Samsung Galaxy S2 bricked after 30 days

bradfrankshaw_2

Hi all - I picked up a great SG2 deal from Carphone Warehouse at £25 a month for one year blah mins and blah txts - I paid £200 towards the phone. My wife was impressed by the phone so much, she started a two year £35 a month contract with T Mobile via Carphone Warehouse for GS2 as well.

Within a month, the phone bricked. One night it was working, next day when she went to check the time it was dead. It was sent away by Carphone who came back with "Water damage" - the circuit boards show sign of water damage.

As we're not stupid, we protect our kit, dont use it in a swimming pool or the rain, it hadn't been dropped down the toilet etc we couldn't figure out what was wrong. I said all she does is facebook and listen to music whilst she goes on the exercise bike. Oh yes the carphone woman said, we've seen phones break through sweat damage.

Sweat damage?!?! what sort of a sorry excuse is that - does that mean you cant touch your phone if you are slightly sweaty??

No offer of repair or anything - we were told we had to keep paying the £35 a month for two years as we'd signed a contract for a sim chip and a phone service, the phone was a free gift. To me this sounds like a cop out. I'm paying £35 a month for the telephone number AND to repay the price of the phone. They suggested I could buy a new phone for £500 if my wife still wanted a GS2.

Surely this is a problem. How is it legal that all contracts are different prices if what the woman is saying is correct? I contacted T Mobile and they said they would repair for free (subject to inspection the email says) - we just send it to them in a silver bag they are sending us.

Does any one else have experience of these circumstances? And what results have you had?

cheers

frank

Guys_Dad

Regardless of handset faults, the mobile service contract you have is with the network and you are stuck with it.

As for the fault, I have posted a number of times about the excuse that it has been water damaged is a very convenient let off. You need to get it inspected by a 3rd party - T-Mobles seems fine to me.

If it is genuinely water damaged, then you have no comeback and you need another handset sourced at your cost to replace the Galaxy. There are cheaper Samsung handsets - they do the same but slower and on smaller screen.

Good luck and I hope you get a result from T-Mobile.

ridethelightning

Do you not have mobile phone insurance. Most contracts will come with free 1-2month insurance or you could claim off your house insurance, of course you will need to check the terms of these as they may not cover water damage. As for CPW and T-Mobile, it is unlikely you will get anywhere as the phone has a strip of paper inside which changes colour when in contact with water, so they will use this to prove it has water damage, however this has occured (the sweat argument does seem a bit far!).

bradfrankshaw_2

Guys_Dad wrote: »

Regardless of handset faults, the mobile service contract you have is with the network and you are stuck with it.

As for the fault, I have posted a number of times about the excuse that it has been water damaged is a very convenient let off. You need to get it inspected by a 3rd party - T-Mobles seems fine to me.

If it is genuinely water damaged, then you have no comeback and you need another handset sourced at your cost to replace the Galaxy. There are cheaper Samsung handsets - they do the same but slower and on smaller screen.

Good luck and I hope you get a result from T-Mobile.

How is it that mobile phone companies can state "This contract is x number mins and x number of txts for a Galaxy S2 which will cost you £35 a month. If you get the same number of minutes and txts with a phone that is a year older, it will cost you £20 a month"? To me this gives the impression that what you are paying for is the phone and the service, not just the service?

Surely it should be explicitly pointed out by mobile phone companies that the contract that you are paying for is completely and utterly separate from the actual phone equipment? How many people out there paying £40 a month for the latest Apple or Samsung kit assume they are paying towards the cost of the phone itself?

My own SGS2 was also £35 a month. But I paid £200 towards the COST of the phone which brought the contract payments for the same contract of mins/txt/data at £35 a month down to £25 a month. I was told I was paying the money towards the phone. Therefore in my mind there is a correlation between the equipment and the service I am receiving. Otherwise if the phone is "free" as they say, then I would not have been able to pay £200 towards my phone to lower the cost of the contract.

There needs to be an investigation into this - say my phone is "sweat damaged" - then what? I've paid £200 towards the phone. But if the phone is a free gift, what have I paid £200 for? If the answer is to knock £200 off my contract payment over 12 months, that is not what was sold to me.

So in my mind the same goes for my wifes phone - she is paying £35 a month towards the cost of the line and the value of the phone. If it is only the cost of the line and mins and txts, then how comes one contract for exactly the same mins/txts can cost less or more than another?

It seems to me that the contract you sign gives the impression that the monthly payment is towards the phone and the line; but if such damage like this comes up then the payments are only for the line.

