Stealing the insides of my phone!

bod1467

howd00 wrote: »

So by way of an analogy, if i take in my red car to a garage because it won't start, then go to pick it up and they tell me they can't fix it and hand me a blue car with no engine, are you saying this isn't an issue as i started with a car that won't work and now have a car that won't work?

You didn't hand in a red phone and get back a blue one.

In this phone i now have a black iphone with the internals from a white iphone, the brackets, screws and backplate are missing, i have no idea on the battery condition and the imei number is different to the case/our phone. It the imei is reported as missing then the phone won't work at all. The experts i have sent it to have got it working for me but it is still not my phone in my case with matching imei numbers, my data etc. Is there not somewhere there that i have lost out financially? Or should it be considered theft, my fault, a bad day at the office?!

Now you're starting to get towards quantifying your loss. Keep going.

howd00

timbstoke wrote: »

I'd agree. All the evidence that you have right now is that they looked at two (or more) phones and put the wrong case on when reassembling them. They didn't charge you for the failed repair, and assuming the insides of your phone are complete in the other persons handset, there doesn't appear to be any reason for them to deliberately do what they have. You also have no evidence that the other phone is yours, and without that you'll have problems getting anywhere.

Your situation now is that you have somebody else's phone, and they have a phone which may or may not be yours. In practical terms, your options are:

1. Keep the phone you have which is working. Probably not ideal, since this puts you at risk if the other phone is ever IMEI blocked.

2. You approach the shop yourself, with your evidence of the wrong phone. You won't get anywhere right now with the missing parts argument, since that phone may or may not have already had missing parts when it came in, and unless your phone is in the shop, there's not really going to be much they can do about it.

3. See if the other person still wants their phone fixing, and direct them to the same place you sent yours. If it turns out they have your phone, you can simply swap phones. If they have the same parts missing, then it's clear that the shop is stripping bits out, in which case you can both approach the shop in a far stronger position to get something done - realistically, you'd be looking for the cost of having those parts replaced by a reputable dealer so you know they weren't stolen from somebody else's phone.

Thanks.
You're right, i have no idea where my phone is at all... or all the data on it. The other person i have identified will surely want their phone back to put in their case. I was thinking it would be worth sending their phone off to see if they had swapped the two.

The shop removed the serial number from the main board - there is no conceivable reason to do this other than to deceive. The store also scratched the name of their store on the metal shield on the main board.

I think for now it seems most sensible to get the other phone checked out by the specialists mine is now at. Then approach them.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply.

howd00

bod1467 wrote: »

Now you're starting to get towards quantifying your loss. Keep going.

I handed in a black iphone and now i have a black iphone case with the internals of a white iphone - they are different in the startup sequence. There are non matching imei numbers and the phone could be made dead by the correct owner of the internals. My phone now has no resale value at all, even though it is now fixed.

andycris3107

What an odd set of responses.

The basic fact of the case is that if you hand in an item for repair you should receive the same item back. Irrespective of whether or not they have been able to repair it all components should be the same unless agreed otherwise. The OP has NOT received their phone back, and it amazes me that there are people responding on this forum who think that that is OK.

Given the very good apple warranty that is an option I would choose but you'll have no idea what their records will throw up when they do a check on that phone - as it doesn't belong to the OP.

howd00

andycris3107 wrote: »

What an odd set of responses.

The basic fact of the case is that if you hand in an item for repair you should receive the same item back. Irrespective of whether or not they have been able to repair it all components should be the same unless agreed otherwise. The OP has NOT received their phone back, and it amazes me that there are people responding on this forum who think that that is OK.

Given the very good apple warranty that is an option I would choose but you'll have no idea what their records will throw up when they do a check on that phone - as it doesn't belong to the OP.

Thank you. This is what i had thought.
Apple warranty is not really a concern here. The phone i have is now repaired by the specialists. However, it is someone else's phone that is repaired, in my case. My concern is that my phone is somewhere else and i no longer have it. I have my casing, someone else's phone insides.

Retrogamer

AJXX wrote: »

I would assume it's common practice for a repair shop to re-use internal parts etc... Although obviously if they're not checking/erasing data before giving them to a new customer that is a concern.

I don't think it's common or acceptable to confirm you can't fix someone's phone, then give them the internals of someone else instead.

howd00

Assuming that i shouldn't have been given someone else's phone in my casing, what should i do from here? Go in to the shop and confront them? Write to them with evidence and state the trading standards/DPA breaches and ask for a reply?

JJ_Egan

Letter before action and contact Trading Standards .
But you need real evidence of your claims .

timbstoke

The law is all about being reasonable, and knowing exactly what you've lost. Right now your loss is £100 to fix a phone that doesn't belong to you, plus the cost of the missing phone that does belong to you. So step one is to see if the person whose phone it is would be willing to reimburse you for the repair. If they are, great. You're making a good show of mitigating your losses, and your new loss is a non-working iPhone.

Your next step (ideally with the other person) would be to return to the store and offer them the chance to remedy the situation. You probably don't like this idea, but you have to be seen to be reasonable. They would probably just swap the cases over and give you the other phone - since we already know they can't fix it, I'm assuming they have no way to read the IMEI number either. It's a good idea at this point to mention the missing parts, so they have the opportunity to replace them.

You then need to know that the phone you now have is yours, and potentially go through the whole thing again. So back to your last expert and see what they can do with it. Assuming this plays out OK, you are now back in the position where you have your phone which you've paid to have fixed.

The parts where this can fall down:

1. The other person isn't prepared to pay for the repair. The phone shop will certainly be unwilling to pay, so you'd probably have to go to court to get them to do so.

2. It still isn't your phone. In which case, you return it back to the store, and they need to reimburse you for the repair and the replacement cost of your own phone. Again, court.

3. It still has parts missing. Bill them for the cost of them, and again, court if needs be

4. Your phone is returned in full working order, but has been permanently marked with their store name and serial number removed. Get your repairer to estimate the impact this has had on the resale value of the phone, and invoice them for it if it's worth it.

howd00

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Letter before action and contact Trading Standards .
But you need real evidence of your claims .

Thanks.
I have an independent report of the state of the phone. The actual phone insides have their shop name scribed on them. The phone insides are the wrong imei. The imei number of the hardware match up to those of the fellow customer's phone casing. They took their phone in at the same time as we did. We will now find out what is in their phone case.

Is that sufficient for the balance of probabilities do you think?