Mda vario warranty trouble

[Guest Ruzza]

Hi, I bought a tmob MDA vario on the 4th of april, everything was goin fine until around the 10th of may when the charging port at the bottom decided to break away, still rattling around inside, leaving me unable to charge the phone.

So I thought I've only had it just over a month and I haven't abused it, i'll take it into the tmob shop and hopefully they will arrange for it to be fixed.

I took it into the shop they arranged for it to be sent away and fixed, at this point I was thinking this is going Ok, too Ok to be true really. Until about a week later I get a phone call from the shop saying there's been a problem, that the warranty has been invalidated due to the phone having physical damage caused by me, and a quote attached for ~

[Guest oink1]

So now I have an MDA vario with 40% battery left and a dodgy charging port leaving me 2 days battery at max left, I am wondering if anyone knows how I should progress with this matter, or if anyone has experienced anything similar to this?

That blows... :) I had a similar experience with my partners o2 phone - My advice to you is as follows -

1, Ring your local Citizens Advice Bureau

2, Explain the situation to them and they'll probably give you the number of your local Trading Standards Office

3, Explain all to them (I can't see any reason why this wouldn't be covered under the 'Sale of goods not fit for the purpose of which they were intended clause) In my own case they gave me a reference number for the conversation and told me that i would have their full backing should the need for legal action arise.

4, Get on the phone to T-Mobile and calmly explain that if you don't get satisfaction, you will - with the backing of Trading Standards be instigating legal proceedings against them (In my experience with o2, it's amazing the effect the threat of Trading Standards had)

5, Wait and see what happens...

Hope this helps and good luck :)

Edited June 1, 2006 by oink1

[Guest oink1]

Any luck with this? :)

[Guest LSmith4285]

(In my experience with o2, it's amazing the effect the threat of Trading Standards had)

I worked in an Orange shop for 6.5 years and this never had any effect on us. Our lawyers were always fully behind us on issues like this. Manufacturers can tell if something has been forced or damaged in use.

I'm not saying that this is true in this case but if a charging port has been pulled away from the board when it will damage the board and it is obviously customer damage. However if the soldering connections are loose its obviously a manufacturing defect and would be covered under the sale of good act.

However in the mobile industry the "reasonable" amount of time when they have to replace the damaged good is generally 28 days, this is not specified in the sale of goods act and is left for the shop/industry/court to decide. Therefore the shop are only committed to help you get your item repaired, this could be as simple as giving you an address or phone number, they do not have to do it for you, although most places will.

We had threats of legal action on our shop for incidents like this, a few materialised and we won them all, all of which were told "the shop must replace it" by trading standards.