I have just been looking at the companies that buy your old phones. My offered price for a Nokia 6300 is £40.

So they pay me 40 quid, where do they make their money? I would quite like to buy a 2/h phone and they can't all end up on Ebay!

They get tarted up a bit and then go abroad (phones in some countries are VERY expensive)

Our phone prices are generally cheaper than the rest of the world (we don't realise how lucky we are.)

However, there are websites which sell refurbished phones in this country.

Some handsets are recycled, they can be quite valuable when broken down.

I filled in one of those online phone buying things when the Nokia 6600 slide first came out. I had one as an upgrade. At the time they were £249.99 in Argos, and I was offered about £70 for it - that's with me telling them it was brand new in box, unused and unopened.

My advice would be - sell unwanted phones and the like privately.

eBay, freeads etc.