As for the insurance, the option was not taken out as it would have made the contract prohibitively expensive. We have household contents insurance, but in this age of flooding left right and centre, I assume they wont cover it - besides we had no time to put it on the insurance before it broke!

It feels like we have been scammed - even though legally to the letter of the law the company is fully covered. But'll be d**ned to keep paying £35 a month for 2 years for 0 kit - again the 2 years gives the impression the payments are to cover the cost of the phone (£500) plus the cost of the line rental and txts/mins/data.

frank

Rusty!

You've paid for the phone, but it is still separate to you contract. The tariff on your bill isn't going to mention the SGSII anywhere.

Define the phone being bricked though? You might be able to get it into download mode and recover it.

MisterBrico

Just coming in to post my opinion on the is it service only or goods and service.

The networks sell it as an air time agreement with a free or subsidised phone, while it is true you can get say 600 mins + phone for £30 or sim only for £15 its still technically an air time agreement.

If the phone is water damaged then why would the network replace it.

If I bought a laptop computer on a finance agreement and I broke it/got it wet should it be replaced just because im paying £X a month?

Im guessing you think no, which is why you don't get another "free phone" if the one you get on contract is damaged.

I never understand why people think phone contracts are so different that if they break the goods they should get a new one regardless

Anyway I was just trieng to put things in perspective, not have a go

I do wish you good luck with the out come with T-Mobile.

bradfrankshaw_2

Rusty! wrote: »

You've paid for the phone, but it is still separate to you contract. The tariff on your bill isn't going to mention the SGSII anywhere.

Define the phone being bricked though? You might be able to get it into download mode and recover it.

Basically we were both using our phones before bed, news, facebook etc; lights out, we put them on the bedside cabinet, in the morning hers was blank; wouldn't boot. As if the battery was removed. I put my battery into it to check and still nothing. Connected it to the mains on both batteries - still nothing.

What gets me is that Carphone has made no offer to repair it - I wouldn't mind spending £50/£100 getting it fixed, but to have the woman in CPW say Nothing can be done, but you still have to pay your £35 contract for two years and if you want another GS2 it'll be £500 please is sickening - no empathy no Lets see what we can do to help - just You've signed the dotted line, now p-off. The phone company says they will fix upon return, BUT small print says subject to internal investigation. Which I assume means "We're going to open the flimsy plastic back, look at the water strip and then use our get out clause - Water damage".

Why are these contracts allowed to exist in this fashion that the customer is allowed to believe they are paying large amounts back to cover the cost of the phone?

I'll test this tomorrow in Carphone and a few others and ask for the most basic of phone with 1000mins and 1000txts and then the same amount of usage for an iphone 4 or sgs2 and compare the price and if different ask why the price is different. If the shop states because of the cost of the hardware, then what?

I think it is a blatant lie that the monthly cost is not linked to the hardware, otherwise why are 12 month contracts more expensive or you have to take out 18/24 month contracts for the newest phones? Obviously so that the phone company can recover its costs for giving away "free" phones!

jollyton

bradfrankshaw wrote: »

Hi all - I picked up a great SG2 deal from Carphone Warehouse at £25 a month for one year blah mins and blah txts - I paid £200 towards the phone. My wife was impressed by the phone so much, she started a two year £35 a month contract with T Mobile via Carphone Warehouse for GS2 as well.

Within a month, the phone bricked. One night it was working, next day when she went to check the time it was dead. It was sent away by Carphone who came back with "Water damage" - the circuit boards show sign of water damage.

As we're not stupid, we protect our kit, dont use it in a swimming pool or the rain, it hadn't been dropped down the toilet etc we couldn't figure out what was wrong. I said all she does is facebook and listen to music whilst she goes on the exercise bike. Oh yes the carphone woman said, we've seen phones break through sweat damage.

Sweat damage?!?! what sort of a sorry excuse is that - does that mean you cant touch your phone if you are slightly sweaty??

No offer of repair or anything - we were told we had to keep paying the £35 a month for two years as we'd signed a contract for a sim chip and a phone service, the phone was a free gift. To me this sounds like a cop out. I'm paying £35 a month for the telephone number AND to repay the price of the phone. They suggested I could buy a new phone for £500 if my wife still wanted a GS2.

Surely this is a problem. How is it legal that all contracts are different prices if what the woman is saying is correct? I contacted T Mobile and they said they would repair for free (subject to inspection the email says) - we just send it to them in a silver bag they are sending us.

