Old cell phones usually get thrown away. They no longer work or you have just got a brand new model with more bells and whistles to take your fancy, or for whatever reason, old cell phones usually get dumped. You can make money selling unwanted cell phones. Here's how:

1. To make money selling cell phones you first need to find a source of cell phones to sell. You could start with your family and friends. Isn't it the case that people often give their old cell phones to children in the family to play with, or they just throw them away? There's money in cell phones, so now you should see to it that you get the old cell phones instead.

2. After you have exhausted supplies from family and friends, try putting an ad in the local newspaper. You may be able to put an ad up in local shop windows too. Expand from there and advertise more generally in your town or city. Set up a website and advertise online. Do this at a pace you can keep up with.

You will have to pay people to take their old cell phones off them. Research the topic and find out what certain models are worth, and what you can get for them when you sell them again. It should be obvious that the price you pay for the old cell phones should be less than the price you get selling them. That is your profit margin.

3. Make sure that the cell phones you buy can actually work. They need to be in fairly good condition with no real damage. They need to be able to switch on from the original battery. Don't accept cell phones that are badly damaged, or ones that can't switch on. You won't be able to resell them and you will waste money buying them.

4. Selling used cell phones isn't particularly difficult. There are a number of websites set up that will buy old cell phone off you. However, they are in much the same position that you were in when you bought the phones from other people. They want to get them at the lowest price they can.

You can check out sites like Sell This Phone and Gazelle, for example. Contact them and give them a list of the phones you have. They will reply with an offer. If you accept, they will send you a jiffy bag (or several) to post the phones in and you can then send them off. They will pay you the agreed price when they receive the cell phones.

5. You can also sell old cell phones on Ebay or other auction websites. It can be very competitive in this environment, but if you make your listing stand out from the crowd, you can do well.

To get an idea of the value of an old cell phone you could try the Mobile Valuer website. This is a UK site aimed at the UK market, but it can still be useful. Use the XE website to see what cell phones are worth in your own currency if you are not from the UK.