Out of warranty phone repair? (Samsung Galaxy Note 9)

[mrdonj]

Hello everyone, just wanted to see where I stand in regards to a phone of my becoming faulty on its own.

 

The phone was purchased as part of a contract from Mobile Phones Direct on November 30th 2018. Warranty expired on November 30th 2020. The contract has ended and been paid off in full.

 

The fault is that the screen becomes green and faded whenever you turn the display on and off again quickly, or if the display is turned off due to the proximity sensor, such as a phone call. This started happening roughly 2-3 weeks ago.

 

The fault is a known problem among the Galaxy Note 9 community. The issues regarding a green screen problem can be found online on Reddit, Samsung's own forums, other forums online and in multiple YouTube videos. The issue begins to occur at a random point and doesn't seem to happen due to user misuse.

 

I contacted Samsung who wanted to repair the phone at a cost, which they would not disclose until they had the phone. Typical estimates online that I found tend to be around £200-250 to replace the display. I paid £1392 over a 2 year period and was given £240 cashback, so in total I paid £1152 for the phone and contract.

 

Is there any chance I could get them to repair the device for free? 3 years of use from a device that retailed at around £800+ at the time doesn't seem to great to me.

 

I did have a look at the consumer rights act 2015 and understand that I may need to prove that the item was faulty from the get go? How would I be able to prove this independently?

Edited March 29, 2022 by mrdonj

[Homer67]

Out of warranty and any repair would be a goodwill gesture I'm afraid.

 

To be fair over 3 years of use is pretty good for any mobile phone which is why I never pay top dollar for the latest model or buy a contract which includes the cost of a phone.

 

Buy sim only contracts and outright purchase of phones 1 or 2 generations old, just as good and less painful when they inevitably go wrong.

Edited March 29, 2022 by Homer67
typo

[Homer67]

Check out on line sellers such as Appliances Direct or Appliances On Line for new sim free mobile phones, other sellers may be better value and are available but that's who I've used in the past

[mrdonj]

I actually already have a main phone now. This is my older phone that I have been letting one of my parents use in the mean time and then this issue sprung up randomly

[mantis shrimp]

Are you trying to prove that this phone, which worked perfectly for more than 3 years, had a fundamental defect from day 1 that meant that it was inevitable that it would fail? 

 

I am also trying to figure out your loss, seeing as after 3 years' satisfactory use you have moved on to another model. 

[AndyOrch]

Not from day 1 no it clearly states in the OP initial post the fault started 2/3/weeks ago phone was purchased end of 2018.Although the general consensus is that Samsung are aware of the fault on this particular model.

 

The Consumer Rights Act doesn't define how long specific products should last, because different products have different life spans. Although it was previously described as 6 years by the SOGA.

 

 

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[mantis shrimp]

Andrew, you may not have read my question with sufficient care. 

[AndyOrch]

I think so.....OPs not trying to prove it had a fundamental fault from day 1...although from the information available on the internet Samsung possibly knew about the fault and or could happen. I don't think the Op is trying to prove any loss during its 4 years good use simply that its expected that this product should last longer than 4 years ?

 

 

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[mantis shrimp]

20 hours ago, mrdonj said:

I did have a look at the consumer rights act 2015 and understand that I may need to prove that the item was faulty from the get go? How would I be able to prove this independently?

Andrew - the OP's words. I suppose we may differ in our interpretation of the words "from the get go". What is "the get go"? 

[mrdonj]

To try and clear things up, I have only done limited reading on faulty items and the consumer rights act 2015.

 

Most articles I read had wording such as "Once we get beyond the first six months of ownership, the burden shifts to the customer to prove the fault was present at the time of purchase" or "If a defect develops after the first six months, the burden is on you to prove that the product was faulty at the time the goods were delivered to you." hence why I used the term "the get go". The articles I read to me suggest that the item must have been faulty or had some type of manufacturing flaw at the time I purchased it, but maybe my thinking is wrong here?

[BankFodder]

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding and some poor advice here.

First of all, I'm disappointed that @Homer67 seems to base his advice completely on the effect of the warranty and it is clear that he is suggesting that your statutory rights are subordinate to the warranty and that any repair done outside of the warranty period would simply be a matter of goodwill.

Secondly, there is confusion as to whether one needs to establish that the phone was sold with a pre-existing defect. The answer is that you don't need to establish this at all. Although if the telephone breaks down in the first 30 days then there is an assumption that there was a pre-existing defect capable of rendering the contract void.
If the telephone breaks down within the first six months then it assumes that there may well have been a pre-existing defect rendering the contract voidable but first of all giving the retailer an opportunity to address the problem.
These are provisions of the 2015 Consumer Rights Act which I think were meant to try and introduce clarity and a shortcut to resolving problems and disputes between retailers and their customers – but in fact we are finding that it has very little effect other than to raise the hopes of customers.
Even major retailers such as Currys PC seem to pay scant attention to their 2015 obligations and of course the used car trade ignores those obligations completely – but then we are dealing with a generally disreputable industry.

There is no obligation on you to rely on these provisions of the consumer rights act. The act also requires that the goods you buy are of satisfactory quality and remain satisfactory for a reasonable period of time.
Reasonable period of time is the amount of time that that good  should remain in a satisfactory condition in the expectation of a reasonable consumer.
Of course all this stuff is very unclear and almost undefinable so we have to look around for some system of measuring this.

Because the whole business of what is satisfactory and what is a reasonable period of time is based on the reasonable expectations of the reasonable consumer, I think that a reasonable question might be:
if Samsung advertised this telephone and made it clear in their marketing that their telephone was good value £800 because it would last you 3 1/2 years before packing up completely – in other words it would cost you about £230 per year, would they sell any?

