Consumer rights - mobile phone fixed with fake screen

ThumbRemote

harrys_dad wrote: »

Why would anyone pay £700 for a phone?

Much the same reason anyone would pay money for any product. They weigh up the options and decide that this provides a good benefit to them.

That you can't understand other people making different choices for their money is a reflection of your own lack of understanding, not of them.

harrys_dad

ThumbRemote wrote: »

Much the same reason anyone would pay money for any product. They weigh up the options and decide that this provides a good benefit to them.

That you can't understand other people making different choices for their money is a reflection of your own lack of understanding, not of them.

It was a genuine question, especially on a money saving site. There is a reason that Apple has more cash than many countries, they have excellent marketing techniques to help people "weigh up the options and decide that this provides a good benefit to them."

I realise that comment is not too relevant to this thread, but what is relevant is the way Apple make sure that only propriety parts/chargers etc can be used and charge fortunes for them. This leads people to go elsewhere for these things (possibly even made in the same Chinese factory as the Apple product) and end up with the problems of the OP.

Tonietaylor

I thought this was a place to get consumer advice from a supportive community, not defend myself against Apple snobbery

Yes it's a high end product, and expensive, but I choose to buy iPhones because after the 2 year contract is up, the handset usually has a resale value of £300-400. I'd have the same expectation when buying a new car or a sofa - after 2 years the asset should retain some value and still function.

The fake screen replacement means I can't get the handset fixed, and therefore I have lost the resale value.

mattyprice4004

harrys_dad wrote: »

Why would anyone pay £700 for a phone?

What an absolutely irrelevant and unhelpful comment.

If you want to start a discussion about Apple pricing or have a moan, there's a whole praise, vents and warnings section for it.

steampowered

You need to find the terms of the warranty you have covering your phone, and read it to see if you're covered. I'm not sure whether this would be Apple's warranty or a separate EE warranty.

The extract helpfully posted by dsdhall helpfully explains that Apple's UK warranty is not invalidated by a third party repair. They are not liable for any damage caused during the screen repair but I can't see how a battery repair has anything to do with a screen replacement.

If you have checked your warranty terms and find that you are covered, you can engage EE's formal complaints process. If that doesn't get you help very quickly, the next step would be a 'letter before action' followed by a small claim.

ess0two

Tonietaylor wrote: »

I thought this was a place to get consumer advice from a supportive community, not defend myself against Apple snobbery

Yes it's a high end product, and expensive, but I choose to buy iPhones because after the 2 year contract is up, the handset usually has a resale value of £300-400. I'd have the same expectation when buying a new car or a sofa - after 2 years the asset should retain some value and still function.

The fake screen replacement means I can't get the handset fixed, and therefore I have lost the resale value.

Perhaps you should have had the screen replaced by Apple,instead of back street shop?

gycraig_2

steampowered wrote: »

You need to find the terms of the warranty you have covering your phone, and read it to see if you're covered. I'm not sure whether this would be Apple's warranty or a separate EE warranty.

The extract helpfully posted by dsdhall helpfully explains that Apple's UK warranty is not invalidated by a third party repair. They are not liable for any damage caused during the screen repair but I can't see how a battery repair has anything to do with a screen replacement.

If you have checked your warranty terms and find that you are covered, you can engage EE's formal complaints process. If that doesn't get you help very quickly, the next step would be a 'letter before action' followed by a small claim.

Apple only have a one year warranty, the op is trying to claim using statutory rights for ee to fix it outside of warranty.


This is a hard enough proccess to enforce without the fact that a. The phone has dropped / damaged before and b. It has been repaired by a corner shop that aren't approved repairers.

Personally I would be looking at house insurance / similair products you may have to insure the phone

Keep_pedalling

ess0two wrote: »

Perhaps you should have had the screen replaced by Apple,instead of back street shop?

Even then trying to prove that the battery fault was due to an inherent fault would be difficult, as it is just as likely that it was a delayed effect of the impact that cracked the screen.

Nick_C

Sorry but not surprised to read of your experiences.

It's not uncommon for batteries to degrade seriously in less than two years and need replacing. One reason why I would never buy an iPhone is I understand you cannot easily replace the battery yourself. On a Samsung, it takes about 30 seconds to swap the battery for a spare.

I've been with Orange / EE for over 17 years. I always used to get contract phones from them until about 7 years ago. I had a good phone on a two year contract which failed after about 8 months. Orange refused to do anything about it, saying the phone was free and I had no consumer rights as I had not bought it!

Orange is an OK network provider, but I buy my phones from Amazon now. I think I would get better service from Amazon of the phone developed a fault.

My partner remains a huge fan of Apple, paying twice the price for a laptop for example than an equivalert windows model. On his recommendation, I bought an iMac many years ago. It failed after less than two years. I had iPods for a while as well. They also failed quickly. Based on my own experience, I have concluded that Apple products are poor quality and expensive. Its all hype, style over substance.

alumende27

it is not common for mobile phone batteries to seriously degrade in less than two years and need replacing. That's why manufacturers, including apple, often offer a replacement program if there is determined to be a manufacturing fault. e.g. https://www.apple.com/uk/support/iphone5-battery/

You may also be surprised to know that Samsung's more recent offerings include a built-in battery not a replaceable one.

It is naive at best to try and and say equivalent Mac laptops are twice the price of windows models. Sure you can get a HP laptop for only a few hundred pounds but it won't be anywhere near the same spec. My employer supplies Dell or Apple laptops to staff and a choice of mobile phones. Ratio wise both manufacturers devices have a similar failure rate (very low), and we only ever have issues with mobile phones when staff drop and break them or manage to lose them. I can't recall the last time we had a battery related issue.

That said, the carpenter I had doing some work here last summer dropped his Samsung phone (with a removable battery) off a window ledge onto a stone floor and the thing caught fire. Never seen anything like it.

As a point of reference, I still have an iPod classic from 2005 that I keep in the car hooked up to the stereo there and it's still going strong.