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I’ve been unfortunate over the past few years to have BlackBerry devices with properly functioning hardware. My screen, battery, and other parts have continued working (though I have had multiple software issues). There are a few options if your BlackBerry is damaged, though none of them are attractive. The two most common: get it fixed or get a new one. I’m sure you can see the dollar signs already. Buying a new BlackBerry, especially without the subsidy of an upgrade, can be expensive, but repair can be an even bigger relative cost. In my daily BlackBerry reading, I came across a site that gives you a third option: sell your defective model and put that money towards a new model.

The site is CashForBerrys.com, and after reading about it yesterday I did a quick search around to find out about potential scams. I didn’t find any, though I didn’t find many review. It is part of the Cash For Laptops family.

The above image is what they offered me for my Curve 8330. It’s worth more than $60 to me, so I’m not even considering it. But if you have a BlackBerry that you don’t need any more, that $60 can come in handy, especially if you’re putting it towards the purchase of a new model, subsidized or not. The only problem is that if your BlackBerry has serious electronic defects, you’ll get less. If my Curve had a defective screen, I’d get just $10. That’s probably not worth the effort of shipping it.

It comes down to a cost-benefit analysis. You have to factor in the repair price, the time your BlackBerry will not be of use to you, how much a new model would cost, how much you can get from CashForBerrys, etc. There’s also the issue of market price. CashForBerrys has an easy system for getting money for your device, but you might be getting less than you can. Selling your BlackBerry on eBay, while a longer and more complicated process, can get you more money.

If anyone has used CashForBerrys, please leave a review.

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