Faulty Mobile Phone with EE

Andris_L

Hello good people of MSE.

I need a little bit of advice please.

I'm in the situation where I'm not happy with the resolution EE are offering to resolve my faulty mobile phone situation and I'm not too sure how far I can and/or should take it.

I bought a brand new Nokia Lumia 930 handset on 30th December 2014 as part of my 24 months contract with EE, in fact that was an upgrade. The phone was covered by 24 months manufacturers warranty (Microsoft I believe) and in just under 12 months of use I noticed that the phone started having an issue to connect to WiFi networks. The phone was passed back to EE and sent away for the repair.

After receiving the handset back it all seemed OK initially but after some time the problem reoccurred. At the time for one reason or other I failed to go back to EE and kept struggling on with the issue and using a temporally work around, which was to reboot the phone. This solved the problem for a few days at the time but I had to reboot my phone on regular basis to get it going.

Eventually I made back to EE early December 2016 with just about 1 month warranty left on the phone. The handset was sent away for the repair again and after receiving it back it appeared that it was working as it should however, the problem reappeared about two days later.

I took it back to EE once more and again it was sent away for the repair, 3rd time now. After receiving it back 24 hours later I was faced with the same issue again. The phone was now officially out of manufacturer's warranty but it didn't stop me to send an email to the EE escalations team to relay the facts.

Before sending over my email I actually went online to search for the particular issue and found various reports of this problem and it seemed that it was being suggested that the issue is caused by some internal problem with Microsoft hardware and/or software. Looking at available information it was also being reported that other end users had sent their handsets away to various repair centers and they kept coming back in the same state as mine where phones worked for a few days and then problem reappeared. It was being suggested that all that was being done was phones being reset and sent back and no real fix was being applied as it most likely didn't exist.

I communicated my findings to EE and asked for their input expecting them to offer some sort of remedy.

I was contacted by the representative from their escalations team this Monday to negotiate the remedy. The initial offer was for me to take the phone to an independent repair body to see if they could repair it and EE would pick up the bill. I kindly explained that going by the reports I found online (mainly Microsoft forums) I strongly believed that it would be a wasted effort as it seemed that there is no fix available and would cause me more inconvenience.

Straight away I was advised that if that was the case they would be looking to replace my handset and the handset suggested replacement was Nokia Lumia 950, which is the up to date model.

Here I would like to point out that in monetary terms my Lumia 930 was retailing for around £450 mark at the time of purchase, I am actually trying to find out what was the retail price through EE at the time of purchase. Since then I also confirmed with EE store that the Retail Price of Lumia 950 is £450. So to me it sounded like a good enough deal as they were going to swap out my faulty phone with the up to date equivalent model and I was happy to proceed. I had a couple call that day and was advised that they are communicating with their warehouse to try to allocate stock for me and we left it at that.

Come Wednesday and I get email from the same person telling me that Lumia 950 handset is no longer available and that he is offering me LG K8 handset instead as a final settlement. Straight away the alarm bells started to ring and upon looking up this product I concluded that it's a far lower spec handset and actually retailing for £80. So my question straight was how did we end up going from a flagship Windows Phone that supposed to retail for £450 to a basic Android handset.

I replied last night to advise that the offer is not acceptable and that they need to come up with something better. Today somebody else from EE picked up on this and called me. After arguing for about 40 minutes on the phone it was established that EE is now putting a monetary value of £100 on this issue and that is all they are willing to compensate. Obviously that money doesn't by me an equivalent handset. We agreed that they would look for another handset and I was sent another email to offer me HTC Desire 626 which again is value Android smartphone with lower specification.

It didn't take me too long to figure out that they are bluntly back peddling now and trying to get away with very little on their part.

Sorry for the long post but I strongly believe that it had to be explained in a little bit more detail to enable you to fully understand the scope of this situation.

Can you guys add your two pence to this to give me heads up? I was pretty much told that if I'm not going to accept their latest low value offer then they will deem as I have refused it and will advise me to take it to Ombudsman instead. I don't believe the Ombudsman is worth any time and effort so if it really came to it the only real recourse I see is to take this to Court but still wondering what are my chances here?

Many thanks in advance!
Andris

keithdc

Andris_L wrote: »

Hello good people of MSE.

I need a little bit of advice please.

I'm in the situation where I'm not happy with the resolution EE are offering to resolve my faulty mobile phone situation and I'm not too sure how far I can and/or should take it.

I bought a brand new Nokia Lumia 930 handset on 30th December 2014 as part of my 24 months contract with EE, in fact that was an upgrade. The phone was covered by 24 months manufacturers warranty (Microsoft I believe) and in just under 12 months of use I noticed that the phone started having an issue to connect to WiFi networks. The phone was passed back to EE and sent away for the repair.

After receiving the handset back it all seemed OK initially but after some time the problem reoccurred. At the time for one reason or other I failed to go back to EE and kept struggling on with the issue and using a temporally work around, which was to reboot the phone. This solved the problem for a few days at the time but I had to reboot my phone on regular basis to get it going.

Eventually I made back to EE early December 2016 with just about 1 month warranty left on the phone. The handset was sent away for the repair again and after receiving it back it appeared that it was working as it should however, the problem reappeared about two days later.

I took it back to EE once more and again it was sent away for the repair, 3rd time now. After receiving it back 24 hours later I was faced with the same issue again. The phone was now officially out of manufacturer's warranty but it didn't stop me to send an email to the EE escalations team to relay the facts.

Before sending over my email I actually went online to search for the particular issue and found various reports of this problem and it seemed that it was being suggested that the issue is caused by some internal problem with Microsoft hardware and/or software. Looking at available information it was also being reported that other end users had sent their handsets away to various repair centers and they kept coming back in the same state as mine where phones worked for a few days and then problem reappeared. It was being suggested that all that was being done was phones being reset and sent back and no real fix was being applied as it most likely didn't exist.

