14 month old iPhone from Argos

Anoneemoose

Hi,

I Would be very grateful for advice. We bought our daughter an iPhone 5s on 12 August 2016. In the last few days, it has started having issues with the sound. My husband has spoken to Apple and been through all of the necessary troubleshooting suggestions with them, with no improvement.

He has just returned from an independent but authorised Apple retailer/repair store who said "it's a hardware fault". Apple have advised it would cost £250 to repair. The phone only cost that when purchased if I remember correctly!:eek:

I am not 100% sure, but I believe that that means it in effect is 'inherently faulty' as opposed to being caused by user error or something.

As I understand it, we should have some recourse with the retailer, in this case, Argos. I also understand that as the purchase is over 6 months old, it is up to us to provide evidence to Argos of this 'inherent fault'.

Please can anyone advise whether I have understood the situation correctly and if so, what would be acceptable proof in this case? Would "it's a hardware fault" in writing from the authorised seller be sufficient? And if not, what would be best? Or is 'it's a hardware fault' too vague?

To summarise for ease:

Purchase date 12/8/2016
Retailer: Argos
Fault first occurred on 3/10/17
Proof of purchase available by Argos card statement and probably the receipt as well (I always keep receipts but haven't looked just yet).
Independent but authorised Apple retailer confirmed "hardware fault".

Thank you in advance.

Anon

shaun_from_Africa

Anoneemoose wrote: »

He has just returned from an independent but authorised Apple retailer/repair store who said "it's a hardware fault". Apple have advised it would cost £250 to repair. The phone only cost that when purchased if I remember correctly!:eek:

I am not 100% sure, but I believe that that means it in effect is 'inherently faulty' as opposed to being caused by user error or something.

All that "hardware fault" means is that it is something mechanical wrong with the phone rather than something is software related.
This hardware fault could be a faulty charger socket, a damaged motherboard or anything in between and could be caused by the user (such as by rough handling or water ingress) or by a manufacturing defect.
You really need a more detailed description of the fault saying exactly what is wrong with the phone and what, in the opinion of the person writing the report, the cause of the fault.


Before you go to the effort of getting a detailed report, it would be worth contacting Argos to see what they say. As it's just over a year old, they may agree to a repair or partial refund without you having to do anything further.

Anoneemoose

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

All that "hardware fault" means is that it is something mechanical wrong with the phone rather than something is software related.
This hardware fault could be a faulty charger socket, a damaged motherboard or anything in between and could be caused by the user (such as by rough handling or water ingress) or by a manufacturing defect.
You really need a more detailed description of the fault saying exactly what is wrong with the phone and what, in the opinion of the person writing the report, the cause of the fault.


Before you go to the effort of getting a detailed report, it would be worth contacting Argos to see what they say. As it's just over a year old, they may agree to a repair or partial refund without you having to do anything further.

Thank you. That makes sense now. Will give Argos a ring then, I just wanted to 'be prepared' so to speak.

McKneff

Might be best going in to a store and speaking to a manager.
Better than call centre staff

Diamandis

A report should really have details of the exact issue, how that issue would most likely be caused and the cost of repair. The repair store may charge you for a full report.
Hopefully Argos will help without this but they aren't really renowned for being the best at customer service.

Anoneemoose

Thanks for the replies. Argos have said they will sort it if faulty, but we do need the report first. I suppose that's fair enough.

We have booked in to the nearest official Apple store tomorrow, after speaking to the store first. They have said their genius bar people will diagnose and give us a print out. We went to this local official retailer/repairer because we were hoping to avoid the lengthy journey to the Apple store but needs must. The independent store said they can't actually give us a report and to be honest were actually pretty useless. Oh well, at least we tried!

Obviously, if it turns out it's user caused, we will just pay. I was just a bit confused about the 'fault' bit of hardware fault. I understand now that it could still be 'damaged'. Hopefully not as DD does actually look after it well and is pristine on the outside..but, I appreciate that doesn't necessarily mean all is well on the inside!:A

IAmWales

Glad to hear you got a fair outcome Anonee.

I find Argos customer service to be very good on the whole.

powerful_Rogue

I would try an independent phone store and not one associated with Apple. They seem very unlikely to use the magic word 'inherent'.

sheramber

When I had problems with my Apple laptop the local authorised repairer diagnosed a faulty motherboard and ' fixed it' and charged us.

However, the intemittent fault continued so we took it to the Apple Genius Bar- 250 miles away.

They immediately diagnosed a faulty battery and replaced it free of charge , despite the laptop being a reconditioned model that we had bought from Apple 2 years before.