O2 repair/warranty issue - advice please?!

jdq2rp

Hi guys - please bear with me - it's a bit long but necessary to tell the tale.

I have an iphone 4s under contract from O2 since Sept 2015.
At the end of Feb I noticed a problem with the microphone - when I received a call I could hear the person calling me, but they couldn't hear me. There was no trauma to the phone and it was working fine otherwise.
I immediately brought it in to my local O2 store. The chap looked at it, confirmed the problem and sent it off to 02 repairs. He reckoned it was a straightforward case and if they couldn't fix it they would simply replace it.
A few days later I got a call from the O2 shop guy - we had neglected to take the lock off the phone - it had been sent back to the shop. I gave him the code and he unlocked it. He then sent it back to O2 repairs. No problem.
Then it gets odd.
A couple of days later he calls me again and says that the company the phone had been sent now no longer did iphone 4s repairs, and so they were sending it back! He apologised and said he found that strange as well. He said he would then send it to the new O2 designated repair company (Nova).
A few days later I received a text from O2 repairs (Nova) to contact them by phone to give some more details about the fault - this I did - there was a problem with the mic. The nice lady I spoke said she would pass the information onto the engineers.
2 days later I got a text on my replacement phone from O2 repairs to say the phone was on its way back to the store. "Great!" I thought - sorted. A matter of minutes after the text I got a call from the O2 shop chap to say the phone had arrived and he checked - it still had the fault!!! - It wasn't fixed at all. In addition the O2 repairs company Nova reported that they could not find any fault with the phone!!!!
I just didn't know what to say! I was pretty cheesed off by now.
It gets worse.
The guy in the shop apologised a lot and said he'd send the phone back straight away, with added info for the repairs company.
Whilst away on a break I got a text from Nova, the repairs company to say that they had now found the fault, but because of damage to another part of the phone the warranty was invalidated so I would have to pay circa £120 for them to fix the problem!!!!!!!!??????
I said no way, send that phone back, I'm not paying that. When the phone returned to the shop I went in there and met the manager - he was and is most apologetic and can't believe himself what's happened. I asked him where was the damage that the company said invalidated the warranty. He said the port. Indeed if you looked into the port there is now obvious damage. I asked him does that mean that the phone would charge or not? We checked and it wasn't able to charge at all.
Please note I never bought the phone to them with a port problem - it was a mic issue. The phone was charging fine when I bought it to them, and indeed was charged. Now, after being in their possession the phone was not charging at all, (and now sits lifeless on my desk).
Now since I've had the phone back these last 2+weeks the store manager has been trying to rectify the issue to get me a replacement phone but for a variety of reasons (which I don't fully understand) he seems not to be able to do so. I know he's sent emails to the repairs company and his area manager verifying that the phone was charging when I first brought it into the shop. Apparently the repairs company Nova have said that the reason they didn't find the fault when it was first in their possession was because "it's temperamental". Can you believe that?! It's not temperamental now - it just doesn't charge. And it wasn't temperamental when I first brought it in - it was charging just fine - because there was NO problem with the port - because it was not damaged before I brought it into O2!!!

Guys - I'm getting to the end of my tether here. It just seems like an open and shut case to me (and also to the O2 store manager!) but it just seems like that higher up the chain they just don't care and I can't see that they are going to replace the phone. The manager is kind of telling he's doing all he can but I just get a sense he's getting nowhere. I think he hopes I just go away.

What should me next step be? Small claims court? Ombudsman? I just don't know what to do.

Many thanks for your advice in advance - Jerry.

glennstar

jdq2rp,
I think the first thing to do is try and remove the angst and frustration from the equation. I appreciate it is difficult and feeling that an easy answer is to resort to a higher authority. This is invariably not the case. Believe it or not, O2, EE, etc are reasonably ethical companies trying to do the right thing by their customers. I am not affiliated with any of these organisations.

In the first instance, ask yourself: "If a judge [or JP] asked me to logically justify my position beyond reasonable doubt, would I be able to do so?". If you have a doubt then concede that this might not end up as you hope/expect.

Resort to logic and facts;

1. You say the O2 store manager is on side (although I doubt it - if push comes to shove). Let's ask him to confirm (in writing) that he is absolutely sure the only issue was the Mic and that everything (EVERYTHING!!) else with the phone was A-OK. Get him to confirm that he checked it himself and all was well.
2. there is a chance of some wriggle room for Nova in that it might have been broken by the previous company doing repairs. This is obviously none of your business but it is something you might want to mitigate. You are already in a three way conversation and another party is not going to help. Can you get the store manager to confirm all was well before it went to Nova but was not once it was received back? Again, written if possible.
3. can you get any charging records from the phone (I appreciate you suggest it is bricked at present but I'd wager a trip to one of those clever clogs at the Genius Bar would resolve that)? Some (not an i-phone bunny) devices record when the device was charged and related data with the event. Again, even if this is not available it might be an option to suggest this is available - just to nudge things along a little,
4. whilst on the subject of smug know-it-alls lounging about at the bar - have you asked Apple what they think? Sauntering up to said bar with a "I really don't know what happened, can you diagnose for me please" look on your face may prove an incredibly cheap and [for a higher authority] definitive way of determining the facts...
5. and finally, ask them (Nova) for documentation about the certification of their electrical equipment. Unfortunately there may be an issue if you demand this needs to be UK or EU compliant as the scope of this is probably covered in their contract and likely a bit woolly... especially if this is Nova Chicago we are talking about. It might also be worth asking them if the power equipment they are using is genuine [gen-u-wine] Apple 'stuff' as dictated by the manufactures terms and conditions.

Finally, and I appreciate this is easy to say because it isn't my i-phone that's been compromised... but a calm, reasonable, logical and principled negotiation is the only route to an equitable solution that will leave your precious sanity in tact.

jdq2rp

Glennstar,

Thanks for your considered and wise response. Believe me I'm playing it cool with the store manager. I guess I'm venting a little bit more here.

Thanks for your tips in terms of documentation gathering from the O2 store manager - I'll endeavor to do that tomorrow, especially as I now have to initiate a formal complaint with the company. I've found the link.

I'd just thought and hoped it was such an open and shut case that the store manager would have been able to sort it. It's now getting on for 6 weeks, during which I continue to have to pay monthly for a phone that doesn't work through no fault of mine.

As for the strength of my case, I'm no legal eagle but I believe it to be rock solid. There are, I now know, other routes to follow before any mention of small claims courts etc.

Again thanks for your sage advice. I appreciate it.

Jerry.

glennstar

Jerry,
I know (or at least my wife does) the benefit of having a bit of an unchallenged rant about stuff that ails me - just to get it out of the way... although this does not get us any closer to a resolution to your issue.

Plainly the time that your phone is not useable you would get a rebate from O2... however, you say "2 days later I got a text on my replacement phone from O2" which makes me think that although you may not have your own ( beloved ) i-phone doing all the fantastic things that i-phones do, you may have been in possession of a replacement doing the basic things that your O2 contract say they will do...

As a result, I feel you probably want to pursue the replacement of your device and not the rebate.