Iphone 5S - Consumer Rights

nissarm

Hi,

I bought an Iphone 5S 4 months ago for my son. A couple of weeks ago it stopped charging, so i took it to a local phone shop for repair. They could not repair it. I was told by friend recently, that as it was less than a year old, Apple could repair it as it had a one year warranty. So i did a Google search and found a store in Reading (30 miles away) and made an appointment with them.

They said they could not repair it, as the phone was opened by a third party and the warranty was void. I explained that i needed to keep in touch with my son, so it was an emergency and i did not know about the warranty. Also, the store was 30 miles away.

Is there anyway to get the Iphone repaired under the consumer rights bill by Apple.

TIA
Nissar

JJ_Egan

Your rights under SOGA was with the vendor not Apple .
Approach the vendor with your problem and see what they say . Yes you may well have no comeback due to opening for repairs . But a report from whoever did that stating that the problem is inherent not damage may cover that .

System

Your rights are explained here:

http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

The problem as stated above is that you have not returned the phone to the vendor. In my experience, when Apple gets involved in a warranty issue they are usually pretty good. For example, one family member had his 2 year old IPad replaced when he took it into an Apple Store with a fault. It was though an online Apple Store purchase.

d123

nissarm wrote: »

Hi,

I bought an Iphone 5S 4 months ago for my son. A couple of weeks ago it stopped charging, so i took it to a local phone shop for repair. They could not repair it. I was told by friend recently, that as it was less than a year old, Apple could repair it as it had a one year warranty. So i did a Google search and found a store in Reading (30 miles away) and made an appointment with them.

They said they could not repair it, as the phone was opened by a third party and the warranty was void. I explained that i needed to keep in touch with my son, so it was an emergency and i did not know about the warranty. Also, the store was 30 miles away.

Is there anyway to get the Iphone repaired under the consumer rights bill by Apple.

TIA
Nissar

the bold is the problem, and it would have voided the warranty.

Did you tell Apple that you had an unauthorised repair attempted or did they notice something untoward in the phone?

grumbler

nissarm wrote: »

Hi,

I bought an Iphone 5S 4 months ago for my son. A couple of weeks ago it stopped charging, so i took it to a local phone shop for repair. They could not repair it.

...i needed to keep in touch with my son, so it was an emergency and i did not know about the warranty. ...

You didn't know about warranty? It's really hard to believe.

I am pretty sure Apple will repair the phone if you pay them. Is it not what you wanted when you didn't know about the warranty? The only question is how much it will cost you.

d123

grumbler wrote: »

You didn't know about warranty? It's really hard to believe.

I am pretty sure Apple will repair the phone if you pay them. Is it not what you wanted when you didn't know about the warranty? The only question is how much it will cost you.

That depends, if the 'repairer' has taken a soldering iron to the internals of the iPhone (as an example) Apple won't touch it, even as a paid repair.

The OP could try and get an out of warranty replacement handset from Apple if they can persuade the manager to do so.

https://www.apple.com/uk/support/iphone/repair/other/

cklass

Your best bet would be to take it to the store you bought it from or to an Apple authorised service provider (such as the Geek Squad at Carphone Warehouse). Don't mention anything about taking it to a third party repairer.

For future reference, electronic devices always come with some sort of warranty and, when you experience a problem, the retailer you bought the device from or the manufacturer should always be your first port of call - not a third party repairer. These repairers can end up doing more harm than good, which is why manufacturers tend to consider warranties void if their products have been tampered with by someone not authorised to do so.

d123 wrote: »

Did you tell Apple that you had an unauthorised repair attempted or did they notice something untoward in the phone?

Apparently, iPhones have some sort of seal/sticker inside, which they use to determine whether a third party has opened it up. Not sure how accurate that information is, but I've seen it mentioned a few times.

d123

cklass wrote: »

Apparently, iPhones have some sort of seal/sticker inside, which they use to determine whether a third party has opened it up. Not sure how accurate that information is, but I've seen it mentioned a few times.

No, they have liquid warning stickers, but no tamper seals or stickers that I've seen and I've had an iPhone 5 replaced that had been opened, without any issue.

I'm presuming either the OP volunteered the info or the job done was so bad it was immediately apparent someone had been tinkering.

AJXX

d123 wrote: »

No, they have liquid warning stickers, but no tamper seals or stickers that I've seen and I've had an iPhone 5 replaced that had been opened, without any issue.

I'm presuming either the OP volunteered the info or the job done was so bad it was immediately apparent someone had been tinkering.

The battery pull tab has a service provider only tamper sticker; like this image: http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/07/xlarge_home16.jpg

All apple stores and authorised repairers are trained to spot "tampering" - none genuine parts are easily identified.

Opening the phone won't likely stand out to them, or, you just had somebody check the phone that was having an off day/decided to be nice.

d123

AJXX wrote: »

The battery pull tab has a service provider only tamper sticker; like this image: http://fastcache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/07/xlarge_home16.jpg

All apple stores and authorised repairers are trained to spot "tampering" - none genuine parts are easily identified.

Opening the phone won't likely stand out to them, or, you just had somebody check the phone that was having an off day/decided to be nice.

I replaced the LCD so didn't have to remove the battery, probably why I didn't have a problem then.

AJXX

d123 wrote: »

I replaced the LCD so didn't have to remove the battery, probably why I didn't have a problem then.

LCD will usually have either a serial number or depending on model brand name / model number / identifier

LCD replacements are easy to spot, so you're lucky if they replaced the phone without asking any questions, as I said, you either got someone who was being nice or wasn't checking properly.