# phone store complication for 6 months



## west wicklow (10 Sep 2013)

Hi Guys,

Question for you and everyone please.

Allow me give you a “hypothetical” situation as a prelude to my question to set the scene.

Long term Vodafone customer gets a Vodafone approved upgrade in a retailer’s shop displaying the Vodafone corporate signs over their premises. Customer wants a smart phone and makes a choice from the selection of various brands/models on display. The customer signs up for the new smart phone. The vendor volunteers to set it up (transfer contacts, new sim card) and it's on a new contract for the duration of 18 months, paying Vodafone by direct debit as she/he has done for a few decades. Then there are technical faults with the brand new phone which is returned to the vendor, after 7 days. These faults are acknowledged by the vendor who took self recommended remedial action but this didn’t work. Before getting back to the shop again, a small cosmetic crack appears on the phone screen. The phone operations are not affected for good or bad and it’s returned again to the vendor. On visiting the shop after many weeks for an update, the vendor now demands €180 to replace the screen in the brand new phone as a condition before attending to the originally witnessed, pre-existing, initial faults A loan of a very old, used -non smart- phone is given to the hypothetical customer. A few months pass while the customer makes regular written requests for updates etc from the vendor. There is no reply. After approx. six months paying the direct debit as per the terms of the contract with Vodafone for the service of a new smart phone, which at this stage, the customer has no idea where it is for those six months, the Small Claims Court people say the phone has no commercial value (free Vodafone upgrade) so there’s no judgement to enforce against the vendor. However, the legal contract is with Vodafone as the service provider. ComReg and The National Consumer Agency are involved by recommending each other.

Any comment on this “hypothetical” matter please? Is this a situation for Joe Duffy to sort out on national radio or maybe for direct action by a solicitor or even for the customer to cancel the direct debit payments (that would get someone’s attention!) or perhaps there is another solution in your opinion??

There rests the nuts and bolts of the hypothetical scenario. The hypothetical Vodafone client must keep paying them for the service of a smartphone and not to have the device on which the whole agreement was hypothetically based for the initial 33% duration of the new contract term? 

Silence - as the vendor and the new smart phone remain- is not an answer.

So I come to my original question: what is your comment please?


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## Guns N Roses (11 Sep 2013)

What brand and model is the smart phone?


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## mathepac (12 Sep 2013)

I just lost the will to live trying to get through the densely packed unpunctuated "hypothetical" paragraph. Sorry I can't help


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## west wicklow (12 Sep 2013)

Guns N Roses said:


> What brand and model is the smart phone?


 
It is/was a brand new Samsung Galaxy Express GT-I9100 8GB


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## west wicklow (12 Sep 2013)

mathepac said:


> I just lost the will to live trying to get through the densely packed unpunctuated "hypothetical" paragraph. Sorry I can't help


 
The punctuation error has been sorted out - thanks for bringing it to our attention.


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## T McGibney (12 Sep 2013)

Your use of comic sans font makes your post almost impossible to read, at least for my poor eyes.


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## west wicklow (12 Sep 2013)

T McGibney said:


> Your use of comic sans font makes your post almost impossible to read, at least for my poor eyes.


 
Font changed to suit your poor sight T.


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## Guns N Roses (12 Sep 2013)

west wicklow said:


> It is/was a brand new Samsung Galaxy Express GT-I9100 8GB


 
Why don't you send the phone directly to Samsung and deal with their complaints department instead.

I know quite a few people who have had problems with Apple products. They just bypassed the retail store and went straight to Apple. In all cases the equipment was replaced with no quibble.

I don't see why Samsung would be any different.

I never buy phones from agents anymore. I buy directly from the service provider via their websites. Less hassle and better customer service in my opinion.


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## AgathaC (12 Sep 2013)

Deleted.


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## west wicklow (17 Sep 2013)

Following ComReg's intervention, Vodafone have thankfully sorted out this problem even though it was caused by an independent phone store. Big thank you to Vodafone.


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## Leo (17 Sep 2013)

Well done West Wicklow, glad it worked out for you.


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