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Provider refusing to repair or replace new phone

A

Akhil John

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I had upgraded my old contract with 3 mobile (carrier) and got myself the Samsung Galaxy S3. It had just been about 4 months since I got the phone and I was happy with it. It had been working perfectly with no issues or problems. On the 2nd of Feb 2013, I woke up in the morning to find that my phone had only 1% battery remaining. After making myself a cup of coffee, I got back to charge the phone but I found it had turned off due to low battery. I immediately plugged it in and after a few minutes I tried switching it on, but for some reason the phone wouldn't turn on. It would just go till the black and white screen showing the Samsung logo and then that was it. Thinking that it might have been drained of battery I decided to charge it till it showed 100% battery. After it got fully charged, I tried turning it on again, but the result was still the same. It wouldn
 
wow sorry man..that blows......I bought mine thru Verizon with insurance.....in case of lost, stolen, damaged, eaten by a dog, etc..i get a new phone if i pay $100.
Too bad about your situation....
 
I agree that it sounds a totally unacceptable position for them to take and I hope they see sense and reverse their decision. As an alternative you could send it directly to Samsung's repair centre - no doubt details are on their website. When the S3 first came out, talk here was often of the long turn-around time but, recently, I gather that this is no longer an issue and repairs are dealt with speedily.
 
Well if it was me I would cancel the direct debit to 3. Ring them and tell them you are cancelling as they are in breach of contract and you are going to get another phone from a decent provider.

3 customer service is some of the worst I've ever had to deal with.
 
Never heard of Ofcom before.. whats it like? How would I be able to prove that 3 have breached the contract? I'm sure they make me pay out the remaining months fees if I were to try and cancel my contract. Tbh i'm not sure how to argue with them lot. I just feel like im being cheated by 3 . I feel i lack the experience in dealing with such scenarios because this is actually my first time.

I'd like to thank everyone for showing their support and trying to help out.. but i fear that i'm fighting a loosing battle here. :(
 
This is a difficult situation for you.

I think If I were in your situation, I would contact the Samsung support centre firstly, in the hope that they will just deal with it. Although, I would guess that they will likely tell you to take it to the original purchaser (Three).

In that case, I would write a formal complaint (via a letter) to the Three complaints department to explain the situation. I would also copy this letter to ofcom, and Samsung.
In the letter I would include as much detail as possible about the fault, what you have tried to do to fix the problem, any advice you have received from the Three support, and all of the documentation following.
Within the letter I would write in a diary format - so in order of how it has all happened, all the dates and names of the people you dealt with (if you have them), with the information you have been given, and the unsatisfactory outcome you have received so far. Include copies of the correspondence you have received.

That would be my personal choice to do the above, as I would not know what else to do.
I hope you can resolve this, it must be very, very frustrating!
 
Depends, a friend of mine called Samsung for warranty purposes, they sent him a bag/envelope at home so that he could send the phone to them. Trying doesn't hurt, contact Samsung's customer service.
 
Did phone up Samsung.. they are willing to take a look at it.. will be sending it to them once i get it back from the 3 repair service. When i Phoned up 3 tech support to have my phone sent back to me.. the person whom I spoke to was able to give me a bit more details about what had actually happened. They claim that my phones software had been routed and as a result their engineers( who were also trained by Samsung) could not access my phone . They said that it might have happened due to something malicious being installed on the phone or it might have happened when the phone had been plugged into the computer and a third party app being installed.
I don't really know much about phone software and routing. As far as I am aware, I haven't installed any malicious content on my phone , neither have I installed any 3rd party apps. All the additional apps on my phone had been downloaded from play store.

The guy from 3 tech support, told me that if 3 were to fix the issue, it would go over
 
Actually here is some info for you that you may want to pass on to Samsung (and by proxy, Three).

There is an issue called SDS (Sudden Death Syndrome). There is also an issue called Half SDS.

SDS is that one day (usually after being charge over night), the phone is dead and will never power on again. Black screen, no LED, Nothing you can do. Dead as a Dodo

Half SDS is similar but can boot into Download mode.

The trigger for both is the same. On GT-i9300's with the VTU00M eMMC chip, Firmware revision 0xF1 - there is a bug in the wear leveling of this firmware (assumed when reaching a block where it cannot write data and continues to try) which causes a catastrophic failure of the eMMC (Embedded Multi Media Card / Internal memory). The failure wipes out the file system on the eMMC.

This causes an issue in download mode:

PRODUCT NAME: Wiped Blank
CUSTOM BINARY DOWNLOAD: No
CURRENT BINARY: Samsung Official
SYSTEM STATUS: Custom

Now this last one in download mode, is how they check if you are rooted / custom or not. The problem is that the half SDS Sets this to Custom by default. So one of the sysmptoms of this failure is that custom status is flagged.

Some Samsung repair centres know this. Others do not.

The lucky thing is all Samsung need to do is a google search as this is well documented on XDA developers.

Here is a link:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=36873352#post36873352

developers have been looking at this issue for some time now. We have seen a few people have their warranty denied for this reason but Samsung need to suck it up and repair the phone for you. The problem is their buggy firmware on teh eMMC is making your phone FALSELY report a custom status.

I am happy for you to link samsung to this post. And 3 for that matter.

I sincerely hope this helps. Both 3 and Samsung need to wise up on this issue.
 
