The surge coincided with the release of Apple's iPhone 4S earlier this month on three of the top four carriers: Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint, all of whom also sell BlackBerry smartphones.
The site, Gazelle, told Forbes.com that users dumping their BlackBerrys reached a record high this month, with an additional 80 percent spike last week. That follows a three-day outage of RIM's data services that prevented some users from accessing BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM) and the Internet Oct. 11-14.
Initially in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the problem later spread to Asia and South America, then to North America. Some disgruntled users this week reportedly filed a class-action suit in Quebec Superior Court because of the outage, seeking refunds and damages, unsatisfied with the company's offer of free tech support and premium apps as amends.
The Gazelle trade-ins coincided not only with the release of the iPhone but the launch of several premium Android-based phones. But Gazelle official Anthony Scarsella told CNET that Android trade-ins during the same period were almost as high, 72 percent, and that the glut of surplus BlackBerry devices was likely due to the iPhone launch.
The report did not mention the quantity of BlackBerrys sold this month and Gazelle did not provide the information requested in time for publication.
One soon-to-be-former BlackBerry user is Jerry Richter, a New York City public school teacher, who is switching his Verizon service from the Tour device he's had for nearly three years to the iPhone 4S he has ordered and expects to receive this week.
"I have an iPad, and since the iPad and iPhone are so similar, it's more seamless for me...
Read more: http://www.newsfactor.com/
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