ATM at malls takes your old electronics and gives you cash on the spot

STRONGSVILLE, Ohio - Did you get any new electronic gadgets over the holidays? How about trading your old ones in for cash? It may be as easy as taking a trip to the mall.

If you have an old phone, tablet, or iPod you can earn cash on the spot from an ATM that wants your gadgets.

It looks like an ATM, but the ecoATM pays you money for your old gadgets collecting dust.

"This is the first time I ever heard of it,” Mary Meadows said. “It’s [smartphone] actually sitting on my dining room table as a paper weight.”

In a matter of minutes, you can turn that paper weight into cash.

Consumers touch the kiosk screen and select the gadget they want to unload.

To prove the customer is 18 and older, and the phone isn't stolen, the machine takes a picture of your license. Then a label is printed with a serial number that the consumer puts on the device. The gadget goes into the machine, and multiple cameras and mirrors take pictures of the phone and digitize the information.

A Galaxy S3 will net you $142 if it’s in perfect condition and $7 if the phone is in poor shape.

We put an old outdated flip phone into the machine, and got $1 back.

EcoATM CEO Tom Tullie said 25 percent of the phones are smelted down for the gold, platinum and palladium, and up to 75 percent of the phones are refurbished.

"We'll pay for anyone's phone, even if it's from 1990 or smashed and doesn't work anymore," said Tullie.

Before you sell your electronics, you should shop around for the best price.  Before you head to the mall, check online sites like Gazelle , Trade2Save , and uSell .

If you're at the mall and don't have your electronics with you, you can still check the price. Click here for a list of locations . There are seven ecoATM's in northeast Ohio.

Tullie believes ecoATM kiosks trump online methods of selling iPods, tablets and phones because the consumer doesn't have to send anything in the mail and people walk away with cash after just a few minutes.

EcoATM has 300 machines across the country.