Real life MMD: She broke my phone — should I make her pay?

whitewing

What mobile costs £500? I didn't even know they went up to that price. How was the mobile purchased? If within a certain number of days and paid on a debit or credit card, there may be some kind of cover from the card issuer.

1ipstick

Interesting - the very same problem was on the Guardian this week: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/work-blog/2012/mar/26/dear-jeremy-work-advice

although the cost of the phone was £350, not £500... is it possible this is a fake dilemma?!

DEANCPW

OK, So you was speaking to your boss and your PERSONAL PHONE RANG. your colleague got flustered not wanting you to get into trouble so went to answer it or switch it off and accidently dropped it. no she should not pay

how much are you paid per hour and how many hours have you spent on your PERSONAL PHONE AT WORK. I bet you owe your boss more than £500 in lost work

jamespir

you should have had it insured to be fair cant really blame your colleague thats like taking 500 pounds in cash into your work place loose in your jacket pocket which is utterly crazy

zzzLazyDaisy

How, exactly, are you going to *make* her pay?

You've asked, she's refused.

Regardless of whether you think she should pay for a new phone, there isn't really any way you can make her do this, if she chooses not to.

Although my own view would be that accidents happen and you shouldn't leave a valuable piece of technology lying around at work to be knocked off a desk/dropped/have coffee spilled on it/whatever.

Also it is prudent to have valuable smartphones insured for loss and accidental damage.

mandwhy

Very foolish not to have insured it I'm afraid. I would be mortified if I was her and I am actually horrified you already asked for the cash! If you dropped it what would you do? I assume it is a new iphone 4s or something, in which case you can probably have it repaired at cost (my friend has his repaired after water damage - it didn't cost £500). Your poor colleague was trying to help you! Imagine being asked to cough up £500 to buy someone else such an overpriced bit of technology, madness!

juggsy

Sorry but I agree with a lot of the other posters here, you've paid an extortionate amount of money for a phone, and yet haven't got the foresight to insure it for a few quid a month. Sounds like you bought an iPhone or similar on Pay as you go, which is pretty nuts IMHO.

She was trying to do you a favour, ok it went wrong, you've asked her to pay, she's said no, not much you can really do now except save up for a new one. And if you can't afford such luxuries, you may need to get one which is a little more within your means (that's what this site is all about)

bouncydog1

Did you use it after it was re-assembled? Presume yes because you say it seemed to be working. So you have no proof that the phone doesn't work because your colleague dropped it - that is coincidence.

Mobiles are a menace in the work environment - they are distracting and IMO unless they are essential for work should be switched off and put away whilst you are working. That way there is no likelihood that a helpful colleague will pick them up!

And £500 for a phone - sounds as if it was a must have purchased on instalments and you are still paying for what you can't use! Have you thought of getting a price for the repair - that would be the first step rather than asking your colleague to replace with new something a year old.

And no, I don't think she should pay for it. You didn't take reasonable care to put it away and it was an accident.

Avon2001

I work in an open-plan office and truely wish my company would enforce a policy of putting mobiles on silent. It's bad enough when it's work mobiles going off but it's even more frustrating when it's personal ones and frankly if I had picked up a ringing phone and dropped it, I would cheerfully tell the person concerned that they should have had it on silent so as not to disturb my work. In this situation your company would be stupid to get involved, so if you did want to make a serious effort to get your money back you'd have to take your colleague to court and leaving aside the repercussions that would probably have at work, firstly you'd have to prove that it was her fault that it broke and secondly any compensation you'd get would be based on what the phone would have been worth at the time of the damage not what you paid for it a year ago. With regards to point one there is a reason why electrical goods are generally guaranteed for a year and it's entirely possible that your phone's demise was due to happen anyway and that at worst your colleague simply gave it a push where it was headed. For the record, I have basic handsets which have been around for years but the more complex a phone is, the more that can go wrong with it. By the way, I assume you have tried putting a new battery in it since the battery is generally the first point of failure on a mobile, followed by the screen? You’d feel rather stupid if it turned out that it was just the battery that had conked out wouldn’t you? As regards point 2, you may have paid £500 for the phone a year ago but that was then and this is now. Even if you’d had insurance you wouldn’t have got the full price for it. You can get decent budget Androids for about £100 these days, if you really have to have a super-duper one then get insurance. It could just as easily have been you who dropped it (assuming that the drop did cause the fault). Personally I’d say you had zero chance of getting any money at all in court and might wind up being counter-sued.

DVardysShadow

Avon2001 wrote: »

... Personally I’d say you had zero chance of getting any money at all in court and might wind up being counter-sued.

Counter sued? For what?