Faulty Mobile Phone, No Warranty

poultox

Hi all, hoping someone can help.

My husband got a new phone just under 3 months ago (Samsung via EE) and a few weeks ago it stopped recognising any chargers, rendering it useless. This is, apparently, a known fault with this model and EE were happy to take it back for repair/investigation.

He has now heard back from EE and been given a quote of £115 to repair after initially being told that it would be FOC. Their reason is that because there is also unrelated physical damage to the phone (small scratch on the screen, caused around 1 month prior to the phone not charging) his warranty is void and therefore they are not obligated to fix the charging issue.

Does the Consumer Rights Act 2015 trump this? Surely this phone is not fit for purpose, regardless of warranty or contract? We do of course accept that if their tech team believe the scratch and charging issue are related, and can prove this, then we have no grounds.

Just wanted to check if we can rightfully pursue this as it's not as straightforward as just receiving a faulty phone, many thanks in advance.

molerat

That is a bit like saying a garage will not repair the engine because the bumper is scratched. If a scratched screen is the only damage then that is likely not relevant to the reported fault. As you say if they can prove it is related, the onus is on them to do so as it under 6 months old, then they can refuse to repair foc. How was the phone paid for ?

JJ_Egan

Warranty void as opposed to SOGA/CRA .
Samsung void warranty due to scratched screen yes . Terms and conditions cover this under warranty .
Your rights under the law have nothing to do with this extra limited manufacturers warranty .Its the vendor you need to quote consumer law to as above post .

bod1467

molerat wrote: »

How was the phone paid for ?

Please say Credit Card (or other loan or finance directly attributable to the phone purchase).

shaun_from_Africa

molerat wrote: »

That is a bit like saying a garage will not repair the engine because the bumper is scratched.

It's not really the same.
When repairing mobile phones, it quite common that the screen has to be removed, something that normally doesn't present a problem.
If however there is a scratch on the surface of the screen, this can make it far more likely for that screen to crack or totally shatter during the removal process.

Because of this, I can understand Samsung or EE refusing a warranty repair but this shouldn't mean that EE can refuse to honour their Consumer rights act obligations, just that if the screen did break during the repair, they might not be responsible for the cost of replacing it.