The reason they will pay that is because*the upside of a working part (I pay $10 for computer and sell the checked hard drive for $40 for instance) far outweighs the loss I take if I just have to scrap it. 95% of the time the dvd drive works and is worth $5 plus the scrap vale for rest...ie they break even unless they are selling large quantities of parts for recycling.

Basically they make money...sometimes alot of money if you just know how to test some of the components and replace the non working ones...they only break even or lose a very small amount only a very small % of time.



If you have some basic knowledge of building computers you too can do the same. Its not hard.