Phone Guarantee?

mrchris

Today i visited the orange shop at unit 78 merseyway stockport where my wife bought her phone from 8 months ago, being a sony ericsson w350i phone on payg.
The flip part of the phone broke off in use and we sought to get it repaired under guarantee. we where told that as it more than 6 month old there would be a £15 pound courier charge and that sony ericsson could charge us for the repair also.
A phone call to sony erricson themselves was worse as they said we would have to pay £20 to send it back to them for repair.
We will never shop at orange again or buy a sony ericcson phone either, in the meantime we have established this is a common fault with this phone so buyers beware.
If anyone knows of a better service offered to buyer's of mobile phones please reply as i need to buy my daughter a phone and i don't know who to choose.

Old_Gold

Who have you spoken to? If it is just customer services then forget it. First of all how long does your guarantee give you? Depending on that I would write to the CEO of Orange also quoting that you understand this is a common problem and they should repir it free of charge. If you have a problem write to trading standards.

DarkConvict

Not from SE website - http://www.mobilechooser.com/sonyericssonwarranty.htm

But it is fairly standard that everything has a 1 year warranty. If it is faulty you should send it back and they should repair it free of charge.

With regards to paying for postage to send it, i am unsure who is liable. Under distance selling i.e. buying online they would be (http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general-consumer-issues/137956-returning-faulty-goods-who.html) however for a shop brought phone in person i don't have any idea.

macman

The guarantee is another matter, but you can just get the address and send it back to them recorded or special delivery for a lot less than £15/20.

mrchris

we had a receipt, but the orange shop was adamant it was the manufactures problem
they would not budge on us paying a £15 courier charge, I will never shop at an orange shop again, but i want to know if their is a better service out there, if there is
it is a benefit to everyone else to avoid poor service

DarkConvict

I would advise you call Citizens advice bureau or/and trading standards. I am sure it is the seller (Orange) who is responsible for this not the manufacturer by law.
Sadly i don't know the Sale of Goods act and other such laws so i cannot quote the relevant legislation.

lufcgirl

I work in Handset Faults for Orange, but with contract phones. However I would've thought the warranty would be exactly the same either way (although don't quote me on it!)

If it's a contract phone bought more than six months ago, and no insurance on the phone, you'd be offered emergency options in the region of £70 for a next day replacement. If you refused, we would refer you to Sony Ericsson for a repair. So I don't get why eight months in Orange are offering to repair it, as they don't repair phones, they send a refurbished one to you and take the broken one back.

The warranty is with the manufacturer not Orange, so Orange have no legal requirement to repair the phone. If they'd offered to repair a PAYG phone for me 8 months in for £15 I'd have jumped at it!

Edit: As far as I understood, for the first six months Orange will repair it as the onus is on Orange to prove the phone wasn't sold faulty, after six months it's the customers. Which is why they have to go back to the manufacturer after this point.

macman

lufcgirl wrote: »

I work in Handset Faults for Orange, but with contract phones. However I would've thought the warranty would be exactly the same either way (although don't quote me on it!)

If it's a contract phone bought more than six months ago, and no insurance on the phone, you'd be offered emergency options in the region of £70 for a next day replacement. If you refused, we would refer you to Sony Ericsson for a repair. So I don't get why eight months in Orange are offering to repair it, as they don't repair phones, they send a refurbished one to you and take the broken one back.

The warranty is with the manufacturer not Orange, so Orange have no legal requirement to repair the phone. If they'd offered to repair a PAYG phone for me 8 months in for £15 I'd have jumped at it!

Edit: As far as I understood, for the first six months Orange will repair it as the onus is on Orange to prove the phone wasn't sold faulty, after six months it's the customers. Which is why they have to go back to the manufacturer after this point.

But the OP bought the phone from Orange, not from SE. If I buy a Hotpoint washing machine from Currys and it breaks down under warranty, my contract is with the retailer (Currys), not with Hotpoint, and it's Currys I would expect to arrange the repair. The fact that the manufacturer underwrites the warranty is between them and the retailer, and no concern of the purchaser.

lufcgirl

Orange (with a contract and purchased directly from Orange Retail or Direct) will replace a phone up to six months. After that they won't do anything unless the customer has care or takes an emergency option. Somehow I don't think Orange will do anything illegal and would surely have been pulled up on it by now if it was?

Silk

lufcgirl wrote: »

The warranty is with the manufacturer not Orange, so Orange have no legal requirement to repair the phone. If they'd offered to repair a PAYG phone for me 8 months in for £15 I'd have jumped at it!

Edit: As far as I understood, for the first six months Orange will repair it as the onus is on Orange to prove the phone wasn't sold faulty, after six months it's the customers. Which is why they have to go back to the manufacturer after this point.

Hi lufc,
Just read this out of interest but i note the OP is saying ..

there would be a £15 pound courier charge and that sony ericsson could charge us for the repair also.

It looks like the £15 is courier charge and also they want to charge on top.

When did this come in about the 6 months ...I thought these things are guaranteed for 12 months ????
It's is for the trader to sort out not the manufacturer as far as I'm aware

lufcgirl

The problem with the customer is that with the flip breaking away, thats classed as either a physical fault or a manufacturing defect. Not something software related. Sony will want to look at it, as would Orange and check no physical damage had been caused before deciding wether to charge for the repair or not.

Sony Ericsson phones are guaranteed for 24 months by Sony Ericsson, but Orange only provide their own replacement service for the first six months.

(Like I said, I work for contracts though so PAYG could be entirely different!)