Recently, I came across the same problem- all courier companies' franchisees(DTDC and BlueDart) refused to courier my mobile. The only company that entertained my request was Aramex but unfortunately they did not deliver to the location I wanted to deliver to; my buyer was from Vizianagaram, AP.
I was clearly in deep trouble. I visited this thread and was told about special schemes for delivering mobiles- I'm not interested in that because:
A)I am not a professional seller and have sold only one phone so far- such schemes seem good for repeat sellers of brand new phones
B)My phone was a second hand piece that went for Rs. 5000. Not exactly high worth is it? Would I spend a lot just to ship it? No...
So when I was at one of the DTDC offices, I noticed one customer who wanted to parcel a rather large box. He was asked what contents were inside the box but since it was all wrapped and ready to be shipped. The DTDC official did not rip the packaging open to check inside. This gave me an idea.
Later that day I packaged my phone (which was in its original box) within a larger box. I wrapped it up nicely with cellophane and went to another DTDC franchise in my city, Bangalore. As usual the DTDC official there enquired the contents of the box. I simply lied and told him there were books inside. He shook the box to see if I was telling the truth- the phone and all accessories were secured so it didn't rattle about much and that lend credence to my story.
Yes, he really thought there were only books inside. He didn't even give it any further thought and charged me a measly Rs. 75 to ship it and the package was on it's way.
This of course, is a very risky move- supposing somewhere along the chain, some DTDC official decided to check the contents of the box- that official would have the liberty to take away the mobile and replace it with books and ensure the parcel delivered. In such a case, were I to complain, I would be told "sir... you packaged books... that's exactly what the person at the destination address received" 🙂
The reason why my packaged delivered successfully was probably because it wasn't delivered over air or to a big city; so there was no need to subject it to security tests. I imagine otherwise my package may have been rejected.
In case you do want to take that risk, here are some tips I suggest:
1. While packaging the phone, make sure the contents are secured so they do not rattle about inside the box. If they aren't secured properly, then your handset + earphone + charger + cable etc will rattle for sure and that's a dead give away.
2. In case you're delivering the phone within the original box, package it within a bigger box of another type of product (in my case I put my phone box inside the box of a sandwich maker box) this way the delivery officials will not suspect or doubt the contents of the box.
3. Lie intelligently and lie convincingly- when the delivery official asks you "what's in the box?" don't tell him it's a mobile phone. Tell him anything but that. But whatever excuse you make up- make sure that your package can back it up. In my case the mobile phone box within the bigger box did shake about a bit. But because of the weight and the way I packaged the contents inside- it did actually sound like there were books inside the box.
The best part about shipping a mobile across, barring the risks is that you pay very little for it. When I shipped my second hand Apple iPod Nano of the same value- it cost me several times more.
Cheers and good luck 🙂
