On 21st October 2016 I entered into a contract with PhoneRecyclers whereby they offered to pay me £80.00 for a fully functional Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 LTE.

The device was posted to them on 25th October and I received an email from them on the 28th October claiming the phone was damaged and offering me £20.00.

This email went into my junk mail folder and I did not discover it until 7th November.

In their email they stated that my item had “LCD Bubbles” and “Dents all over the body” and offered me a reduced price of £20.

They also stated that if I was unhappy with the reduced offer to contact them immediately on the email address provided or call them on the number provided and they would cancel the order and send my item back to me.

(No mention of any fees for this). I disputed their evaluation on 7th November and requested that they cancelled my order and return my phone as per their instructions in the email they sent me.

They emailed me again on 9th November offering me a revised price of £26.00, which I also rejected, and instructed them to return my item to me again.

I got no response, so I emailed them on the 16th November asking for an update on my order, and again on the 17th November. They emailed me on the 18th November whereby they claimed they had tried to call me, but that they couldn’t get through. In this email they asked me to contact them on the number provided on their website to discuss my order.

I have tried repeatedly to call them on the number given, but this number continually tells me that all their advisers are busy and to email them, which I have also done repeatedly.

I emailed them on the 18th November stating that I had had no missed calls or voicemails and once again instructing them to cancel my order immediately and return my item to me.

They have emailed me again today asking me for a valid contact number so that you will try to contact me during working hours.

They have now been in possession of my Samsung Galaxy S4 i9505 LTE since the 28th October 2016 and I now believe it is their intention to defraud me of its full worth by claiming that the screen was damaged. I have now asked them on four separate occasions to return my item and given them reasonable opportunity to do so.

They have ignored these requests. I emailed them last on 22/11/16 giving them 14 days to either pay the full amount or return my phone.

The 14 days are up today. No money has been paid, the phone has not been returned and they have not acknowledged my last email, let alone responded to it.

Has anyone successfully taken this company to court?

What steps should I take next?

Any help gratefully received.

First of all, please don't post solid blocks of text. Please put in proper punctuation spacing so that it makes it easier for people to help you. Otherwise it simply discourages people who otherwise would be prepared to spend time reading your story and supporting you.

On this occasion I've edited it for you.

I'm afraid that you've probably been had

Have a look at this forum and read stories there and you will start to understand http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?416-Cash4phones-DeviceBuyer-and-other-mobiles-to-cash-companies

Thanks for responding. Apologies for the poor presentation, there were breaks between paragraphs prior to hitting the submit button. I had already read a great number of posts on the link you gave me, which inspired me to add my own story to drum up other evidence specifically regarding the company calling themselves "Phone Recyclers". I have reported to Trading Standards in any case.

We spent years reporting Cash4phones to Trading Standards and no one ever took any notice. We reported it to Action Fraud and they refuse to take any information from us because we want ourselves the victims – even though we were speaking on behalf of lots of victims.

Action fraud generally seems to do nothing other than maybe gather some statistics. Trading standards now seems to have close themselves off and be inaccessible to the public and they see themselves as some kind of cloak and dagger operation. In fact if you want to get a message through to action fraud then apparently you have to do it through Citizens Advice. So far as I know, in order to speak to Citizens Advice and log a complaint, you have to make an appointment to go and see them. This may be wrong – please correct me.

In the end, it looked as if some action might just be about to have been taken in respect of Cash4phones when they went into liquidation. We know that there were at least £200,000 worth of debts. We know that there were also several thousands of unclaimed telephones which were then sold off by the administrator for a very cheap price and I believe that they went to somebody who is based in Cyprus. The people who are running the cash four phones [problem] were Cypriots.

Go figure.

Funnily, Citizens Advice just got back to me about another case I reported to do with secondary ticketing (I am having no luck online at the moment whatsoever). I will email them and see what the outcome is. Am not hopeful, but am not prepared to roll over and accept defeat yet. Thank-you for the info, it is appreciated.

What you could usefully do, if you have the time, is to trawl around the Internet and give them a one star review and let people know about what is going on. I'm sure that you're not the only victim – and I'm sure you won't be the last.

By the way, the MO is exactly the same as Cash4phones. I expect that they are the same people or some of the same people.

Im afraid BankFodder has given you the best information, it's a bitter pill but you appear to have been had.

I recommend ebay, gumtree et al in future, sorry!

Inclined to agree......the one star review has already been given. It is a bitter pill, but a drop in the ocean compared to what some have lost. Thanks for your time.

If it was me, I would at least contact the mobile company you got it from and insist that they block the phone, Just in case they try to sell it on

Thanks for advice. It's the least I can do to stop the crooks getting any financial gain.

IMEI blocking won't stop the phone being sold on, nor used in a country that doesn't check the IMEI database (formerly known as the CEIR / CEI Register) .......