Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple in the UK offer a really poor deal on trade ins in the UK though. I know it’s more of a hassle but I’ve always sold my iPhones on Facebook marketplace as you can get the price you want and deal face to face with cash. The trade in companies just take the mick.

Music Magpie is one I’ve heard awful things about. Every year we hear about them damaging phones and trying to knock extra money off.
I can agree. Either sell privately on FB marketplace (stay away from eBay!) or trade in to Apple. Won't trust any other way.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Fred Zed
I can agree. Either sell privately on FB marketplace (stay away from eBay!) or trade in to Apple. Won't trust any other way.
Expensive lesson learned, the nature of damage that my iPhone screen had was extremely suspicious. The iPhone was either dropped by accident or damage intentionally inflicted. Just saying, I had locked in at the high end of their offer prices which was £700 compared to this week where it had fallen to £562.
 
To start, i've been using MusicMagpie for many, many years and generally haven't had any issues with the service - they've always been the one to offer more, and have generally stuck to their quoted costs.

However, I've just had this happen to me. As part of my upgrade to my 14, and the following family swap around of iPhones - I sent an immaculate iPhone 11 Pro Max in to MusicMagpie (packaged in exactly the same way as OP) and got the email with a revised offer stating the phone screen was severely damaged.

Not falling for that again. I'll either be using another service - or i'll play them at their own game and use one of their machines in ASDA that gives you the money there and then.
 
Thanks for the warnings guys. I've been using them for years for all sorts of things and they've always paid top prices quickly. How does that ASDA thing work?
 
Hi, sorry for posting in an old thread, but just wondered did you get anywhere with this?

Same exact thing happened to me today with an Apple Watch. Refused my offer due to 'heavy cosmetic wear' and sent it back to me where the corner was smashed/missing glass and cracks through the screen.

Packaged in original packaging which has a moulded insert for the watch which itself is inside a fabric sleeve (which wasn't returned). It then has the band/strap box on top of this box, and then inside a thin box. No way was it damaged in transit! I have photos of the watch just before packing!

Can't get hold of Music Magpie though, conveniently their live chat stops in queue position 1 all the time!
 
Hi, sorry for posting in an old thread, but just wondered did you get anywhere with this?

Same exact thing happened to me today with an Apple Watch. Refused my offer due to 'heavy cosmetic wear' and sent it back to me where the corner was smashed/missing glass and cracks through the screen.

Packaged in original packaging which has a moulded insert for the watch which itself is inside a fabric sleeve (which wasn't returned). It then has the band/strap box on top of this box, and then inside a thin box. No way was it damaged in transit! I have photos of the watch just before packing!

Can't get hold of Music Magpie though, conveniently their live chat stops in queue position 1 all the time!
Sorry to hear about your problems - that sounds very bad!

I didn't get anywhere at all, despite writing to the CEO (live chat is useless), and unfortunately doubt you will either as it's your word against theirs - that's the issue when you send stuff to these types of companies. You could try the CEO route and include photos but they'll likely tell you to claim from the courier which may be a possibility.

TBH the "damage" they highlighted as severe turned out to be a microchip on the corner edge - no scratches or crack to the screen at all and the chip I am 99% sure wasn't present when I sent it (I am super careful with my iPhones as sell them on each year). The offer of £143 was laughable - I sold it on eBay, highlighting the chip (other people, wouldn't have bothered to) for over £700. I thought selling to Music Magpie would take some of the hassle out of selling but certainly wasn't.
 
Ref Music magpie, I would definitely not purchase a used phone from them, drop it and send it back as damaged on receipt. No way I would do that to them if they screwed me over.

Recently I sent them two Samsung Galaxy pro 5 watches, they quoted £170 each. Both in perfect condition, after receiving they quoted me £170 for one and £17 for the other As they claimed it was scratched. I refused the £17 offer and they sent it back. It was perfect and sold on eBay for £192 and the buyer is happy with their perfect condition watch. I don’t understand what MM were playing at with their £17 offer at all.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: yui4
Crazy

Never had one bad experience with them

They just honoured an old quote for Apple Watch ultra where I only sent in one part of the watch band and they still paid me £450
 
Truly feel sorry for what’s happened to you, I’ve used music magpie once and the transaction went through smoothly but ever since then I’ve always found other companies offering more money and a company I’ve used a number of times is Envirofone and never had a problem in fact they are paying me just under £600 for my iPhone 13 Pro almost mint condition with 90% battery and they’ve emailed to advise payment will be in my bank tomorrow. Again really sorry you’ve been conned 😔
 
Sorry, I haven't read all the replies, but I assume you had them return the phone to so you can sell it for what it's worth, right?

