Carphone Warehouse advice please

Petercauston

I would like some advice on the following please.
About 2 months ago my sony ericsson mobile phone developed a fault ( two of the buttons stopped working ) As I am with Orange I telephoned them & was advised to take it to a Carphone Warehouse for repair. After 3 weeks they informed me the phone had water damage & was beyond repair. I asked for a second opinion & was told the phone would be sent to Sony Ericsson for tests. Having waited another 5 weeks with no contact I telephoned the Carphone Warehouse today & was told the phone had just been returned by Sony & they had confirmed the original diagnosis. I then phoned Sony & gave them my details. They told me categorically that my phone had not been sent to their repair centre at any time. Obviously I am extremely unhappy as the Carphone Warehouse have not sent my phone away & have told me they have done so. I can only assume this would be to ensure I purchase another phone with them. or simply that they couldnt be bothered to have my phone double checked. Before I go go back to the Carphone Warehouse & ask them why they lied to me I would like to see if anyone has experienced similar problems. Any advice on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

Old_Gold

Every case like this should be reported to Trading Standards. Only when TS are bombarded with complaints will they do something about bonnie prince Charlie and his CPW customer relations.
Dunstone will have enough people letting him know how bad his customer relations are so dont expect anything from him but that doesn't stop you from trying.

egg1000

Water liquid damage is a common problem. I see people using their phones in the rain every day (well I have for most of this summer). 10% of the Handsets booked in for repair are returned as water liquid damaged. Most of these are identified early by the white indicator on the Handsets turning red (these are usually found on the battery or in the battery compartment). This has a tendency to turn most customers a similar shade of red when you point it out to them (Denial being the first stage of any grief 'I've never got it wet', etc).
The fact of the matter is that the stickers only turn red when they get wet or damp. However, if these aren't red it doesn't necessarily mean your handset isn't water liquid damaged. If the engineer opens the unit and finds that some of the metal contacts have blue/green residue on them, this is a clear indication to him that parts of the phone have come into contact with water.
Carphone warehouse DO provide a picture of what the engineer found when he opened the unit, so this should satisfy either yourself or trading standards they they're not lying.
If your unit has been sent back for a second opinion it will have been sent back to a different Sony authorised repair agent. Sony do not have records of ALL handsets sent to authorised repair agents until many months after repair completion.

The fact is, your handset has got wet. It isn't covered by the manufacturers warranty. If you deal direct with Sony, you may get a different response, Goodwill etc. But they wil not allow repair agents to replace water liquid damaged handsets, they can rarely be repaired... although I know CPW do try if its possible (they also send a covering letter if they attempt a repair).

So, my advice (should you still need it) try and see if you can twist Sony's arm up their back for an exchange and do anything that you can to make it easy for them. Insist that its been used under normal circumstances and never outside in the rain!

Good luck! Let us know how you get on.

egg1000

albertross wrote: »

It is a handy get out clause, and seems quite common, making the indicator turn red is very easy to do once you get the cover off.:rolleyes:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=494660

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=508947

Not if the customer is stood in front of you! These stickers were put on to help reps illustrate to customers in store when they bring their phones back to complain about buttons not working!

The problem is when you do, you end up with an ugly scene in store. If you ignore the stickers (because you don't want a scene in your shop) and book it in for repair regardless, you get accused of doing it yourself! Either way you get shouted at by unreasonable customers that can't keep their phones dry!

If you are insinuating the Carphone Warehouse purposefully damage customers handsets and turn the stickers red as well. Then I think you are on very dodgy ground. This could very easily be proved or disproved by trading standards if they had enough complaints.

However, Repair centres get paid for completing warranty repairs, so its not in their interest.

gaming_guy

albertross wrote: »

3 weeks to undo a torx screw, hours on phone, told it had gone of for repair, when I suspect it never left the premises, no fix, complete waste of time.

i could undo a torx screw in about 3 seconds, and strip the phone down in about 10 mins.

egg1000

Three weeks without an explanation is unacceptable. A CPW repair would usually only ever take over 2 weeks if the phone had to be sent to a third party authorised repair agent (if there is a backlog, sometimes, although rarely, this happens). The branch SHOULD have advised you if this was the case.

If, as you suspect, the branch hadn't sent it away. Then that is unacceptable. The regional repair manager would know if that was the case however, (they monitor how long it takes Branches to send Handsets back to the Warehouse) the Area Manager would be advised and the Branch manager subsequently reprimanded. He wouldn't get away with such shoddy admin for long.

With regards to handset design. I agree, Handsets SHOULD be made waterproof. But they're not. Memory card slots, a phone call in the rain with the memory card slot facing skywards, a raindrop on a mission and your phone could easily die within seconds. Thats why I never use my phone in the rain.

Perhaps the manufacturers will one day make waterproof phones. But then again, if your phone was water liquid damaged... would you get another?

Thought so, so maybe they're not so stupid after all!

I think the 'so called' water RESISTANT models (5140*, 5210 etc) will continue to appeal to a niche market. For the rest of us, sleek looks and functionality will always be more important.

(* I have seen both models returned by customers Water liquid damaged!)