Argos - refuse to repair under warranty

drive007

Hi all.

We purchased a Motorola V535 from Argos last christmas for our son. About 2 weeks after he got it, he managed to crack the small screen on the outside of the phone, which is no big problem, and has not affected the phone. Earlier this month, the phone will no longer charge up the battery, and we have tried different chargers but still will not charge up.
We returned it to argos as it is still under warranty, who sent it back to the repairer, and they tell us that this small crack in the screen which happened 9 months ago was the cause of this fault (BULL) and consequently would not be repaired under warranty. They want £82.95 to repair the phone which cost us £69.00 to buy.
It was obvious to me that they would look for an excuse to not repair under warranty. Is there anything I can do to get them to repair it under warranty.
Surely If you buy a car and smash the windscreen, would not invalidate the warranty on engine problems !!

Any advise would be very welcome, As Argos certainly dont want to know>

Thanks

Saeed

More and more retailers are trying to get out of having to repair defective products ...
1) This has happened to me as well. I bought a vacuum from argos which was so rubbish that the attachments fell off. I tried to return it after 1 week but they would not take it back, they tried to brush off my complaints, tried to "close" the till where I was complaining to a member of staff and walked off, tried to ignore me and called the next customer, I was in there for approx 30 mins and they tried every method to get rid of me or to shut me up but I would not give in but they would not budge ....
2) Bought a DVD player from Asda, they would not repair it under warranty saying I had "abused the product", the "abuse" was 4 scratches on the top of the player where the remote has been put repeatedly. They knew it was absolute lies, as it was in very good condition, and I told them what would they do if they bought car and used the exact same example as yourself ...but they would not budge and threatened to call the police if I did not leave the store ....can you believe????

Basically they have got your money and they don't want to know! More and more shops are using the "this product has been abused" to get out of reparing products that are built to a low budget and a large % will obviously go wrong. All I can say is don't buy from there if you can help it.

drive007

Can I pursue this in any other way ?

Old_Gold

I would suggest complaining to trading standards. I believe they log all complaints and if there is a trend they will take action.
If you are sure of your facts then small claims court is an option.
Stand your ground though. The best way of complaining it seems these days is to make as much fuss in the store as you can.
What we certainly need in this country now is consumer protection. Maybe Tony Blair will help!!!

Nex0

drive007 wrote:

Hi all.

We purchased a Motorola V535 from Argos last christmas for our son. About 2 weeks after he got it, he managed to crack the small screen on the outside of the phone, which is no big problem, and has not affected the phone. Earlier this month, the phone will no longer charge up the battery, and we have tried different chargers but still will not charge up.
We returned it to argos as it is still under warranty, who sent it back to the repairer, and they tell us that this small crack in the screen which happened 9 months ago was the cause of this fault (BULL) and consequently would not be repaired under warranty. They want £82.95 to repair the phone which cost us £69.00 to buy.
It was obvious to me that they would look for an excuse to not repair under warranty. Is there anything I can do to get them to repair it under warranty.
Surely If you buy a car and smash the windscreen, would not invalidate the warranty on engine problems !!

Any advise would be very welcome, As Argos certainly dont want to know>

Thanks

With respect I dont know your full story or Argos's so its hard to say without being there I mean did you go in ranting and raveing for example?

Thing is we get so many so called faulty mobile phones now its unreal.

I went through a batch of about 400 so called faulty nokia mobiles a few months back and the only 2 that didnt switch on and have a signal had the screens smashed and even then you cant call that a fault as its just blatent misuse.

I agree thlough the screen should have nothing to do with it charging especially after all this time.

Best advice I can give is try another store and see if they are more helpfull.

mulerider

Try the Carphone Warehouse, check on their website for the nearest service centre. When I worked at CPW we had constant problems with Motorola phones with a similar charging problem. Just take your phone with receipt and they should repair it as part of the warranty - even though you didn't buy the phone from them.

mulerider

Try the link below:

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/commerce/servlet/gben-server-PageServer?ARTICLE=MAIN.UK.INTERNET.STATIC.REPAIRS.EXPRESSREPS.LONDON