The short answer
You have four options: a local cash buyer who comes to you and pays the same day, a national mail-in buyer who ships you a label and pays after inspection, an online marketplace like eBay or Facebook, or a pawn shop. For most people in metro Atlanta the local buyer wins on speed and total value, the mail-in buyer is the fallback for small or distant lots, and the other two cost you more than they return.
Local cash buyer
Someone comes to you, inspects in front of you, and pays before leaving. No packing, no shipping, no waiting on someone else’s inspection queue, and no minimum order. The trade-off is coverage — a local buyer only works if you are inside their radius.
National mail-in buyer
You ship, they inspect, they pay. Legitimate and widely used. The friction is real though: most set a dollar floor below which they will not process your lot at all, payment lands a week or two out, and your leverage disappears the moment the box is in their building. Full comparison here.
eBay, Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist
Legal, but a poor use of your time. You are handling listings, photographs, questions, packing and shipping yourself, dealing with returns, and taking on the risk that a buyer disputes the charge after the box is gone. Marketplace policies on medical supplies also shift without warning and listings get pulled.
Pawn shops
A minority take diabetic supplies and they pay the least of any route, because they have no downstream channel for them. Fast and anonymous if that matters more than money. More on pawn shops.
What all of them require
- New, sealed retail boxes.
- Unexpired — the date has not passed.
- Supplies that belong to you.
If any of those is missing, donation is usually the better route — here is where to take them in Georgia.
What the record shows
Everything below is quoted or drawn from a primary source, linked so you can check it yourself rather than take our word for it. Full list on our sources and regulations page.
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The Better Business Bureau has run ‘We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’ as a consumer scam warning, and BBB offices have logged hundreds of complaints against individual resale operations.
— Better Business Bureau, BBB Scam of the Week: ‘We Buy Diabetic Test Strips’, reported.
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40.1 million Americans — 12.0% of the population — have diagnosed or undiagnosed diabetes, including 29.1 million diagnosed adults. An estimated 11.0 million more have it and do not know.
— Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2023 data.
Related
Price list · Is it legal? · How it works · Find your city