6 things people should take care of while selling their old phones

Selling your old phone should not be a tedious process, instead, for most people, it is a no-brainer. However, a lot of times, people don’t perform the necessary or even the basic steps before selling off their phone to strangers. Amit Sethi, Co-Founder and CTO, Cashify helps you with all the fundamental steps to take care of in order to sell your phone safely and conveniently.

1. Back it up

Back up your data (photos, videos, documents, etc) to your Google account (for android users) or iCloud (for iPhone users) and remove all the files from the phone. You can also do this manually on your computer instead of storing it on the cloud. Ensure all your data has been backed up heading over to ‘Settings’.

2. Sign out

This is a very crucial step that people usually ignore or forget. Make it a point to sign out of all your payment apps like Paytm, Google pay, BHIM, bank apps, etc in order to avoid any fraud in the future. Keeping your details logged into these accounts can lead to theft and other serious security breaches. Also make sure to sign out of all your social media accounts including Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc again to avoid unnecessary security scandal.

3. Unpair

Make sure to unpair your devices like smartwatches, Bluetooth earphones, fitness bands, or AirPods. Also, try and remove the data from all the paired devices so that nothing is left on your phone.

4. Do a Factory reset

Lastly, perform a full factory reset in order to set your device back to its factory state. This will erase everything from your device and put your phone in a brand new state. You can also do your factory reset twice just to be sure that all the data and the settings from the phone have been wiped out. While the actual process of doing this may vary slightly between manufacturers, it’s still relatively straightforward across the devices.

5. Remove Sim Card

Don’t forget to take out the SIM card and SD card from your phone. On some devices, contacts and call logs are stored on the sim cards, hence, these are important pieces of hardware that you don't want to leave on your phone when you hand it off to the buyer. If you’re concerned about keeping a copy of your text messages and call log, you’ll want to back up those separately. You can back up your contacts and text messages on Google Drive or Dropbox and when you have your new phone in hand, you can transfer these contacts and other details via the Share It app.

6. Get a bill

Finally, when you decide to sell your phone, please make sure that you receive an invoice/valid bill for it, right there and then. This would help in avoiding any fraud and also protect you in case the phone is used to perform any malpractice.

By Amit Sethi, Co-Founder and CTO, Cashify