02 refusing to repair a faulty phone

[Anonymous]

I'm at the end of my tether with the situation I have found myself in.

Been with O2 for a very very long time and not really had any issues with service (customer) and service (reception/data etc)

However in March and after what seemed like 100's of calls from O2 I decided to upgrade my phone and take out a new contract going from a simplicity tariff to a monthly tariff. A bit of faffing and haggling etc I decided on the LG-E960 aka Nexus 4. I didn't use the phone for around a month as I was to busy and wanted to transfer all my apps data etc in my own time.

On 15th May I started using the phone. All was bliss until 21st May when upon answering a call the screen just went black and refused to illuminate anything. The phone was sent away for repair and a replacement was sent back to me and I was up and running again on May25th.

After lots of complaints from friends & customers saying they couldn't get through to me, as well as not being able to receive mms properly (APN checked about 1000 times) and then the phone not being able to receive mobile data unless through wifi I contacted customer services on Sunday 2nd June.

Told possible settings-checked and double checked and all the usual things done-on off etc etc

Then advised it may be sim faulty-so off to an O2 store and swap sim (except the plum in shop didn't register new sim so no service at all). Called customer services and sim swap done over phone on Monday 3rd. Settings checked and double checked again.

By Monday evening it was obvious that phone still not working properly and no data received which was a right royal pain in the backside as needed to get prices from internet for a customer!

Customer services then said to take into Store and see guru (lol) & they would check phone.

Tuesday 3rd June After being patronised by guru who said settings were wrong he changed settings and then guess what-phone still doesn't work (they were the correct settings anyway).Phone sent off for repair.

Now the fun really begins...

Today Wednesday 4th at approx 18.45, I get a text to say phone repair not covered by warranty and to call (now shut store) for a repair quote! 

After calling O2 they said they can't 100% confirm this, but this would only happen if the phone had suffered some form of physical damage-which it certainly hasn't. Of course anyone that can help me in any way has gone home for the evening-which means I now spend tomorrow wasting my time, effort and money on this again.

Also, when the phone was repaired first time-it stated phone was repaired. The imei on the repair slip was the same as the box. However on checking the receipt for the latest repair it has a completely different imei number which suggests that either someone at O2 has swapped it or the phone I received was not repaired but replaced.

Either way the whole mess stinks!!

After checking and

[Anonymous]

If it voids the warranty why would they touch it to re-flash it?

[EDIT] Sorry, that's complete rubbish! of course they would charge!

[MI5]

As I've already stated, legally, it doesn't void the warranty. However, why would someone capable and willing to root their phone then send it in for a warranty reflash - Surely they would just do it themselves??

There is no getting away from the fact that Anova are out to rip people off - Google is full of complaints about them and it's about time a network had the balls to take a stance against them to stop their deceptive practices.....

[Anonymous]

Here's the Gonads O2 had!

http://ukmobilereview.com/2012/08/o2-signs-chooses-to-renew-contract-with-anovo/

All about the money I'm afraid. Customers can go jump!

[Anonymous]

In answer to the OP, get your phone back and send it direct to LG under manufacturer warranty and it'll be repaired.

Unfortunately you may be without phone while they turn it around.

[Anonymous]

Hang on.......has robolots actually confirmed the phone has been rooted ???????????

[MI5]

Not at all - Just that they are refusing to repair a faulty phone that is under 2 weeks old unless he pays !!!

[Anonymous]

It'll be water damaged next!

[Rycal]

---

@MI5 wrote:

why would someone capable and willing to root their phone then send it in for a warranty reflash - Surely they would just do it themselves??

---

You'd be suprised how many phones we see which have been rooted or jailbroken and have developed faults, often the customer doesnt know how to reflash them with approved firmware or the fault is stopping them from doing so. A lot of people just follow guides on YouTube to flash their devices and arent fully aware of what they are doing.

Anyway, that probably isnt the case here

[anticpated]

Rooting itself isn't as it bad as it sounds -  actually it won't affect the performance of Android in a bad way. If anything, it can help improve performance by giving you better control of the CPU/GPU and power-usage, allow the removal of preinstalled software. Although the kernel is usually replaced and an alternative bootloader is added in some cases it's more flexible. As long as the kernel is compatible with your handset, the OS part should be OK.

Security is not certified unfortunately although you can use root level protection which is far more effective than the free and some paid apps on the Play Store which don't require Root permissions.

Certainly installing 3rd paty OS's would void your phone as there is no comeback although the developers tend to be more helpful when things go wrong.

I was stung with the same misinformation recently and you know what, I won't be buying a handset direct from O2 again because of this. Which is a shame because I've been a customer for a few years now. So I might still be a O2 customer if they can get the 4G coverage sorted out into wider area by the end of the contact.

Whilst I'm not condoning or otherwise say people should do it, it's a big cop-out by using this for every handset they can't find a fault with. It's well documented about the issues I had on this very forum so I won't repeat myself. However it's no surprise to see that the problem has happened to someone else.