HTC water damage

grumbler

JayMcgregor wrote: »

They said that liquid damage, regardless of how it happened, cannot be repaired by HTC -even though it's through no fault of my own

It was very stupid thing to say. If it was not your fault and they cannot repair it, they have to replace it. However, as I said, I don't know if the warranty is legally enforceable in UK.

[STRIKE]I also noticed that they have recently cut the warranty from 24 to 12 months. My Desire bought in Jan came with 24 months. Looks like they are having serious problems with the quality and reliability of their products. I think my next phone will be Samsung.
[/STRIKE]

I fear that my phone will never be fixed or replaced and I'll be down a few hundred quid.

If CPW cannot prove that it was your fault you can take them to the small claims court and they will pay. Your evidence is the indicators.

JayMcgregor

It's funny you say that. They've also stopped producing HTC Desire Z's less than a year after it was released, they confirmed this but refused to explain why.

I suspect the model was faulty from day one.

I plan to contact CPW tomorrow morning, but I don't expect much from them. I've seen Phone Shop, sadly it's an accurate portrayal of their staf.

ruggedtoast

I would take it to the retailer and not say htc have looked at it.

diamonds

HTC Head Office Europe 01753 218960

woowoley

That's why I advise to make as many good quality photos as possible.

Rocker666

I have exactly the same issue as the original poster.... My tale of woe:

My HTC Desire S randomly stopped working after less than 3 months from new (got it as part of a 24 month contract with O2). Weird stuff starting happening like the touch screen freezing and GPS contstantly turning on by itself. Then it worked ok for another few days, then it turned itself off and would not power up. Only way I could get it going was to to a hard re-boot (holding down a combination of buttons) and doing a factory reset. Phone rebooted but touchscreen froze so unable to enter unlock code, then it died completely wouldn't power up at all.

Contacted O2, was told to back up my data - impossible when the phone won't even power up (although I had previously saved my photos at least). Booked a 'guru' appointment at my local O2 store for them to have a look. The guy seemed clueless and suggested everything I'd already tried e.g. hard reboot/factory reset etc. It was obvious that it was broken, so he got it sent off for repair (to ANOVO).

I was horrified upon checking the tracking (update service) that my phone had been marked as 'Beyond Economic Repair' and that it wasn't covered as it had 'liquid damage'. Knowing full well my phone has never been near water, I was quite annoyed. I still hadn't heard anything from O2, so I took it upon myself to ring them and question the repair outcome.

I was told that basically there is nothing I can do, and I don't have a leg to stand on as I don't have insurance (O2 smugly advised me that if I had took out their insurance at £10 a month I would have been covered)... Told me that they would send the phone back unrepaired. I argued that my phone has never been near water, and that the battery indicator is still white. O2 would only offer the quite frankly ridiculous suggestion that perhaps "I'd been in a steamy bathroom, stood near a boiling kettle, or moisture from sweat when it's in my pocket may have caused it". Laughable.

Surely these phones should be more robust - they say moisture has managed to get inside the circuit board but not set off the water damage indicator on the battery??! WHATEVER!

I don't know what to do... HTC are not interested either, and O2 won't budge. I was offered the only option of purchasing a new phone from them for £350, which I cannot afford. So I am 4 months into a 24 month smartphone contract with no phone....

I missed this Watchdog thing, can anyone provide any more information?

Thanks :beer:

MissKeith

The stickers are not the only indicator of liquid damage. Just before I left CPW, I saw a phone which indicators hadn't herren tripped but was clearly water damaged because the charging port and battery connectors were green. For anyone who didn't do Chemistry at school, copper turns green when it comes into contact with liquid. Majority of the circuit board ifs copper, engineers tend to look for it corroded and don't just rely on the paper indicators.

I swear this forum can be backwards. I hear complaints about "they took one look st the indicators, saw they were red and refusedto deal with it even though it's not been near liquid" and now "the indicators aren't even red, they're saying liquid damage, this is stupid!". You can't have it both ways! Or you could actually think that the indicators aren't the sole way of detecting moisture within a phone...

Guys_Dad

I don't have your experience of working in the mobile phone industry and your inside knowledge has proved to be very helpful on many occasions, but I do think that, even if a handset shows signs of water ingress, repair centres should still carry out a basic test on the fault.

I have had a handset that had the indicator showing moisture ingress and it is still working today! If it ceased, I bet it wouldn't be water damage that caused it after all this time.

Used to run a big IT department. The number of times we ignored the obvious apparent cause of damage and found it was something else was quite high and if we had just taken a quick look without testing, then a number of PC's laptops or printers would have been scrapped unnecessarily.

Having a rule that if any indication of moisture ingress is present, refuse to check further and blame the fault on water damage is not right for every case in my view and even if in 80% of the cases it was the cause, what about the other 20%?

Rocker666

Regardless of indicators, I know my phone has NEVER been near water, which is why I don't understand how they can claim this. I'm not saying the indicators are the only way to tell if there is moisture damage, my beef is the fact that they won't even attempt a repair or give me any help or suggestions about what to do next.

MissKeith

Actually, sometimes they would repair a fault that wasn't caused by liquid ingress or would at least attempt it. The problem is, liquid can settle on the circuit board and eventually corrode away without the user realising it. It can a very gradual thing and cause any manner of fault. Depending on where the corrosion is, there may not be proof that the fault isn't caused by it and because the user doesn't know how water got into the phone it cannot be proved either way. The old chicken and the egg theory I guess.