I always sell my used phones on Swappa.
 
You let an Apple Ultra go for just £450? Why didn’t you sell it private? They are going for £600-£750 on eBay and other selling sites.

I never sell privately just not worth the added hassle. Too many idiots out there and will never use eBay.

Not sure why people would buy a one year old watch for that when you can get a brand new ultra 2 for £800. Watches may be listed for that price but I doubt they actually sell for that price and they sure take a lot longer to sell
 
Last edited:
I never sell privately just not worth the added hassle. Too many idiots out there and will never use eBay.

Not sure why people would buy a one year old watch for that when you can get a brand new ultra 2 for £800. Watches may be listed for that price but I doubt they actually sell for that price and they sure take a lot longer to sell
They certainly are selling in that price bracket. I wouldn't use eBay either but Facebook Marketplace is easier and the idiots can be ignored. Sure its a bit of hassle with the odd time waster, but I've always sold things very quickly and its done face to face rather than a third party getting involved who may side with a scammer. I am pretty sure you would have gotten at least £600 for an Ultra in very good condition, but if you were happy with £450, that is what counts I suppose.
 
Just an update - I never got through to anyone after hours of trying on Live Chat. They kept failing at queue position 1 conveniently.

However I found the CEOs email so I emailed him and within 10 minutes had a reply from someone else.

They said they will look into it and asked for time stamped photos of the watch before dispatch and after receiving, also the packaging.

One thing to note if they try claiming it happened during transit is that glass would be in the packaging because there’s a good chunk missing - but there’s none! Which leads me to believe this happened when they opened it!

My only worry now is if they say it happened during transit - but only offer their counter offer value of £9.80 not the original value. I guess I’ll look into small claims court even though it’ll cost me - it’s more about the principle and not letting these cowboys get the better of me!
 
IMG_0329.png
Literally just had a response. Happy with the outcome, however I don’t believe for one second they are offering me the original value after saying this happened during transit. My guess is they’ve seen evidence on their end but don’t want to admit it!

Please everyone, make sure you take photos with timestamps when you sell things!!
 
I had the exact same horrible experience with Music Magpie. Was originally offered £690 which was revised to £189 for a Purple 14 Pro 512GB .

The phone was in excellent condition, yet when I disputed their claims the photo that came back from the warehouse had micro scratches all over the screen.

Unfortunately I only took photos of the back of it before sending (my stupid fault). I obviously declined.

But something is really suspicious here. If not mishandled by the factory, I get the feeling they underestimated the number of people wanting to trade in this year and were worried about shifting them on.

Terrible company. Never again.
 
  • Wow
Reactions: Macalicious2011
I had the exact same horrible experience with Music Magpie. Was originally offered £690 which was revised to £189 for a Purple 14 Pro 512GB .

The phone was in excellent condition, yet when I disputed their claims the photo that came back from the warehouse had micro scratches all over the screen.

Unfortunately I only took photos of the back of it before sending (my stupid fault). I obviously declined.

But something is really suspicious here. If not mishandled by the factory, I get the feeling they underestimated the number of people wanting to trade in this year and were worried about shifting them on.

Terrible company. Never again.
That was my thoughts as well. I had been offered the top price they were paying prior to the announcement of the new iPhone release but waited the allowed time before sending. I reckon they had excess trade-ins and many of those would have been at a lower offered price as people didn't tactically time it like I had. Maximise profits by rejecting some of the phones you are paying more for with claims of faults. I am convinced there was no micro-chip on the edge of the screen when I sent it in and as for claims of a scratched screen and a crack - absolutely no evidence of these "faults" when it was returned (the phone had always had a high-quality screen protector fitted from day one). How they could revise their offer to £143 from £700 was them chancing their luck as they would have sold my phone as A-Grade.
 
