Used cell phones ring up sales of $20 million a year.
By Stan Roberts

     For 20 years James Mosieur has been buying, reconditioning and re-marketing used cell phones and pagers and, outside of the recycling industry, no one seemed to pay attention to what he was doing. But that changed dramatically three years ago when Mosieur hatched a website called CellForCash.com and offered to pay cash for discarded phones.
"Most people didn't realize their old cell phones were worth something," explained Mosieur. "Once we got the word out that we buy them for cash, this thing took off."
Every month Mosieur buys an astounding 60,000 to 80,000 discarded cell phones--80 percent from individual consumers, 20 percent from companies--for which he pays $4 up to $100 per phone, based on make and model.
After the phones are reconditioned, Mosieur re-sells them mainly in South America and the Caribbean, an enterprise that generated sales of $3 million last year. Every month the website attracts more than 500,000 visitors who can look up the value of their used cell phones from among the 200 to 250 recyclable models listed.

     They fill out the online form and Mosieur sends postage paid boxes for people to ship their phones to his 27,000 square foot factory in Ocala Florida. When the company receives the phone, it sends the check.
Mosieur's team of 70 trained technicians tests and restores the phones into pristine condition and then, through a network of wholesalers and brokers, they are re-marketed in bulk quantities mostly outside the U.S.
Mosieur, a one time electronic repair technician, started out refurbishing pagers from a six-foot by nine-foot workroom in Ocala in 1985 and build his company, RMS Communications Group, into a $20 million operation.
Ten years ago, seeing cell phone usage on the rise, he began buying inactive phones from manufacturers, carriers, wholesalers and individuals and re-selling them to developing countries.
Early in 2000 Mosieur concluded the internet was the best way to reach people and he poured $250,000 into developing a website. “Our website had to convert visitors to sellers," he said. "It had to be simple and easy for consumers to use." As for a website name, that was easy: CellForCash.com.
CellForCash.com was an immediate hit. Traffic spiraled to 200,000 visitors a month and bumps up 10 percent to 15 percent a month.
How much Mosieur pays for phones is based on make, model, original cost and how much they'll sell for after they are reconditioned. For example, his customers get $5 for a Nokia 5165, one of the oldest models he accepts, while an NEC 523 earns $43 and a Panasonic GU87 brings $60. The most sought after phone, he reported, is the clamshell model that folds open and contains a camera.
Once phones arrive in Mosieur's factory, technicians spend one week to two weeks reconditioning them. Then a network of 150 brokers representing Mosieur gets on the phone or the internet and contacts wholesalers, retailers and businesses in Chile, Panama, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Argentina and the Caribbean, where demand for cell phones is high and technology lags behind U.S. technology. Mosieur also has 12 in-house sales people who work with brokers and handle customer service.
"We never deal with end users," said Mosieur. The average sale is 500 phones. The company turns inventory 12 to 14 times a year. The company's biggest one time sale was $1 million to a Latin American dealer, arranged by a broker, said Mosieur.
Predictably, CellForCash's success has attracted competition--about 15 other websites buy old phones -- but Mosieur shrugs it off "We were the innovators," he said. "Now there are imitators," Mosieur said.
Last year Mosieur came up with the idea of buying phones direct from users by operating kiosks in shopping malls. They're testing this in Ocala and Toms River, NJ and are acquiring 400 to 500 phones a month, he said.
Companies that refurbish phones do do it for a profit, of course, but they also provide an important service to the environment by keeping old phones out of dumpsters, Mosieur takes this responsibility seriously. "Potentially 100 million to 200 million phones could end up in landfills," he said. "This could leach dangerous levels of lead and toxins and lead to environmental hazards."
Mosieur's company also works with a number of charitable groups. Last summer a Boy Scout Troop in West Jordan, Utah raised $6000 collecting phones for CellForCash. After Hurricane Charley pounded Florida last year, Mosieur and Choice Cellular of Tampa donated phones and cash to storm victims.
Mosieur is bullish about his company's future and, based on industry statistics, with good reason. "There are 172 million cell phone subscribers in the U.S. - and every 18 months they get new phones," he said. "Nine million phones are retired every month. That's a lot of phones," he added, "and we want to buy them all."
For more information, visit cellforcash.com or contact the company at 4551 NW 44th Avenue, Ocala, FL The phone is 800-503-8026.