I communicated my findings to EE and asked for their input expecting them to offer some sort of remedy.

I was contacted by the representative from their escalations team this Monday to negotiate the remedy. The initial offer was for me to take the phone to an independent repair body to see if they could repair it and EE would pick up the bill. I kindly explained that going by the reports I found online (mainly Microsoft forums) I strongly believed that it would be a wasted effort as it seemed that there is no fix available and would cause me more inconvenience.

Straight away I was advised that if that was the case they would be looking to replace my handset and the handset suggested replacement was Nokia Lumia 950, which is the up to date model.

Here I would like to point out that in monetary terms my Lumia 930 was retailing for around £450 mark at the time of purchase, I am actually trying to find out what was the retail price through EE at the time of purchase. Since then I also confirmed with EE store that the Retail Price of Lumia 950 is £450. So to me it sounded like a good enough deal as they were going to swap out my faulty phone with the up to date equivalent model and I was happy to proceed. I had a couple call that day and was advised that they are communicating with their warehouse to try to allocate stock for me and we left it at that.

Come Wednesday and I get email from the same person telling me that Lumia 950 handset is no longer available and that he is offering me LG K8 handset instead as a final settlement. Straight away the alarm bells started to ring and upon looking up this product I concluded that it's a far lower spec handset and actually retailing for £80. So my question straight was how did we end up going from a flagship Windows Phone that supposed to retail for £450 to a basic Android handset.

I replied last night to advise that the offer is not acceptable and that they need to come up with something better. Today somebody else from EE picked up on this and called me. After arguing for about 40 minutes on the phone it was established that EE is now putting a monetary value of £100 on this issue and that is all they are willing to compensate. Obviously that money doesn't by me an equivalent handset. We agreed that they would look for another handset and I was sent another email to offer me HTC Desire 626 which again is value Android smartphone with lower specification.

It didn't take me too long to figure out that they are bluntly back peddling now and trying to get away with very little on their part.

Sorry for the long post but I strongly believe that it had to be explained in a little bit more detail to enable you to fully understand the scope of this situation.

Can you guys add your two pence to this to give me heads? I was pretty much told that if I'm not going to accept their latest low value offer then they will deem as I have refused it and will advise me to take it to Ombudsman instead. I don't believe the Ombudsman is worth any time and effort so if it really came to it the only real recourse I see is to take this to Court but still wondering what are my chances here?

Many thanks in advance!
Andris

You have had and used phone for two years... £100 is not an unreasonable settlement value!

chib

I think it's unreasonable after 24 months to expect a flagship phone as a replacement. A quick search on eBay finds a number of Lumia 930's in good condition for less than £100. I feel what they are offering is acceptable.

Andris_L

I think you are completely missing the point that the offer was already made to replace the phone with an equivalent spec phone and they are simply back peddling now.

Bogalot

Andris_L wrote: »

I think you are completely missing the point that the offer was already made to replace the phone with an equivalent spec phone and they are simply back peddling now.

An individual made a mistake. It happens, I'm sure you've done the same at some point.

Their offer is perfectly reasonable. Surely you did not expect a brand new phone after such a length of time?

chib

Andris_L wrote: »

I think you are completely missing the point that the offer was already made to replace the phone with an equivalent spec phone and they are simply back peddling now.

The compensation of £100 they are offering you will buy an identical phone.

Andris_L

Bogalot wrote: »

An individual made a mistake.

Bad customer service but not that surprising especially after bringing the issue up with the store staff only to be told to go away and phone Customer Services because they are too busy to deal with me.

Bogalot wrote: »

Surely you did not expect a brand new phone after such a length of time?

I didn't expect anything, I gave them a chance to remedy and they made me an offer.

chib wrote: »

The compensation of £100 they are offering you will buy an identical phone.

See that's the issue with many companies nowadays, I have a completely different standards when it comes to dealing with my customers (I work in electrical retail myself) as it's way too often you are getting fobbed off. In reality EE should be taking this up with Microsoft behind the scenes as they have supplied EE with a doggy handset but it will never happen as it's just that little bit too much to ask for and I, as the customer, will pay the price.

Ah well, I live to fight another day.

RoonilWazlib_2

In reality EE should be taking this up with Microsoft behind the scenes as they have supplied EE with a doggy handset but it will never happen as it's just that little bit too much to ask for and I, as the customer, will pay the price. In reality EE should be taking this up with Microsoft behind the scenes as they have supplied EE with a doggy handset but it will never happen as it's just that little bit too much to ask for and I, as the customer, will pay the price.

Well, they may or may not but the contract between trader and manufacturer is really none of your concern and not relevant to your rights.

Andris_L

RoonilWazlib wrote: »

Well, they may or may not but the contract between trader and manufacturer is really none of your concern and not relevant to your rights.

Strictly speaking you are right but what I was getting at is that if EE didn't have any stock to fulfill replacement they could've get onto Microsoft's case to get replacement (if possible). I'm speaking purely from personal experience but then again their internal workings could be something completely different.

RoonilWazlib_2

I suspect when they told you the handset was no longer available it meant, it was no longer an option in terms of a remedy for you as opposed to they couldn't get hold of it.

Andris_L

RoonilWazlib wrote: »

I suspect when they told you the handset was no longer available it meant, it was no longer an option in terms of a remedy for you as opposed to they couldn't get hold of it.

No, it meant what they said, that handset is no longer available (i.e. no stock).

Regrettably, our warehouse has confirmed we do not have replacement stock of the devices we discussed over the phone.