Phone Hassle: am I right? or am I being U?

[fedupandfifty]

Bought a flashy new phone (HTC) on contract from a national chain in January. Phone great, but temperamental from beginning (battery, I think). Taken phone back to shop three times; got them to agree finally that there is something wrong with it. I demanded a repacement phone on the grounds that the phone is faulty; shop refused because I bought it more than 28 days ago. Shop finally agreed that it should be sent off for repair. I asked whether I should stop paying the monthly contract fee as the phone is out of use. Shop said no as the phone is separate from the contract.

I am now waiting in for the phone to be collected by a courier. I have lost a day's work, and I am using an old phone. The phone has been out of use since BH Monday.

• would I be within my rights to suspend my monthly payment?
• am I right to demand a replacement phone?

Or am I just being a bit U? WWYD?

yes, demand a new phone and also yes to ask for a refund for a month's contract fee due to service interruptions etc.

Don't stop your payments but do escalate your complaint further.

Did you first return the phone within the 28 days? If so, but it took them longer than the 28 days to accept it was faulty then I think you should be ok.

Get on the phone to customer services, if you don't get the response you want, demand (politely) to speak to a manager and carry on up the chain until you get what you want. Eventually you will reach a point where somebody can authorise what you are asking for.

Oh and I meant to say - STAY on the phone, don't let them say they will get somebody to call you back, wait until a manager is free. They will find somebody quick enough, long calls mess up the service desk statistics i.e. % of calls resolved within x amount of time.

Sorry they are correct, the phone is separate for the airtime, that is the contract. You are paying for the SIM with the free mins/texts/Internets etc... the phone you got was for free, however they do have a responsibility under 1 years warranty act, to maintain the phone.

Thanks, all. I'm a bit thick about this as I've never had a contract before.

who is your phone with? phones4you are notorious for bad customer care. they cloned my credit card and causes all sorts of grief. Try O2 or whoever the phone is with. they may be more helpful. You need to keep paying, but the handset needs to be fit for purpose, which it appears not to be.

draft a letter to the trade press on headed notepaper, copy it to Ofcom, copy it to them. Works every time.

sprinkles - I'm with Phones4U!! Will send phone off as instructed by HTC and if no joy within a week, say, I'll take it further.

slavewife - Sorry but you are wrong.

I had a similar problam with Carphone warehouse in the end I spoke to trading standards and they said that the phone is the integral part of the contract and you cant use the service without the phone.

You have rights under the SOGA "Sales of good act" you can expect a Repair, Refund & Replcement. So the 28 days means Sweet FA. I also got my months line rental refunded.

Sorry meant Repair, Refund OR Replacement.

listen to Mr Spoc re: Sales of good act - you've already been done by being fobbed off that there's some 28 day magical limit on whether they can accept faulty goods back or not.

It doesn't matter now that you've gone down that path, but just for future reference it's handy to know your rights BEFORE you accept repairs - often, though ignorance or management instructions, the poor people on the customer service desk will argue until they're blue in the fact against their legal obligations.

I also had a big problem with Phones4U. Won't go into it but it took over my life at the time. They refused to take responsibility for a fault, as did my provider. I wanted to cancel the contract but they both said it was the others' responsibility.

I ended up going to Phones4U with a notebook and started taking notes in shorthand in the style of a journalist. "So you say it's not your responsibility. OK, let me get that down. Not. Your. Responsibility. How do you spell your surname?"

They finally cancelled the contract and were sooo unhappy about it.

Sorry, not very constructive to your situation but what I am trying to say is that you have to be really, really, really assertive and a bit aggressive. It's unfortunate and unfair it should have to be this way.

spatchcock, i've also found that one or more of the following helps if they truly won't live up to their legal obligations (and of course all their usual channels of redress in the company have been exhausted):

1. threatening to post a (factual, provable) account of the woes on social networking websites (it helps to have a DH who's a website programmer here like me) and/or your own blog

2. Following it through from number 1

3. report to trading standards / sector regulator

4. BBC Watchdog or other consumer show/report

I've never had to progress much further than 1 and 2, but always make mention of 3 and 4 in formal communication.

i've only had to ever resort to these methods with 2 companies in the last 10 or 15 years though - i find that being polite but firm, clear and brief in written communication, plus as you said taking note of people's names (plus dates/times of interaction for a written log) helps in 99% of cases. having worked in customer services myself i know that getting angry gets people nowhere. i'm happy to resort to the above "4 point tactic" if a company won't play ball though!

I also thought that the 28 days period was not applicable if the phone was faulty, but didn't want to quote it as i wasn't sure. I'm sure, though, that I took it back to the shop during this period anyway, and i was happy to try out the shop's suggestions 9different charger etc). mrspoc - i am interested to know how Trading standards' argument about the phone being integral to the contract works - if you can take the SIM out and use it in a different phone, isn't that tantamount to being able to use the contract without the phone, even if it's not THE phone bought with the contract?

fedupandfifty - when you by a phone what do you look for? Air time or a particular phone?

Answer you always by the phone because of Functions / Latest Fad - I phone / e-mails etc. It is very rare you by it for the Air time. So the phone is the integral part of the contract. Phone shops have then tried to get around the problem by saying the phone is free when you actually pay for the phone through your air time.

My phone broke 3 days outside of warranty and yet I still had 12months left off a 24 months contract. Trading standards said irrelevant of the warranty, the fact that I had 12 months left I cant use the service without a fully functioning phone. Long story short the phone was fixed.

Hello mrspoc.I went for the flashy, faddy option this time as I have been conservative in the past and bought phones for practical reasons, on pay as you go. I think I see what you mean - if I'd bought a less flashy phone the contract would have cost less? Is this why iphone contracts are more expensive?

That's really interesting.