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April 26, 2013 CNET Community |  |
Ready to donate my old cell phones, but not my personal info
Dear CNET members,
Happy Friday! This week's topic comes from CNET member Nate, who wants to donate his old cell phones to charity for reuse or recycling, but before doing so would like to wipe them clean of all personal data. However, making this challenging is that he doesn't have the power adapter to power up the phones with, so what can he do?
First, I, as did member "High Desert Charlie," would like to thank Nate for being responsible by recycling the phones and not just chucking them into the garbage. This topic only received a few answers, and I'm sure the reason is that as our members pointed out, without a power adapter to power up the phones you can't simply go into the phone's menu to do a factory reset or manually delete its data. (Most phones, depending on how old they are, will have an option in the phone menu to delete all data. For much older phones, you'll have to manually delete each entry.) So what can Nate do in a situation like this?
As our volunteer forum moderator "birdmantd" pointed out, when you donate to phones to charity, it is a leap of faith as to what happens to your phone, and it always good to confirm with the recipient of your donation how the charity deals with old devices and their data. If you don't feel comfortable with what you learn, you may want to consider different charities, as some reuse phones and others completely dismantle the phone to recycle parts. And one thing about finding an adapter, if your friends and family don't have the right one, try asking the charity that you are donating to if it has some; you won't know till you ask.
As I mentioned, we didn't get a whole lot of submissions answering Nate's question, but if any of you folks out there have additional suggestions as to what he can do or just want to recommend a charity that's trustworthy in how it handles data on donated phones, we'd like to hear about it. I'm sure this situation can be solved with more options on deck. Thanks for your help, and good luck to Nate. Have a great weekend, everyone! | | | |
 | | Q: | Ready to donate my old cell phones, but not my personal info | I have a small collection of old cell phones in my house that I don't use anymore. They range from old analog phones to a digital flip phones to the first iPhone. There are some non-profit organizations in my town that accept cell phone donations that state they will refurbish and donate them to organizations in need, and if not usable, recycle them responsibly.
I'd like to donate my phones to these organizations, if they can use them. However, before I do that, I want to make sure all of my history and personal information is wiped out. How can I do that? Adding to the challenge is the fact that I can't find the power adapters for all of the phones.
There was a newsletter of yours a while back on ways to recycle hard drives for reuse. I'm looking for a similar solution, but for cell phones. Thanks for any help. | | | -- Submitted by: Nate W. | | | A: | Featured answers of the week | | • | "Recycling Your Cell Phone " | | | -- Submitted by: High Desert Charlie | | | • | "Not much you can do,,,,--" | | | -- Submitted by: birdmantd | | | • | "Cell Phones For Soldiers" | | | -- Submitted by: stynor | | | Click here to read all member contributions
| | | Thanks to all who contributed!
Click here to see all previous Community newsletters |  | | Q: Are Windows 8 convertible laptops being given a fair chance? | | Before I begin let me say that I use both Mac and Windows products. This question/discussion is not one entirely of my own conception. It was inspired by a CNET article posted on April 12th entitled "Hardware vs. Software: Playing the PC sales blame game" by Dan Ackerman and Scott Stein. In the article they try to shed some light as to why Windows 8 PC sales are stalling at least in the first quarter of 2013. Is it due to the Windows 8 OS, the confusing hardware question (for consumers) to decide between a traditional laptop vs. convertible or all of the aforementioned? (click here to continue reading...) | | -- Submitted by: ajtrek | If you have an answer to this question, click here and click the "reply" to submit your advice, suggestions, opinions, or tips.
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What do you do with your old cell phones?
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