and if it was the latter to return my phone as it had left me in full working order with no white spots. Low and behold i heard nothing, nothing from my email and my phone was not returned either. I called again on the 15th November and again spoke to a very lovely lady who said that my phone had been retested and from the retest it now not only had white spots but also white lines across the screen! However despite this they would now increase their offer to £23! Why they would offer to pay more for a phone with allegedly more wrong with it is beyond me! I told them i wanted my phone back and they were being rediculous! The nice lady said that the phone would be returned but not until the following day as the post had already gone for that day. She also said it would take between 3 and 5 days for it to arrive. Again i duely waited the 5 days, then 6 and finally on 28th November i called them again wanting to know where the heck my phone was! The guy i spoke to informed me it had been posted on the 26th and would be with me soon. I asked how it had been sent and was told by UPS courier. I am pleased to report that i received my phone (UPS tried to deliver on 27th but i was not at home!) and surprise surprise shock horror, when i turned it on there are NO white spots or lines or anything on the screen! I guess i should be grateful that i wasnt asked to pay for the phone to be returned and neither did i pay to send it to them so i havent lost out in anyway. Cant believe this company is showing as having 5 stars though on comparison sites as being the best. BE WARNED!!! I wish i had done my research before being so eager.

I too have been ripped of by this company! I sent my iphone 4 which was fully functional and was originally offered over £130 yet low and behold they then told me it was faulty and offered just £29!! I fought tooth and nail trying to get my phone back but they refused to send it back saying they had dispatched it in error!! I emailed the CEO of vodafone as i went through vodafone buyback and the adviser I spoke to agreed I had been treated poorly and offered me £100 on the understanding i'd still receive the £29 from MPX...... I've since emailed them 3 times and they have blatantly ignored me!! Con artists! please do yourself a favour and avoid this [problem] you will only regret dealing with them they should be shut down!!

Hi loulou1982,

Thanks for making me aware of your concerns.

Should you need me to assist you further could you email me with the relevant details via the Contact us form here quoting the code WRT135 - CAG Forum in the subject line?

Once sent you'll receive an automated reply with a reference number. To ensure that it reaches me could you update the thread with this and I'll get back to you as soon as possible?

Kind regards,

Lee

Web Relations Team

Vodafone UK