BuyMobiles-Faulty phone but refusing to acknowledge it's faulty

Chippy42

I bought a new mobile phone on a 2 year contract from BuyMobiles.net. It was delivered on Saturday and like a kid at Christmas, I played around on it for a bit until the battery became low and it prompted me to plug it into the charger. I waited patiently for it to charge and when the notification sounded I unplugged it. As soon as I unplugged it, it died. The screen went blank and pressing the power did nothing, The only way I could get it to work again was to plug it back into the mains. Hardly a 'mobile' phone!
I called BuyMobiles on Monday to arrange the return and they advised me to return it explaining that I'd have to pay the return postage but it would be refunded when they'd checked the phone out and deemed it to be faulty. All ok so far until I opened the box to check everything was in there and saw that the phone was now working again! I decided to give it another chance and used it for a bit but nope, it did it again.
I posted it yesterday (Tuesday 26th April) at the cost of £7.25 special delivery. They received it this morning at 11am and called me at 1pm to tell me that their engineers had checked it and it was fine. I explained that it does work sporadically but then suddenly dies so they've told me that their engineers will keep checking it and get back to me. This is all well and good but I know that on the same day I received it, it failed to work correctly so in my opinion it is faulty. I'm annoyed that they're suggesting that I'm not telling the truth and I'm worried that they're going to fob me off somehow. What if they insist that it's not faulty when I know that it is? As I only received it 5 days ago, do I just use my 'cooling off period' rights and wave goodbye to my £7.25 leaving them free to sell the dodgy phone to somebody else or do I stand my ground? I don't know what to say to them and I'm not good with confrontation!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated so I can prepare for their phone call.
Many thanks.

susancs

Chippy42 wrote: »

As I only received it 5 days ago, do I just use my 'cooling off period' rights and wave goodbye to my £7.25 leaving them free to sell the dodgy phone to somebody else or do I stand my ground? I don't know what to say to them and I'm not good with confrontation!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated so I can prepare for their phone call.
Many thanks.

You haven't got a "cooling off period" as you have connected it to a network and used it. They offer a 14 day cancellation period only on new unused phones.
http://www.buymobiles.net/help/returns

As long as it is not an apple product they offer a free new phone exchange within 30 days under their terms and conditions. Might be worth asking for this rather than a repair.

Chucky1234

This is tricky, for all they know you could be a customer who has brought a phone, used it, don't like it and saying its faulty for a refund. Not saying for a minute you've done that, but if its perfectly fine when they've inspected it then they're going to go off that.

If they are still maintaining its not faulty when they get back to you, one option I can think of is take the phone back, if it's working fine again, great, if not - do you have another device that you could use to record your phone randomly going off? That would prove to them that its an intermittent fault, remember to record the serial number etc too.

If you believe they are being dishonest and know the phone is faulty, try searching if anything similar has happened to anyone else.

Fosterdog

If it's an android phone I've seen the exact symptoms you describe with both android phones and tablets. It's usually caused by an automatic update and once you get it back on and the update is fully installed it is fine.

If that's all it was then buymobiles are right and it's not actually faulty.

It might be worth speaking to them again and asking them to test it over a few days and charge and fully discharge the battery a few times to see if that will show a fault.

unholyangel

susancs wrote: »

You haven't got a "cooling off period" as you have connected it to a network and used it. They offer a 14 day cancellation period only on new unused phones.
http://www.buymobiles.net/help/returns

CCRs mandate that goods must be accepted back even if opened or used - but if the retailer has informed OP in a durable medium of their rights and that they will be liable for the diminished value, they can make a deduction from the refund to account for the diminished value (given they say goods must be unused, I very much doubt they've complied with the parts necessary to enable them to make a deduction).

Further, even if they obtained the OP's express consent to beginning the service before the 14 days was up, OP can still cancel - he just might have to pay a proportionate amount to cover the services he did receive (only if they got his express consent though).

Of course having rights and getting a retailer to comply with those rights are 2 different kettles of fish.

Chippy42

susancs wrote: »

You haven't got a "cooling off period" as you have connected it to a network and used it. They offer a 14 day cancellation period only on new unused phones.


As long as it is not an apple product they offer a free new phone exchange within 30 days under their terms and conditions. Might be worth asking for this rather than a repair.

Luckily I hadn't put my new SIM in as I wanted to test it out first so it's never been connected to a network. However, thanks for drawing my attention to their (in my opinion) quite harsh terms and conditions. Now I'm even more worried that they're going to charge me £30 for their 'assessment' just to tell me that they don't think it's faulty.

They're basically saying that if they don't agree that there's anything wrong with it, then I have to have the same phone back and they may try and charge me for the privilege, I guess this is a lesson to me to really read the terms and conditions before buying (or attempting to return) anything!

I actually just wanted an exchange. The phone was amazing (LG G5) so I'd be more than happy with a new one that works properly so I'm not trying to scam them but their terms and conditions state that I'm not even entitled to that if they disagree that there is a fault. The fault that I described has been reported by several owners on the internet and I told BuyMobiles that in the covering letter but it obviously makes no odds.
Bit annoyed now but thanks for everyone's advice.

susancs

Chippy42 wrote: »

Luckily I hadn't put my new SIM in as I wanted to test it out first so it's never been connected to a network. However, thanks for drawing my attention to their (in my opinion) quite harsh terms and conditions. Now I'm even more worried that they're going to charge me £30 for their 'assessment' just to tell me that they don't think it's faulty.

They're basically saying that if they don't agree that there's anything wrong with it, then I have to have the same phone back and they may try and charge me for the privilege, I guess this is a lesson to me to really read the terms and conditions before buying (or attempting to return) anything!

I actually just wanted an exchange. The phone was amazing (LG G5) so I'd be more than happy with a new one that works properly so I'm not trying to scam them but their terms and conditions state that I'm not even entitled to that if they disagree that there is a fault. The fault that I described has been reported by several owners on the internet and I told BuyMobiles that in the covering letter but it obviously makes no odds.
Bit annoyed now but thanks for everyone's advice.

I looked on review sites and they seem to get mainly good reviews and answer any issues raised quickly.
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/buymobiles.net

As you have not connected the phone to the web and I assume still have the orginal packaging then you can under their terms and conditions request a refund as you are within the 14 days. Just keep a note of the time and make sure they do not string out the test for over 14 days, If they say no fault within the next few days then maybe you could request a refund. Are they also charging you £30? as I see you mention postage of £7.25, but not the £30?

Chippy42

Thanks for the reply susancs. They haven't tried to charge me £30 yet. That's just me worrying after I read their t & c's in more detail.
I actually used BuyMobiles 4 years ago without any problems and they do offer good deals so it was a no brainer to use them again. I looked at the reviews on Trust Pilot and filtered it to show the 1 star reviews and a few other people have experienced problems when their phone has been faulty within the first week or so.
I'll wait and see what they say when they call back. Might just have to lose my return postage and ask for a refund. It's a shame though as they seem to have the monopoly on the best EE upgrade deals.