I used music magpie this time, but used the kiosk in Asda, got paid straight away no issues
 
I've been ripped off by MusicMagpie too, using the kiosk though. I had a guaranteed value of £700 for my iPhone 14 Pro Max once sending it back to them via the kiosk, however when I got there, it said it had been over 21 days (which it wasn't) since starting my selling order, and knocked it down to £630 even for excellent condition.

Annoyingly, I declined then thought about getting rid of it somewhere else, but nowhere would be quick or as convenient as the kisok that I was stood next to, so I ran it through again and accepted the offer. What an absolute joke, next year I'll be trading in to Apple where weirdly, they would've given more trade-in value.
 
Music Magpie - Be Careful If You Trade In Your iPhone

Firstly, I know others have had good experiences using Music Magpie for iPhone trade-ins, to be fair they generally do have a good reputation, but I have personally been well a truly done over by them and am now out of pocket by a huge amount of money and mine is a story of what happens on the occasions things go very wrong and how Music Magpie handle it.

I had an offer price of £700 for my iPhone 13 Pro Max 128GB phone.

I sent them an immaculate iPhone 13 Pro Max, I mean absolute mint condition, almost as perfect as the day I bought it from Apple. High-quality Torras full coverage screen protector installed on the day I purchased it, always in a shockproof case, I even had a camera lens protector installed as I am so OCD about my tech. Never dropped and never mishandled, literally no scratches on the stainless steel case, at worst some "micro Scratches" but even they were minimal. I am the type of person that only has my iPhone in my trouser pocket, never putting keys or loose change in the same pocket as my phone. If I received my iPhone as refurbished I would have been made up - hell it still had 100% battery health.

I sent it so well packaged - in the original Apple retail box which I taped shut, that was wrapped in bubble wrap and taped, then placed in a box and parcel taped within an inch of its life. Before despatch, I closely inspected the whole phone and wiped it down with a new lint-free cloth so it was spotless. There was absolutely zero damage to the screen, not one scratch, and absolutely no chips as good as the day it rolled off the Apple assembly line.

After a rather suspicious long delay between the delivered status and being scanned at the warehouse, it was assessed and they came back and reported the screen edge was chipped, scratches on the screen, and a crack. Offer reduced from £700 to £143 as they deem the damage that bad. When challenged they have shown me photographic evidence and I can swear that the screen they showed was not the screen that was on my phone. My screen had zero scratches due to the screen protector and absolutely no chips - I closely inspected it at the point of despatch and polished it with a lint-free cloth. I reiterate that it was the definition of mint condition. Further, it was so well-packaged that I cannot see how it could have been damaged in transit.

My warning to others is you have zero recourse and no consumer protection as they claim that's the phone they received (possibly it is but something amiss has happened in the meantime). They will not even consider that something has happened either in transit or at their warehouse and you are left with no option but to accept or reject their offer. I now will receive back a damaged iPhone that I swear has either a different screen on that is not mine or, more likely, has been dropped when unpackaged and then just pushed on through the assessment pipeline. The resale value is now hugely impacted, this is not the phone I sent them, and I am out of pocket by a huge amount. They will not entertain any liability and just say that's the phone I sent - the IMEI number matches on their photos but the state of the screen is a complete contrast to what I sent them.

I appreciate that I foolishly did not take photos/video of the phone before despatch as I would if selling on eBay, but I trusted their reputation. At least with eBay if a buyer challenged the condition of the sold phone they received you could give Ebay that evidence and they may take your side but with Music Magpie they will just shut you down and you are left high and dry. They adopt a take it or leave it stance.

One interesting development is through personal contacts I am now going to discuss what has happened to me with the Consumer Section Editor of a national newspaper. Their interest in this story is from a consumer protection angle - they recognise there is little to no consumer protection when using these online trade-in companies and want real-life examples to back up a piece they are considering writing.

So, it's a cautionary tale of how things can go bad and you are powerless to challenge Music Magpie.
Thank you for sharing this. This incident might also occur from other vendors as well. Always take all necessary precautions to avoid being scammed. Appreciate the posting.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.