Do you think he's a con artist?

beachbeth

My 14 year old daughter saved up £90 and bought a mobile phone on Ebay. Was in touch by email with the guy and he let me know when he had posted and everything seemed ok.

However, the phone arrived (the box intact and undamaged) and everything works apart from the camera. You can take self portraits but not normal photos, which means you can't point the camera at anything but yourself to take a pic. It just shows "preview error" on the screen and you also get a funny white screen.

I have emailed and complained but he keep going on about postal insurance and saying I should have taken it out (even though it said "not offered" on his listing). Also, it wasnt damaged by the post office and arrived intact so surely postal insurance wouldnt cover it?

Also, in his listing he said that he had had the phone for 6 months. If this was the case then it would still be under warranty and he could take it back off me and get it fixed.

I have started the dispute process on Ebay (which is probably a complete waste of time) but do you think he is a liar when he says it was working when he sent it?

culpepper

its always possible he only took pics of himself and so hadnt even tried to photograph anything else,who's to say?
Have you checked out the manufacurers site to see if it is a problem with that model of phone? If it is , they may have a solution.
When I got my mobile from my OH who upgraded to a newer model, I just stuck the model name in a search engine and there were loads of forums etc about it

beachbeth

Thanks, I will try that!

beachbeth

culpepper wrote:

its always possible he only took pics of himself and so hadnt even tried to photograph anything else,who's to say?

But he said that he had tried the camera and it worked.

misty

Are you sure your working it properly? I don't mean to insult you especially if you are technically inclined but I quite often say "it's not doing this or that" and then find it is actually me. You could also take it into a store that sells them, explain the problem to them and see if they can sort it. No need to metion you bought it on ebay.

Noozan

Is it a Samsung phone? My OH's daughter has had problems with "preview errors" on two different models of Samsung phones. I think it might mean the memory is nearly at full capacity i.e you can take the close up self portrait as it takes less memory space than other pictures. Try deleting something from the phone eg photos, a few ringtones, mp3 etc. Alternatively, take it to a phone shop and ask if they can reset the software to factory settings

beachbeth

I know what you mean, Misty. Even those of us who are used to gadgets can miss things and get them wrong.

It is a Samsung E700 and in Media Box under memory status it says "Free: 6956kb" and I have also pressed it to reset to the factory settings to see if this will do anything. Im sure Ive tried everything and the only thing left is to take it in to a shop to see what they think.

beachbeth

Found this web site. Seems that "preview error" and white screen are a common problem when you have had the phone around 6 months.

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_e700-reviews-558.php

Proves to me that he must have known about this.

gk172

Have you tried contacting samsung? they might have records that it is still under warrenty and fix it for the cost of you sending it back, but stand your ground i recentley sold my v80 and about 10 days after it came back with the camera stuck on busy so i sorted it out my end and sent it off at my cost, so if they say phone is only 6 moths old it should be fixable under warrenty and if it isnt 6 months and out of warrenty then you have been missold the phone and should take it up with ebay.

mcwarre

Did you pay via paypal? Did the phone arrived signed for? If the answers are Yes and No then you could, albeit imorrally, claim that it had never arrived..............

Or try a factory reset:

Press Menu and select Phone Settings.
Scroll to and select Reset Settings.
You will need to enter an 8-digit password. This is preset to
00000000.
Press OK and your phone will reset.

HTH

beachbeth

gk172 wrote:

Have you tried contacting samsung? they might have records that it is still under warrenty and fix it for the cost of you sending it back, but stand your ground i recentley sold my v80 and about 10 days after it came back with the camera stuck on busy so i sorted it out my end and sent it off at my cost, so if they say phone is only 6 moths old it should be fixable under warrenty and if it isnt 6 months and out of warrenty then you have been missold the phone and should take it up with ebay.

I have said to the Ebay seller that if he only had it 6 months it must still be under warranty but he said that he doesn't have the receipt so can't have it fixed. He isn't interested in refunding ANYthing. I have started the dispute process with Ebay but doubt if they'll do anything about it. We'll have to see.