Faulty goods over 6 months old - proving fault was there at purchase

xmfclick

The phone is a Samsung Galaxy Y, which is a basic smartphone. Look, when it comes down to it the phone cost under £100, it's probably less now (if they still sell it), and even though I'm out of work it's not the end of the world if CPW don't fix it, a hundred quid won't break me. However, it's the principle of the thing. I know I haven't done anything wrong. I haven't dropped the phone, I haven't dunked it in water or left it in the sauna or used it outdoors in heavy rain. There must have been some sort of problem with the phone when I bought it that only showed up after 8 months of use, and it doesn't seem right that CPW are trying to wriggle out of their obligations. Because it could have been a £500 phone, or a computer or something really expensive and CPW would still have been trying to avoid their obligations. Maybe this thread will help someone else in the future.

unholyangel wrote: »

So have you established that the fault is inherent?

Well, that was what I was asking in one of my earlier posts -- how do you establish that an electronic item had an inherent fault?

There must be at least two types of inherent fault (though there's probably some legal definition of "inherent" that's maybe not what you and I would mean by it):-

1. One where the basic design of the item is wrong, so that all instances of the item exhibit the fault, and

2. A manufacturing glitch or damage, or a problem introduced into the individual item in question before the buyer gets hold of it (e.g. dropped on floor by worker in warehouse).

It should be easy enough to identify a type 1 fault, if lots of people have the problem; but how do you prove a type 2? This is where we get back to CPW saying, "It worked fine for a while, so anything that happened after that must have been something the customer did". Maybe I could get an engineer to look at the phone and say that in his opinion there is no liquid damage, or if there is evidence of liquid ingress it would not have caused the problem that manifested itself, or maybe there's something else visible that CPW didn't notice. But what if he can't see a problem? This is an electronic device, its entire function is contained in software on a chip a few millimetres across inside a sealed package. If the problem is not some kind of mechanical one (e.g. in the old days a bad solder joint -- vaguely possible nowadays but impossible in practice to verify) then it's impossible, in reality, to say where it lies and how it came about.

unholyangel wrote: »

At present, they have no proof its an inherent fault

This is what I was driving at, somewhat long-windedly: Have CPW inadvertantly provided me with proof (I think "evidence" might be a better word) that there was an inherent problem? In their email they said the alleged liquid damage "may have contributed to" the problem. So (a) they have done some kind of investigation, (b) they accept there is a problem, and (c) they claim there is liquid damage BUT (d) they do not attribute all or even most of the problem to the liquid damage -- by implication there is some other reason for the problem, which they can't or haven't bothered to find. Now, as the only likely places a problem like this can occur are in the mechanical connector (plug/socket arrangement) or in the circuit board/chip, and as the socket is the only thing CPW can sensibly have inspected (they can hardly have disassembled the chip), and as they have not definitely attributed the problem to anything visible, ergo the problem must be in the chip. Mustn't it? So, is CPW's engineer's report ("there is liquid damage which may have contributed to the problem") good enough to take them to court with?

Thoughts?

Leo2020

xmfclick wrote: »

This is what I was driving at, somewhat long-windedly: Have CPW inadvertantly provided me with proof (I think "evidence" might be a better word) that there was an inherent problem? In their email they said the alleged liquid damage "may have contributed to" the problem. So (a) they have done some kind of investigation, (b) they accept there is a problem, and (c) they claim there is liquid damage BUT (d) they do not attribute all or even most of the problem to the liquid damage -- by implication there is some other reason for the problem, which they can't or haven't bothered to find. Now, as the only likely places a problem like this can occur are in the mechanical connector (plug/socket arrangement) or in the circuit board/chip, and as the socket is the only thing CPW can sensibly have inspected (they can hardly have disassembled the chip), and as they have not definitely attributed the problem to anything visible, ergo the problem must be in the chip. Mustn't it? So, is CPW's engineer's report ("there is liquid damage which may have contributed to the problem") good enough to take them to court with?

Thoughts?

Short answer - No.

The burden of proof is on you to prove it is inherent, CPW have suggested that liquid might have caused the damage but it could be something else. This doesn't mean it is inherently faulty. The something else could be any number of things - non of which are inherent.

Just by admitting there is a fault again doesn't mean they have had admitted it is inherent.

CPW could say anything about the phone as it's not up to them to prove anything.

Sorry but you are still going to need to provide proof.

Leo2020

And to add - yes your right it is difficult to prove an inherent fault. But it is still up to you to prove it - if you can't then you have no claim against CPW.

bod1467

Another form of inherent fault is a dry solder joint. Something like this is usually quite easy for a competent person (engineer) to determine.

xmfclick

bod1467 wrote: »

Another form of inherent fault is a dry solder joint. Something like this is usually quite easy for a competent person (engineer) to determine.

Inside a mobile phone? Not many solder joints in there. Probably 2-3 chips and that's it. In my case it's unlikely to be something of that nature anyway -- a dry joint, even if there were the potential for one, would be dry from day 1, and the phone would probably have failed testing in the factory.