I'm not going to answer this question but people reading this post should ask themselves:

• Do I consider myself to be a reasonable consumer?
• Are my expectations of most products reasonable?
• Would I be prepared to spend my money on a mobile phone which will cost me £230 per year and which after three years I would have to replace or spend possibly another £200 repairing?

 

[Homer67]

@BankFodder I'm happy to be corrected but I thought after 3 years of use any defect corrected would be a gesture of goodwill or the manufacture would be leaving themselves open to a huge number of claims?

 

Also the OP states the warranty expired after 2 years, I'm not sure that's correct as most mobile phones only have a 12 month warranty on the device but the contract may have been 24 months which may have included an extra year's warranty.

[BankFodder]

If the manufacturer- in fact the dealer -  is faced with a deluge of claims. Then it says something about the general quality of their product anyway .

 

Goodwill would come into play if the telephone was so old that it would be reasonable to say that the statutory rights had expired

 

[BankFodder]

To go back to what I think was the original question which was whether the OP would be entitled to a completely free repair – the answer I think is definitely no.

The OP has had 3 1/2 years use from it. I think you would have to understand the reasonable life expectancy of the phone. If we could say that it is, for instance, seven years then we could say that the OP has had 50% of the use in which case it would be reasonable for him to expect to pay 50% of the repair bill.

At that point, if Samsung agreed to repair it free of charge then that would certainly be an expression of goodwill to the value of 50% of the repair

[Homer67]

@BankFodderI see what you mean. I think the expected life of any electronic device that uses firmware and software and has the ability to download and install other software is a lot less than 7 years, more like 3 years.

 

In my experience 3 years with any mobile phone or tablet  is a good innings but considering the cost, that seems poor value for money hence my advice to the OP going forward to buy older gen devices for a much lower price than they were on release.

[BankFodder]

I think you have a rather pessimistic view of the life expectancy of an £800 mobile phone. However, it really would need to be tested. Once again, it would be insane to find Samson advertising their phone and saying that it will last longer than three years as a feature and a reason why people should buy it in preference to others.

I quite agree that after three years a mobile phone may well seem to feel sluggish and not up to the task any more because standards and expectations of moved on – but on the other hand, I would still expect it to keep on working for six or seven years in the absence of any ill treatment by the owner.

I noticed that the new Google pixel pro is guaranteed to receive software updates for six years – according to Google. This certainly indicates to me that the reasonable life expectancy of the phone is at least six years.

What is Samsung's policy on software/firmware upgrades on their telephones? This might be a useful indicator of reasonable life expectancy.

[Homer67]

@BankFodderpessimistic I grant you but realistic based on my experience which as a Telecoms Manager in the NHS I can advise that 3 years for one of our phones is unusual, they normally last around 24, plus up to another 6 months, which is why we only have 24 month contracts within our corporate contract with the supplier.

 

Samsung is Android (Android is owned by Google) and through Samsung they send out regular firmware upgrades free of charge. However, the user is not forced to install them and frequently they get missed which means the phone becomes problematic and has software and application issues.

 

There is no stated limit on the Google Android firmware updates being issued, but eventually your phone will be unable to accept the latest update due to limitations of its hardware and you get a message saying 'unable to install'. For example we still have some phones from 2016 and they still receive and accept the firmware updates, but they are few and far between now.

 

As you say we have no idea of the use the OP's device had or any other contributing factors such as software downloaded and applications installed.

 

[mrdonj]

Half price repair would be a reasonable conclusion to it all in my opinion. The trigger for the issue is hard to pinpoint. A large influx of people had it occur after a software update which happened within its first two years of release, so those people simply had their screen repaired under warranty conditions.

 

The phone had what I would call very typical usage, phone calls, video recording, listening to music etc. Has lived inside a case at all times and with a wipe down would look brand new. I know my way around Android pretty well and there's certainly nothing that I could've done that would cause the display to malfunction randomly.

 

In terms of updates, it is still on Samsung's list as a device that will receive quarterly updates, and then next year it will shift to updates every 6 months so they expect users to be using the phone for 5 years at least. We have a Galaxy Note 4 which is over 7 years old which still sees good usage from my grandad and as of right now, is in a better usable state than the Galaxy Note 9.

 

With all that being said, should I be contacting the place I purchased the phone from, or Samsung directly?

 

Reddit post with over 5000 upvotes regarding the issue I'm facing now

 

Also, Samsung warranty in the UK for their phones is 24 months rather than 12

Edited March 30, 2022 by mrdonj

[BankFodder]

It's the dealer's responsibility – but on the other hand seeing as Samsung has offered a repair at an unknown cost so far, you could let them have it and see what they say about the cost.
At least then you would understand the extent of your problem in terms of value. At the moment you have no idea.

[mrdonj]

Ok in the meantime I will let them collect the phone and see what they actually charge for a repair.

[fkofilee]

I know this about the Warranty repair and whether CRA would apply etc 

But if you just want to get it done - I recommend ISmash. 

 

They are certified for repairing Samsung phones and use OEM parts.

Believe they can sort it in an hour £229... 

 

Not a paid for post - Just had a good experience with them  

 

You could also then look at whether you could take further action against Samsung and see if ISmash can do a report for you. 

[mrdonj]

I did note that they do an inspection for £20 which could be useful in the long run.

 

Samsung are collecting the phone on Friday.

 

"once we have the device and done with the inspection, we will ask for your permission first before we proceed with the repair and inform you on the final price. And in the event that you decline, you have an option to proceed or not on the repair, and we will return your device."

 

[mrdonj]

Got a quote from them today. The charge for a new screen is £259 from one of their authorised service centres.

[mantis shrimp]

That is interesting. 

[mrdonj]

What would be the best way to approach Mobile Phones Direct about this. An official letter or simply get in touch with customer services and take it from there?