12 month warranty/ 24 month contract please comment if you have had a problem

KAYAP

The agreement is between the customer and Vodafone, not the customer and apple. Regardless of the warranty provided by apple it is Vodafone who supplied the phone and therefore they are the ones under the Sale of Goods Act who who should ensure the iPhone is fit for purpose. An iphone that does not last the duration of the contract is not fit for purpose. The Sky box argument is not a like for like, the Sky contract is 12 months and the box is under warranty for 12 months. Would you take a contract with Sky for 12 months if the box was only under warranty for 6 months? Would you buy an item of clothing from Topshop, discover it was faulty, take it back to the store for a refund/exchange and then think it was normal to be told to take it straight back to the manufacturer? Interestingly I had a similar problem with Orange, the phone was one month out of warranty and froze. I was told it was tough luck. I argued that it wasn't fit for purpose etc etc and didn't get anywhere. I still had 11 months of my contract left. In the end, after 60 minutes on the phone to Orange, out of sheet frustration, I said I was canceling the contract and would quite happily pay any penalties just to get rid of Orange. Funnily enough a replacement iPhone arrived the next day! Although it was bran new it didn't come with any warranty, perhaps it is 12 months per person, not per brand new phone! Ha ha it is whatever suits Orange more like! I have one month left of the contract now and will never go with Orange again or get another iPhone. The signal is appalling and Orange told me it's because an iPhone is primarily for use in accessing the Internet and secondly for use as a phone! Have you ever heard such rubbish! I would love to access the Internet with my iPhone bit it is far too slow. It took a week to download an app, I'm not exaggerating. It will be 02 and blackberry for me next time.

robt_2

You are missing the point that Apple will swap your phone there and then, Vodafone won't - they will send it for repair which takes longer.

KAYAP wrote: »

I would love to access the Internet with my iPhone bit it is far too slow. It took a week to download an app, I'm not exaggerating.

Yes, you are.

gjchester

KAYAP wrote: »

The agreement is between the customer and Vodafone, not the customer and apple. Regardless of the warranty provided by apple it is Vodafone who supplied the phone and therefore they are the ones under the Sale of Goods Act who who should ensure the iPhone is fit for purpose. An iphone that does not last the duration of the contract is not fit for purpose.

Sorry but your wrong in this case.

You get the phone for free on the condition of taking out the airtime contract.

The two are not connected after that. Apple choose to offer a 12 month warranty, after 12 months regardless of the length of the contract thats it.

The Sale of goods act does say fit for purpose and of Durable quality, but does not describe that to any greater extent.

eefee

How can any of you be arguing that a phone that doesn't last the length of the phone contract is fit for purpose?

Do you all work for phone companies?

The Sale of Goods Act and EU directive 1999/44/EC both cover you for the eventuality that your phone stops working within 2 years. Any companies that try to wriggle out of this are quite simply breaking the law.

And yes. The UK is part of Europe.

It's an illegal and immoral practice. The companies acting like this need to be brought to book.

eefee

I'm with you Bill the Bus. Damned right it should

eefee

I'd advise anyone with this problem to email the Managing Director of their phone network directly. You can find their email addresses here:-

http://www.!!!!!!!!!!!!!/

Once it's in writing, it's much harder for them to fob you off with misinformation.

You can find a standard letter here:-

http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/sale-of-goods/understanding-the-sale-of-goods-act/sample-letters/

I did this when my PC World laptop blew up after 18 months. I got a refund within 2 weeks (Minus a proportion for the use I'd already had from it. I'm currently doing the same for my dead 18 month old iPhone. (24 month contract obviously)

eefee

Ah. It blanked out the web address for the MD email addresses. Just search for managing directors email on Google. It's the top one

eefee

Good luck all

eefee

sogngion wrote: »

My iPhone 3GS runs on a 24-month contract until november 2011, but last week it gave up its ghost and only now do I realise that Vodafone wants nothing to do with this because the handset itself is only under a 12-month warranty.

This is totally illogical and to me has all the hallmarks of a fraudulent scam, not dissimilar perhaps to the banks' loan insurance schemes which were on paper 'technically legal' but resulted in massive payouts by the banks when it was ultimately recognised that no matter what people sign up for, if it doesn't make sense and cheats the customer, it cannot be sustained in the long term.

Selling bundled contracts which tie you into a 24 month obligation with a service provider on the strength of the type of handset you choose as part of your bundle, and then extracting the handset itself from the bundle after twelve months and asserting that it is after all only the network service you are paying for is disingenuous and misleading. When you sign a contract for a combination product that consists of a device and a number of different voice, text and web services that are entirely dependent on the device that is for this precise reason integral to the contract, you have every right to expect that the contract covers the service including the device. You are, after all, continuously paying for the device as well as for the service. If that weren't the case, then Vodafone - or any other service provider - could simply offer you the same device on a 12-month contract for the same price as an 18 or 24 month contract, which they're patently unwilling to do. Your splendid service contract though is useless to you without a working device, so whether this is formulated in the contract or not, it is perfectly obvious that Vodafone - or any other service provider - is not fulfilling their obligation to you if they don't repair or replace a handset that has, through no fault of your own, stopped working.

The practice of selling contracts that are not in their entirety covered by the warranty for the device is therefore deliberately deceptive and thus unethical. It's also deeply offensive and I'll be taking it up with relevant consumer watchdog organisations because as far as I'm concerned it's a prime example of big corporations taking their customers for a ride simply because they have the power to do so, and it has to stop.

S

Yes. I fully agree.

niktheguru

I haven't read all the above threads as it seemed like there was a fight going on, but i'm just going to add my 2 pence.

I do agree with the original poster, i think that phones should have a warranty that lasts their contract period. It only makes sense, because the vast majority of people change their phone only at upgrade time.

However i do agree with the other people that it is clear that most phone warranties are only for 12 months with a few companies offering 2 year warranties, so with the way it currently works you cant really expect the networks to fix your phone when it goes outside the warranty.

Personally i think 2 year contracts should be banished and we should go back to the 12 month contract!