O2 contract and repair charges

NoLo

In November 2012 I signed up with O2 for a 24 month contract on a sony smartphone. A few weeks ago the touchscreen started becoming quite unresponsive and over a week or so it wouldnt work for me at all. I took it in to my local O2 shop a week and a half ago and they sent it away, informing me o2 would send updates to my sim card, which I am currently using in an old phone. However, today I rang my local branch to find out if they were able to tell me when I would recieve it again and they proceeded to tell me that to fix the phone it would cost £73.94, as whatever was needed to be fixed wasnt under warrenty. I was surprised by this, as its a new phone and I hadnt been informed by o2. I rang the O2 customer helpline where I was told that it was cosmetic damages due to deep scratches on the screen, (there was a very light scratch which had been there for months). I was told I could have the phone sent back without being repaired if I dont want to be billed, but its unuseable and when I asked if I could cancel my contract I was told no, which wasn't a surprise. Does anyone have any advice on this?

macman

Your battle is to persuade them that the fault is not related to the scratch and is not down to user-inflicted damage.
You might have to resort to getting an independent engineer's report to support your case.
A fault on the phone (or indeed the loss or total failure of the phone) does not void your contract without penalty.