We do not buy water damaged Galaxies. Here is why, and what to do instead.
This page used to say the opposite. It changed, and saying so here is fairer than saying it after the courier has already collected.
Modern Galaxies are water resistant rather than waterproof, and that rating fades quietly with age as the seals harden. A five-year-old phone with an IP68 badge is not an IP68 phone any more, which is why so much water damage happens to phones their owners believed were safe.
The thing about water damage is that it is not an event, it is a process. A phone that got wet, dried out and worked perfectly afterwards is corroding on the inside on a timeline of months. It usually fails in the end, and nothing we can test on arrival tells us whether yours is one of the ones that will.
We bought these for years and carried the failures ourselves. The honest problem is that the risk cannot be priced fairly: any price low enough to cover the phones that die is unfair to the phones that would have been fine. So we stopped, rather than quote a figure we would want to take back after testing.
What counts as water damage.
Any of these means we have to decline, including the phone that dried out and has been perfect ever since. There is a moisture indicator inside every Galaxy, it does not reset, and testing finds it whether it is mentioned or not.
Pool, bath, sink or the sea
Even briefly
Went through a washing machine
We see this constantly
Caught in heavy rain and never recovered
Counts
Dried out and has worked ever since
Still counts
Moisture indicator already pink or red
Inside the SIM tray
Charging port corroded or green inside
A late sign of it
If you are upgrading, you are not selling. You are part-paying.
We cannot buy the wet one, but anything else in the drawer still counts, and water damage is the fault most likely to have you replacing a phone the same week.
Take the payout as EpicDeals.co.za credit instead of cash and we add 12% on top. That is us paying you for not needing the money in your account today, and it costs you nothing if you were going to spend it here anyway.
The 12% is only worth taking if you were going to spend it. If you need the cash, take the cash, and we will not make the voucher hard to refuse.
What to do with it instead.
Do not switch it on to check
If it just happened, power it down, do not charge it, and leave it somewhere dry and warm. Putting current through a wet board is what turns a phone that could have been saved into one that cannot, and each attempt makes that likelier.
Rice does nothing
The most persistent bad advice in phone ownership. Rice draws no useful moisture out of a sealed phone and it puts starch and dust into the ports. A hairdryer is worse. Time, warmth and leaving it switched off are what actually help.
A repair shop is the better call
An ultrasonic board clean, done soon after it happened, saves a good number of phones. It is worth a quote from an independent repairer while the corrosion is young, and worth much less six months from now. That is the argument for doing it this week rather than deciding later.
If you are not certain it ever got wet
Pull the SIM tray and look inside with a torch. A white sticker means no liquid contact has been detected. Pink or red means it has. If it is white and the phone simply stopped working, that is a different problem, and one we do buy.
We still buy it with these.
Choose the closest condition in the calculator and mention anything that is wrong. Your offer already takes it into account.
- Cracked or shattered screen
- Green line or dead pixels across the display
- Screen burn on an AMOLED panel
- Dead or badly degraded battery
- Will not switch on, with no history of liquid
- Charging port worn out from use
- Rear glass cracked
- Cameras, buttons or speakers failed with age
Three ways to take the money.
Cash
Instant offer
Assessed within 1-3 working days of arriving, paid within 5 working days of your offer being confirmed.
+12%
Trade-in voucher
Take it as credit on EpicDeals.co.za instead and we add 12%. Useful if the plan was always to upgrade.
+10%
Consignment
We list it, we sell it, you get 10% more than the instant offer. Most sell within 13 days.
Trading since 2013 as Epic Deals, with 2,800+ reviews and 30 people who answer the phone. Not a stranger with a bakkie and a WhatsApp number.