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[Anonymous]

Well here is my story.
Start of may i took my iPhone into an o2 store because the battery was running low to quick. I had had the phone for a year now so this was as i expected. Everything was all happy and working well, the assistant helping encouraged us to take out the apple care protection plan which seemed great and we did so with no worries. Long story short, phone was sent away and all was good.
THEN a week later, i got a letter explaining my phone was NOT covered by the warrenty. After a good few hours of getting to the bottom of this i rang the store and they told me my phone had water damage. I strongly dissagreed with this, as anyone would to be honest, but im so glad i took further actions as the result has left me shocked, dissapointed, and furthermore outraged!
They told me they had pictures, but i couldnt access these pictures from home like they said i would be able to, so my mum decided she was going to help sort this out. After staging a sit in till after 6pm (bearing in mind that the shop closes at 5:30) she managed to get to see the pictures of my phone and contacted Apple first hand who extremely kindly said they would help get my phone working again.
Now my mum said the pictures were terrible and there was all corrosion from the water damage all over the insides of my phone. So naturally anyone would accept this as their phone and pay the 120 pound price o2 were asking for.
Wrong, we went along with apples advice and skipped o2 and went straight to an apple store.
This is where it gets to the heat. They opened the phone ... It was so clean and nice inside it may as well have been new. NO water damage of any kind inside the phone. Crystal clear. Perfect. NOT AT ALL corroded of any sort!
I now, thanks to apple first hand, have a new phone which the battery lasts the right ammount of time, no charge as it WAS covered by my warrenty.
This means the pictures my mum was shown by o2 were not even my phone. They were trying to con me out of 120 quid by lying straight up! The worst part to my experience was realising if they were more than happy to do this to me. How many other people has this happened to? How much money has actually been conned out of people? Im sorry o2 but you made an enemy this last month, i will be leaving your network come the end of my contract and will never see me again.

I am now looking into possibly sueing o2 if this is a valid reason to do so. It has come to my knowledge that many people have wrote on these forums about the same thing happening to them and it is absolutley not acceptable that a multi-million pound company can do such a thing to its "Valued" customers!

Let me know what your take on this matter is also cause id be pleased to find out if this kind of story has actually affected anyone else recently.

[jonsie]

This has being going on for years and to me me it's a simple case of the repairers out to boost income via deception and fraud at the hands of the consumer. Let's be honest, it's been widely reported on here and this will be just the tip of the iceberg. How many people have been defrauded and just paid up, in most cases, over a £100.00 and as smart phones evolve the prices escalate.

I am fairly certain that apart from the customer paying up for a fictitious repair, the manufacturer will also receive an invoice for the same repair under warranty...double whammy and celebrations all round. Please don't tell me this doesn't happen, it happens in any type of consumer led industry with an outsourced warranty agent, from the motor trade to white goods etc.

Only audits and spot inspections by the manufacturer can cut down on this practice. They will never eradicate it as long as these agents employ such unscrupulous and unprincipled staff using such unfair means to bolster profits, massage figures and earn nice hefty bonuses at the end of the month.

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys,

Ive always advised any iphone owner to seek redress through Apple themselves and not anywhere else.

Their Customer Service and Support is the backbone of their reputation IMO.

Ive heard similar stories on MacRumors but to be fair not in connection with 02.

I did once send off a phone with Argos for repair and when i received my 'repaired' phone I checked it for the original fault and out of habit checked the imei number.

After checking the IMEI number I found it no longer matched the one on the sticker on the casing.

The Argos manager opened up the catalogue and said choose another, any, and gave me £100 compensation.

He knew the implications of cloning aphone and i didnt even need to ask for what he offered !

[perksie]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@perksie wrote:

The problem here is that O2 send your phone to their contracted repairers

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With the greatest of respect perksie that is not OP's problem and it's not a plausible excuse.

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I wasn't suggesting it would exclude O2 from their responsibility, which it obviously is.

[Anonymous]

Look at all the repair horror stories rycal, that should tell you something about them

[Anonymous]

O2 really should be made to sort out their repairs service as its really not good enough

[Anonymous]

Or just boycott it or simple thing, get a good repairs service

[Anonymous]

Yes but that would be too easy and o2 dont seem to like that

[Anonymous]

They don't like criticism or negativity but making people unemployed by using cheap labour, then they will soon see why people criticise

[Anonymous]

God! I suppose i should think myself lucky that O2 only robbed me of £1 a day until they had used up all my credit!

To all who have mocked me out there, this young person is no doubt much more of a techie than I am.

[Anonymous]

Agreed!