GiffGaff will not repair or replace phone!

SomethingUnpredictable

Hi Moneysavers,

Your advice would be appreciated.

Last September I bought a refurbished!phone from GiffGaff, which was under manufacturers warranty.

In January it went black-screen and I returned it for repair according to their instructions. They returned it with the fault repaired but with a new fault.

The Wifi barely worked. I had to place the phone next to the router to get more than one bar of Wifi signal. The Bluetooth was similarly poor. (My partner has the same phone, also on GiffGaff, and no issues, so we know that the problem is with my phone.)
Of course I returned it for repair. In fact I returned it another three times, as they failed to fix the fault each time. I pointed out that the fault was of their making but this was not acknowledged.

As I was in the final stages of a research degree, and as my phone serves as tablet, satnav and landline, I had trouble finding times I could live without it, so the process became protracted over five months. (To complicate matters just a little, on the third return I returned it with a cracked screen. I normally use glass screen protectors, and I thought it was just the screen protector which had cracked; however they had removed the screen protector on each return (and they're not cheap at £6 a pop) and I hadn't replaced it. They charged me £125 to replace the screen, which I paid in the foolish confidence of getting the fault fixed.)

Their rules say that they will replace the phone after it has been returned 3 times for the same fault. However, that condition finally being met (returned 4 times in total), they returned it with a brief and unhelpful note saying that the phone had damage which was not covered by the warranty.

I queried this with Customer Services (they do not have a call centre, so this is done via their website) and was told that the phone had damage to the main board which had occurred in between the 3rd and 4th return. I had not thrown the phone at any walls during this time, despite the temptation!

You will understand my complete disbelief and frustration! :mad: What can I do?

With thanks for your patience,
SU

[Deleted User]

Unfortunately GiffGaff are cheap for a reason. Someone must be propping the company up.

flashg67

Don't understand why they accepted it for a repair, return it, then claim late it's not under warranty - very odd.

If it has a warranty with the manufacturer, try contacting them direct. I know strictly speaking that the warranty is with the retailer, but worth a try.

I dealt with LG direct on a recent repair to avoid the pain of going via the retailer.