Refused repair to Nokia phone under warranty
Distorted Vision
warranty and completed the form on Nokia's website. The volume control
buttons on the side are no longer working because the microswitches
have broken off the main board. It appears that this is a common
problem.
Anyway I received my phone back and it has been returned unrepaired
because of liquid damage. My phone has at no time ever had any form of
liquid ingress whatsoever. A document came back from a company called
Regeneresis which says it has been deemed Beyond Economical Repair
(B.E.R) due to Liquid Damage.
Furthermore, they have removed the microswitches by desoldering them
and flashed the firmware. They have physically altered / damaged my
phone by doing this without replacing the microswitches. It makes no
sense that they have started repairing it and then checked the
warranty status half way through then deciding not to complete it.
I called Nokia Customer Services and they weren't very helpful and
just said that there is nothing they do but they gave me the address
of their Complaints Department. "Liquid damange " seems to be a
favourite way of getting out of honouring the warranty. But what
annoys me is that I've owned about ten Nokia phones over the last 12
years and this is the first time I have had to have one repaired under
the warranty and they have refused. What annoys me is the actual
problem is a common one and just requires new microswitches soldering
on. The parts cost pennies and I doubt the job takes any longer than
20-30 minutes in total. I feel its just plain poor customer service
from Nokia.
I'm going to write to Nokia's Complaints Department but I would like
to know where I stand legally. I thought I made save myself some time
and hassle by paying to get it repaired but I've got 3 quotes now
ranging from £45-50 which I think is ridiculous. Do I have any grounds
to take them to a small claims court?
Many thanks for your help!
Peter Crosland
The company that supplied you with the phone is responsible for the repair
not Nokia or their agents. Any action is against the supplier.
Peter Crosland
R. Mark Clayton
"Peter Crosland" <g6...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:cc-dnRVZzcv7KiLU...@posted.plusnet...
Except that they have [further] damaged the phone while they had it.
Distorted Vision
warranty. I bought the phone from Carphone Warehouse 18 months ago but
I don't see how they come into this.
Peter Parry
<r.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Anyway I received my phone back and it has been returned unrepaired
>because of liquid damage. My phone has at no time ever had any form of
>liquid ingress whatsoever. A document came back from a company called
>Regeneresis which says it has been deemed Beyond Economical Repair
>(B.E.R) due to Liquid Damage.
Warranty claims for faults caused by water ingress to phones (and many
other portable devices) became such a problem that it is now routine
to fit water sensitive labels during manufacture. These turn
(usually) from white to red or blue when water is in contact with
them. They do not react to high humidity. One is usually fitted in
the battery compartment, others between circuit boards.
If your phone was fitted with these and they show water ingress it is
unlikely your assertion that "My phone has at no time ever had any
form of liquid ingress whatsoever" would prevail.
Distorted Vision
Regeneresis as a 3rd party agent but I do not have any legally binding
agreements with them. It seems to me that ultimately Nokia are
responsible for the consequences of Anovo's actions when they are
acting as repair agents on their behalf.
On 17 Mar, 15:35, "R. Mark Clayton" <nospamclay...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
> Except that they have [further] damaged the phone while they had it.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Peter Crosland
Any manufacturer's warranty is in addition to your statutory rights under
the Sale of Goods Act. The latter is the responsibility of the retailer, and
even though they may try to wriggle out of it a phone should last more than
18 months.
Peter Crosland
Peter Parry
<r.p...@gmail.com> wrote:
>I don't understand - it has a manufacturer's warranty not a retailer
>warranty. I bought the phone from Carphone Warehouse 18 months ago but
>I don't see how they come into this.
Peter is thinking of any claim you might have under the Sale of Goods
Act (SOGA). This is separate from warranty claims.
After 18 months ownership if you were to claim under your SOGA rights
it would be for you to show the fault arose because of some inherent
fault (poor manufacturing or a weak switch for example) which existed
at the time you bought it. Assuming the seller (SOGA claims can
usually only be against the seller) refused your claim then you would
need to go to a small claim in court.
To prove your case you would need to produce some evidence that the
fault was inherent and this would be in the form of an experts report
which you would have to pay for. Note that the expert would be there
to give you an independent opinion of the fault. It may not be the
one you wanted. If you win the experts fees get reimbursed to you by
the looser. If you lose you have already paid for them and don't get
anything back.
