Consumer Rights on Faulty Phone

dave321

Hi some advice please.

Bought Pay As You Go Mobile phone for Christmas present from Orange (EE high street store).
Purchased 19 Dec 2012 with VISA Debit.

Started using it on 25th Dec and every 2 or 3 days phone locks up. Screen is blank and unresponsive. Recover phone by taking battery out and putting back in, then it works fine.

Initially thought it might be transient fault so didn't take it back to store. However after a business trip out the country for 9 days where it continued to do this every 2 or 3 days, on return reported it to Orange on day of return - 20th Jan. Went through their fault diagosis via phone, and today they said it was faulty and that I had to take it back to EE Store and ask for replacement.

On going into store today was told that they would not replace it as it was outside 14 days of purchase. They would send it off to have it repaired. If unable to repair it they would give me a refurbished handset.

Is this correct? We paid £299 for the phone, which had the fault from purchase and a month later we could be the prowd owner of a refurbished one! Just doesn't sound right to me.

Nevertheless did not give them phone to mend. Am waiting for a call from a "Supervisor" from customer services.

Any advice please?

What I would like: a brand new replacement handset straight away, failing that, for them to mend it but if they cant then a brand new handset.

Cheers Dave

railbuff

Did you get it in writing (letter/email/live chat transcript) from Orange or was it just a phone chat with CS.

The can offer refund/replacement/repair which is up to them what they offer, but i would expect if cant be fixed you get a new phone and not a refurbished one. Take it in for repair and see what they do/say, if they give refurbished one take it in protest and if you have to sign anything write in on the form as you sign and then write a letter to their HQ

dave321

Hi, thanks for the reply. I was told by CS that I would receive a new phone. The lady read out to me exactly what she had writen down on the computer against my fault. It stated the phone was faulty and that i "should" receive a new one. She also stated that they will be able to check up in store as to what she had wriiten. However, in store the manager said they had no way to access this information!!!

As regards the repair: if I left it with them to repair, I had to sign a form called "Repairing your phone - the legal stuff".
In this it states: "If your device is in warrenty but the phone is beyond economical repair, we'll send you a like for like replacement which will come from our stock of refurbished devices." If I crossed this out or stated that I did not want a refurbished phone, they would not accept the phone for repair.

Cheers Dave

railbuff

maybe worth sending an email here [EMAIL="olaf.swantee@ee.co.uk"]olaf.swantee@ee.co.uk[/EMAIL] their CEOs office

dave321

Thanks. As they say nothing ventured nothing gained and going to the top is a good start!
Cheers Dave

railbuff

dave321 wrote: »

Thanks. As they say nothing ventured nothing gained and going to the top is a good start!
Cheers Dave

It wont get to the CEO, but will get to his PA who has more power to get it to the correct department head