giffgaff phone repair refusals

Car1980

giffgaff sell refurbished phones with a 12 month warranty. If they fail you are directed to send them to their third party repairer Ingram Micro in Norwich.

There are many instances of when people do this they get a message stating their phone has unspecified 'damage' and that they need to pay for an out of warranty repair, usually in the hundreds of pounds. When these people then complain to a giffgaff 'agent' they usually receive a reply that the quote was raised "in error".
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33187263-warranty
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33185277-warranty/2
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33179762-warranty-on-refurbished-phones
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33178957-warranty-issue
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33170739-warning-about-so-called-12-month-warranty-on-like-new-refurb-phones
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33157303-out-of-warranty-repairs-microphone-fault
https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33153750-no-impressed-with-the-warranty-and-service

There are also plenty more reports on Twitter.
Now I have experienced it myself. The touchscreen on my refurbished "as new" iPhone X failed, which is somewhat of a known fault. The phone is in faultless conditions and has been kept in a case all 6 months I've owned it. This was the response I received:

Hi We've taken a look at your iPhone X Refurbished Like New and the repair isn't covered by your warranty. Good news is that we can still fix this for you if you'd like, it will be at a cost of £327.42.  For more information please see My giffgaff (and head to Order History and click on your original order where you'll be able to 'track my repair') where you can either accept or decline the quote. We hope to hear from you within the next 14 days, if not we'll automatically pop your phone back to you as it is. Cheers The giffgaff team And this is the response I got when I called them out on it: First things first, I'd just like to apologise that it's taken us so long to get back to you on this. We do aim to respond to all of our members' queries within 24 hours, but we're super busy right now which means we're a little bit behind on that promise at the moment. We really appreciate your patience though. (they replied in less than 24 hours?)   I'm sorry to see that your phone has been flagged as a chargeable repair, I have been in contact with the repair team and it seems that your phone was flagged in error, as you should not have been charged for anything as your phoen is in warranty. The repair team have now started the repair for you and there will not be any charge for this repair. I hope that this helps and that the team get your phone sent back to you as soon as possible. This is entirely typical from what I have read. Presumably a certain percentage of people do pay up and quite simply it's fraud. 2. Fraud by false representation (1)A person is in breach of this section if he— (a)dishonestly makes a false representation, and (b)intends, by making the representation— (i)to make a gain for himself or another, or (ii)to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss. (2)A representation is false if— (a)it is untrue or misleading, and (b)the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading. My reason for posting is to discuss the best way of escalating this?

JJ_Egan

Fraud go to the police .or contact a solicitor .