Also, although sometimes it's difficult to deal with manufactures, under European Law you, as a consumer who bought a particular device (the S3 in your case) in the EU, are to be granted a 2 years warranty. Such warranty covers you even if you were to root your device, flashing custom firmwares, etc. Manufacturers cannot refuse to grant warranty as they have to comply with European laws, unless they can prove that the action of you rooting the phone or flashing custom firmwares were the cause of a failure. Also, under the same laws, they cannot charge you for any repair costs. Again, these come to be irrelevant if, somehow, they can prove the failures were due do the aforementioned.

You can have a read here: Does rooting your device (e.g. an Android phone) and replacing its operating system with something else void your statutory warranty, if you are a consumer?
 
They are saying they can't go against their engineer. I'd ask that they have a supervisory engineer make a second opinion.

Also, here in the US, you could file a small claims lawsuit, which might get their attention more than anything else. Filing a lawsuit is one of our national pastimes, due to the American Rule, which says that each side (win or lose) is responsible for their on legal fees. Since I'm figuring you are in Europe, probably not a good idea since the loser pays the winner's fees on that side of the pond.

If you never intentionally rooted your phone, this is certainly unfair to you.
 
Been busy with work and just shifted house recently (was without internet for quite some time) . Thank you guys for all the support, I really appreciate you guys for finding time to help me out on this matter.
Unfortunately, the condition of my phone is still the same. Over the past 1 month, I send my phone for repairs to Samsung twice and both times it got send back to me without being repaired.

The first time I send it for repairs; I got it back in 2 days. I was surprised that Samsung didn't fix my phone. They send be a letter along with my phone saying “That my phone had been tested with an RF test, which resulted in a pass, indicating that RF section of phone was not at fault. However, testing my handset with a live operator network failed as the network did not allow my handset to connect. They tried telling me that my phone had been blacklisted and network blocked by the provider. I was told to contact my provider for further details regarding this matter. It took 3 mobile a week to confirm that my phone had not been blocked or blacklisted at all.
I then contacted Samsung for a second time and told them that my network provider had confirmed with me that my phone was not blacklisted. My phone got send back to Samsung for the second time. I phoned them up on receiving a conformation text about my phone being delivered to Samsung. I did specifically tell them to keep me posted and to let me know before they send it back to me. Two days later I got a text saying that my phone will be delivered to me by 5pm that day. I quickly phoned up Samsung, hoping to hear that they had finally managed to fix my phone. But instead, I got transferred to the repair centre, who informed me that the phone had been sent back to me, but unfortunately could not be repaired as there was interference in the software. They told me that my phone was beyond economical repair and that I had to contact Samsung directly in order to get it fixed. I phoned up Samsung and made the aware that I was clearly unhappy with what was going on. Apparently the repair centre that the phone was sent to does not deal with software related problems. So now they will send it to a different repair centre (one that deals with software issues). But they also told me that it might have happened if the phone had been rooted and I clearly told them that I had done nothing to the phone. They went on to say that if the phone had been rooted, then there was nothing they could do, but if it hasn’t been rooted, then it will be replaced. Personally I don't know how to root my phone. I have openly said that I'm not the best when it comes to such things as I have very little knowledge regarding such things. So even if Samsung were to tell me that they have found my phone to be rooted( which it clearly hasn't), I wouldn't know what to say to that.

I am waiting on Samsung to collect my phone from me now for the third time... Tbh I have lost all hope... :(
Would be nice to hear about what you guys think I should do nw. Thnx
 
3 mobile , were the first ones to have a look at it. They were sticking to the statement that my phone was beyond economical repair and they even when to the extent saying the I had given my phone for repairs to a 3rd party( utter rubbish statements) and they went on to say that there were signs of physical damage, that to me was crossing the line. I didnt want to take anymore rubbish from 3.
 
As SU says, it looks like SDS. I thought that straight away. Completely samsungs fault mate. Dont give up :thumbup:
EDIT: actualy, doesnt even partial SDS prevent the phone going into Recovery? If so, how did the person in the shop factory reset it?
 
Not quite sure mate... The person at the three store tried factory resetting it ( by pressing all 3 keys) but it kept on showing an error msg. Samsung will be collecting my phone from me today. third time I'm sending it.
 
Akhil John said:
Not quite sure mate... The person at the three store tried factory resetting it ( by pressing all 3 keys) but it kept on showing an error msg. Samsung will be collecting my phone from me today. third time I'm sending it.
Click to expand...

If Samsung are taking it back for the third time, this surely indicates that the problem, and whose fault it is, isn't as clear cut as they're trying to make out. I'd ask them to contact me before they send the phone back so that you can find out whether it's been fixed. At that stage, if it still hasn't been resolved, I might drop into the conversation (or, better, in a follow-up email to a named person) that it's reached the stage where you're going to refer the matter to a consumer protection specialist.
 
Got in touch with Samsung again. They said that the reason that the engineers haven't been able to fix it is because there is a software interference caused by installation of an unauthorized software. If this is the case, they said that the wouldn't touch the phone. But send it back just the way it was. I asked them to provide proof and I was told that the engineers would arrange photo's to be sent along with a letter, when they return the phone (clearly didnt make any sense to me). I got told that I could cross check with an individual repair center, to confirm about this so called unauthorized software.

Any suggestions on what I should do now? At this point of time i have clearly lost all hope that my phone will ever get fixed :(
 
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