Does any one else have experience of these circumstances? And what results have you had?

cheers

frank

Thats sad!!

Rusty!

Hmm that does sound a bit dead, I would go direct to Samsung for repair, forget using CPW as a middleman.

You could try a download mode jig from eBay for a couple of quid to try, but it sounds a little terminal.

How does she use it during exercise? My O2X goes in a neoprene armband when I run/go to the gym, supplies music and GPS tracking. The armband gets night on soaked, but very little makes it to the back of the phone, might have been enough to trigged the internal moisture indicator. Not that that's difficult, moving from a cold area to a warm one can do that due to condensation.

Guys_Dad

bradfrankshaw wrote: »

How is it that mobile phone companies can state "This contract is x number mins and x number of txts for a Galaxy S2 which will cost you £35 a month......................................


...........................It feels like we have been scammed - even though legally to the letter of the law the company is fully covered. But'll be d**ned to keep paying £35 a month for 2 years for 0 kit - again the 2 years gives the impression the payments are to cover the cost of the phone (£500) plus the cost of the line rental and txts/mins/data.

frank

You have to look at it like this.

The networks have basically 2 types of contract sim-only and with handset. You can compare the relevant costs of the same minutes, texts and data and work out what you are paying for the phone. And the difference between a Galaxy 2 and a basic Alcatel cheapo on the same number of mins etc.

So your argument - and I have some sympathy with it - is that the cost of the handset is the difference between the monthly sim-only cost and what you are paying. Have I got it right?

Actually, you really need to look at a "sim-free" cost of the Galaxy S2 from the net, not tied to a network that subsidises the handset cost to get you to spend money with them on the 24 month service.

But the rub of your case in point is that you have, in their view, damaged the handset your self and, therefore, need to continue paying for its cost, plus the 24-month service agreement you signed.

Had you, instead, taken out a loan to buy the handset and gone sim-free, the position would have been the same. The contract would still be in force and if the experts claimed that you damaged the handset yourself (water damage) you would still be left with a dud phone and the monthly loan repayments.

But here's hoping T-Mobile can help with the fault diagnosis.

bradfrankshaw_2

MisterBrico wrote: »

Just coming in to post my opinion on the is it service only or goods and service.

The networks sell it as an air time agreement with a free or subsidised phone, while it is true you can get say 600 mins + phone for £30 or sim only for £15 its still technically an air time agreement.

If the phone is water damaged then why would the network replace it.

If I bought a laptop computer on a finance agreement and I broke it/got it wet should it be replaced just because im paying £X a month?

Im guessing you think no, which is why you don't get another "free phone" if the one you get on contract is damaged.

I never understand why people think phone contracts are so different that if they break the goods they should get a new one regardless

Anyway I was just trieng to put things in perspective, not have a go

I do wish you good luck with the out come with T-Mobile.

I understand where you are coming from - but it is the misleading idea that you are lead to believe that if you take out a contract for an old phone it is one price, the same contract for a much newer phone is much more and longer, giving the impression it is some how Hire Purchase. I believe mobile companies rely on the ambiguity and these assumptions and use the Water Damage clause way too easily.

Are Contract Phones advertised as "You are paying for an air time agreement with a free or subsidised phone" or "The more complex the phone, the more advanced the phone, the more expensive and longer your contract will be" - And which of those two give the impression to the customer that they are paying back the cost of the phone and if so, do the phone companies rely on this impression?

"I never understand why people think phone contracts are so different that if they break the goods they should get a new one regardless " - going by this statement, you seem to think this happens a lot - therefore surely this is wrong and something needs to be done about it? That it needs to be addressed with the phone companies?

I think the reason why people think this way is that if something goes wrong with your car, it could still work even if out of warranty or you can get it repaired or repair it yourself - if some damage to your house, the same thing. These phones just don't seem to go a little wrong, its just always completely wrong and then you have nothing and you're expected to continue paying for it. Because you have bought it under the impression your expensive contract is paying back the phone and the phone companies do nothing to rebuff this UNTIL the event occurs!

Car insurance is compulsory - perhaps phone insurance should be too? To break this cycle of assumption that the kit is paid for by the contract?

In the end, I wouldn't mind being told Water damage, we can fix it for £100. But for carphone to just say Sorry its damaged, but you still have to pay £35 a month for 23 months and if you want a new SGS2, that'll be £500 please, its feels like an uncaring punch in the face and a kick in the balls.