As it is you claimed under your warranty and this is a legally
enforceable document so you can claim against Nokia for not honouring
it. However, you don't have a very good case _if_ the repairers have
objective proof of liquid ingress into the phone. Although the
original fault was unrelated they can claim that the liquid prevents
the phone from being made serviceable, prejudices reliability and
could cause future problems (and may have thrown some you are unaware
of up during testing). As they could not meet the repair standards
they are required to because (they would claim) of your actions in
allowing water ingress (of which they have proof) they have returned
the phone un repaired. You probably have a case for asking them to
re-instate the faulty switches but that's about all.
Roland Perry
Tue, 17 Mar 2009, Peter Parry <pe...@wpp.ltd.uk> remarked:
Is it reasonable for them to have taken his phone apart and removed the
broken microswitch, before noticing these tell-tale markers?
--
Roland Perry
Percy Picacity
news:8205d399-3fa1-436e...@z9g2000yqi.googlegroups.com
:
> I'm going to write to Nokia's Complaints Department but I would
> like to know where I stand legally. I thought I made save myself
> some time and hassle by paying to get it repaired but I've got 3
> quotes now ranging from £45-50 which I think is ridiculous. Do I
> have any grounds to take them to a small claims court?
>
> Many thanks for your help!
You need an expert opinion that the phone is not suffering from water
damage. However, if you get the microswitches replaced and it works
properly I think (as a non-lawyer) that you are home and dry (res ipsa
loquitur). Provided you have several quotes I think you have a good
case for recovering the cost of the repair, exorbitant as it may seem.
(Actually, when you consider the time to identify and order the parts,
the cost of the latter, capital costs of the workshop, testing etc,
then £50 seems very reasonable to me.)
--
Percy Picacity
Alex Heney
Why do you think that?
He is talking about repair "under warranty".
--
Alex Heney, Global Villager
Get behind early so you have plenty of time to catch up.
To reply by email, my address is alexATheneyDOTplusDOTcom
Joe Lee
> Thanks Mark - that's my point. Nokia have appointed Anovo /
> Regeneresis as a 3rd party agent but I do not have any legally binding
> agreements with them. It seems to me that ultimately Nokia are
> responsible for the consequences of Anovo's actions when they are
> acting as repair agents on their behalf.
Yes.
Your legal rights are against Nokia as they are rquired to honour any
Warranty they choose to provide - it is entirely a matter for Nokia whether
or not they choose to 'farm out' their Warranty claims to another Co. /
legal entity - they cannot avoid their legal liability by doing so.
Whether you do have a valid Warranty claim is of course another matter.
--
Joe Lee
RobertL
> In message <6eovr4dijkgrunpsibm1kqdlhmg2dvb...@4ax.com>, at 18:00:18 on
An uncharitable thought is that in the workshop if someone screws up a
bit of solding and damages a phone they could then sprinkle some water
onto the marker and reject the phone as "water damaged".
R
Distorted Vision
address on it, the envelope was franked and had A Novo's logo and
address on it.
Anyway, it said they would like to investigate my handset further and
I called the number to arrange and it was a company called NMS Support
(www.nmscommunications.com/Support/). The lady I spoke was nice and
helpful and they have organised a DPD to collect my handset tomorrow
and she said we'll see what you can do for you. Does anyone know if
NMS are an arbitration service that Nokia uses?
Anyway, I'm glad at least something is being done because I thought
that Nokia wasn't even going to respond to my letter.
Distorted Vision
Nokia called me yesterday and said they were going to send me a brand
new N95 and apologised for what happened. They also said they would
send it by DPD Priority Before 12pm. Sure enough it arrived this
morning and its a brand new phone - doesn't even looking like a
refurb.
So all's well that ends well. Thanks to everyone who contributed to
this thread.
mario lead
I am based out of Argentina and I've undergone same nature of problems with
my brand new Nokia 5310 which I own since less than 2 months.
The device has been delivered to local Anovo repair agent with exactly the
same poor response and Liquid Damage report. I have been also a staunchy and
loyal customer of Nokia products for years, and in this particular case it
was not exposed at all to any liquid environment beyond normal use as stated
in Nokia warranty.
Given the similarity with your case and the succesful outcome of it as far
as I can read, would you be so kind so as to send me the Model of letter as
delivered to Nokia UK so I can use a similar pattern here to claim for my
own phone ?
In case this is feasible, I will send you my private email in order for you
to email me the letter.
Many thanks in advance, from an extremelly dissappointed Nokia customer
Best regards
mario