Samsung Galaxy s3 Warranty Issue

pagambar

My 11 month old Samsung Galaxy S3 died a few weeks ago, did lots of research and found many issues of Samsung Galaxy S3 sudden Death Syndrome.

Samsung agreed to repair the phone under warranty, to my joy. They sent me a prepaid Jiffy back to send ti to them via Royal Mail.

A few days ago I had a letter from their repair center, A Novo UK, who wanted £123 to repair the crack in the screen before fixing the dead phone.

What crack, I sent the phone, with a few scratches and minor bumps but no cracks. I called Samsung today after receiving an email saying that Royal mail will no pay for the crack repair as there was no damage to the packaging!

Samsung said they would agree to sending me my phone back unrepaired an not working free of charge, but would not fix it unless I paid for the screen to be fixed first!

So I ask these question.

1) Who is responsible for paying for the cracked screen and its repair

2) who is responsible for fixing the warranty issue

3) as this was a free phone on a contract which I cancelled do I have any rights whatsoever

4) should I throw the £500 phone away and take it on the chin and just never by samsung again!

grumbler

pagambar wrote: »

1) Who is responsible for paying for the cracked screen and its repair

IMHO, you. It was you who sent a fragile phone in a jiffy bag.

2) who is responsible for fixing the warranty issue

Possibly, Samsung - after you pay for the screen. It's more complicated now, but they seem to agree to do this.

3) as this was a free phone on a contract which I cancelled do I have any rights whatsoever

Regardless of cancelling the contract you have rights under the SoGA against the company that supplied the phone: Consumer Rights Armour .
However, this doesn't cover the broken screen.

4) should I throw the £500 phone away and take it on the chin and just never by samsung again!

Up to you. I don't see how Samsung are at any fault here except the 'death syndrome'.
Paying £123 seems to be a far more reasonable action to me.

pagambar

Perhaps I should have said that the return packaging and jiffy bag was supplied by Samsung. Although, not sure if that makes a difference to liability.

If I cracked the screen, then I have no issues paying for the damage, but to not even know what amount of damage was caused on the phone makes it difficult to assess.

Perhaps another question then.

4) Why cant the phone be fixed under warranty but leave the screen cracked - unless the crack is so bad it's what caused the fault?

easy

pagambar wrote: »

4) Why cant the phone be fixed under warranty but leave the screen cracked - unless the crack is so bad it's what caused the fault?

Erm - If you are asking this question, it suggests that the screen was cracked when the phone stopped working ???

easy

pagambar wrote: »

Perhaps I should have said that the return packaging and jiffy bag was supplied by Samsung. Although, not sure if that makes a difference to liability.

So if sainsburys give you a carrier bag, and you put something sharp or too heavy in the bag, which then damages the bag & falls out, it's Sainsbury's fault ?? Don't think so.

They may have sent you a jiffy bag, but the phone is yours, and it was your responsibility to make sure it was securely packaged.

For future reference, I recently sent out a mobile phone. I wrapped the phone in bubble wrap, put it in a box (into which it just fitted, no rattling around), and then bubble wrapped the box, before brown paper wrapping for posting.
You might think that is overkill. Phone arrived in perfect condition.

grumbler

pagambar wrote: »

If I cracked the screen, then I have no issues paying for the damage, but to not even know what amount of damage was caused on the phone makes it difficult to assess.

AFAIK replacing a glass screen (digitiser) is a DIY job that an authorised repare company will never do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Lh8T7vK18

The assembly that includes the LCD screen costs £96+ on ebay.

Perhaps another question then.

4) Why cant the phone be fixed under warranty but leave the screen cracked - unless the crack is so bad it's what caused the fault?

It's a good question. I don't know. Possibly because the damage can get worse during assembling/disassembling and/or can cause other faults. Why would they want to take the ristk?

pagambar

I will look into the DIY Screen replacement. But what about getting the phone to work?

History of the phone death. Charged up on a Monday night, took it to work on Tuesday morning took two phone calls, answered a couple of emails and looked at facebook. Then the phone died, no LED's no power charge light, no 'take battery out' fix. Oh, and there was no crack in the screen. Have a search on Google for Galaxy S3 Sudden death appears to happen a lot.

The only problem I can see with doing a DIY fix, is that it would invalidate the warranty, so I could have a phone with no crack but not working.

Ahh, Supermarket shopping bags. Yes the shop is liable to replace the goods it the bag can be proven to be faulty (used inside the recommendations)

grumbler

pagambar wrote: »

I will look into the DIY Screen replacement.

It was possibly misleading to use 'DIY' term here. In fact it's IMO a pretty difficult and non-standard job requiring certain skills.

JJ_Egan

It could well be SDS and that requires a new motherboard . But only a small percentage of SGS3 can have the SDS problem as its specific to internal memory build VTU00M, revision 0xf1 eMMC .


jje

pagambar

When I get the phone back I will see if I can find that part. Thanks jje

JJ_Egan

pagambar wrote: »

When I get the phone back I will see if I can find that part. Thanks jje

you can see if your eMMC is the VTU00M 0XF1 (affected chip)
App on Play store to check that as its internal .
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.vinagre.android.emmc_check