Mobile Phone disposal

moulesy

Spurred out of inaction by Mrs M at the weekend, I had a huge clear out of my wardrobe and study. I have about 5 or 6 old mobile phones to get rid of. One of the charity bags which dropped through our door the other day listed them as items they'd accept.
Now I've taken the batteries and SIM cards out, but is it safe to just let the phones themselves  go this way? I think I read somewhere that there was still a danger of personal information being accessed from them? Any advice for a copmplete technical ignoramus?

Bakers2

I'll be interested in advice about this too. We have a few kicking around.  I thought you left the battery in, recoverable bits so I thought, thus why they're happy to accept them. Personally I'd charge them up a bit and remove anything, contact lists, texts
etc. Can I add a question too?  Should one put out the chargers too?  if you don't want as spares for other equipment,)

DavidKlyne

Perhaps wise to reset to factory default before passing on?

David

pagan8c

I would also do a factory reset as this removes all stuff you have entered into it like addresses ,photos etc. I just did that with my last mobile phone and sold it to 'Game' and got £95 for it . It was about 3yrs old but a good phone and I had kept it in
pristine condition. 

Navigateur

Some phone models are now quite rare and command high prices from collectors so I'm sure your chosen charity shop will get good money for some of them.

Rocky 2 buckets

I passed my iPhone on to a family member. Before I did this I checked online & found a step by step video for factory reset followed by a hard reset. I then researched the resets, they were sound. Try YouTube-'clearing personal info prior to sale of phone'.
It puts the phone back to its original state when you bought it

Oneputt

If you saved contact details to the phone and not the SIM card those contacts would still be in situ.  Factory reset is best.

moulesy

Thanks for all the advice. So I'll try the factory resets as suggested and then pass them on.  Have to say, though, that, grateful as the charities might be, these are all pretty basic models - the sort you get free with a 12 month contract - so they're
not going to make loads of money from them! 

neveramsure

That reminds me,a few years ago a work colleague sold his phone to a friend and forgot to erase the text messages.

One of them was from his wife who had taken delivery of a new settee and text that when he got home from work they could christen it.
 

SELL

I always save phone numbers etc onto the sim card and not the phone, so once it was changed just had to delete text messages etc.

Kennine

Safest disposal method for old phones is to remove the battery then the sim card.  Then a 2lb hammer to smash whats left of the  phone.  Great fun. 

 Cut up sim card & put in bin   Smashed phone and the battery disposed of in the local council disposal point. 

Perfectly safe and all data secure. 

K

paul56

Not that I know how, but I suspect somewhere in one of the many menus there is a 'Factory reset' icon which should remove all data. 

Goldie146

Not that I know how, but I suspect somewhere in one of the many menus there is a 'Factory reset' icon which should remove all data. 

I Phone

Setings

General

Reset

Various options 

 

tombar

I would default to factory settings as mentioned, but also wipe a magnet over it a number of times.  This is a form of degausing it, where it wipes out information