How to deal with this Vodafone situation?

kissenger · 20 Jul 2016 at 20:27

I'm a Vodafone pay monthly customer, who signed up via Mobiles.co.uk. I have an S7 Edge, which died on me last week (the screen out of nowhere just turned green -- very strange).

I contacted Vodafone customer support and after doing some diagnostics they sent me to a Vodafone store. I went there and they sent me to Carphone Warehouse. I went there and they sent me to another Carphone Warehouse, but with a 'geek squad' section. Eventually, I turned up at that store and there were no 'geeks' in, so they couldn't do any diagnostics in-store, and they just took the phone off me and sent it for repair.

It's been a week now and the online tracker still shows as 'diagnosis' (meaning that the repair hasn't even begun) and all I've got is the crap Huawei replacement phone they gave me.

I'm getting seriously ****ed off not having the phone I'm paying good money for. And today I was nearly late for a job interview because I had to rely on my 10 year old in-car sat nav instead of Google Maps on my phone. Am I justified in feeling like they are taking the **** or is this pretty standard fare for the mobiles market? Is there anything I can do to get this sorted quicker (e.g., is this something Vodafone should be taking care of)?

chrismscotland · 20 Jul 2016 at 21:38

Your "purchase contract" on the handset is with Mobiles.co.uk rather than Vodafone as it wasn't bought direct from them so I can't see that they would do anymore.

How long have you had the phone? Normally if a fault develops within the first 30 days they just replace it, after that your at the mercy of the T&C's of the retailer.

From the Mobiles.co.uk T&C on their website:

Faulty Goods
Faulty Handsets
If your handset becomes faulty outside of your 30 day exchange period then a repair can be
arranged. All handsets come with 1 or 2 year manufacturer warranty and are covered by
Carphone Warehouse.
To action a repair you will need to:
393135_3

Visit www.carphonewarehouse.com to find your nearest Carphone Warehouse store

When taking your phone to a store bring your invoice and proof of ID.

Keep your SIM card and memory card during the repair.
Repairs are usually sent out by the store, as most branches do not complete repairs in
house.
Alternatively you can take your faulty handset to one of Carphone Warehouse nationwide
Express Repair Centre’s where they will repair the phone in store. Please visit
www.carphonewarehouse.com to find your nearest Express Repair Centre.

y2w2003 · 20 Jul 2016 at 21:56

I would go straight to a samsung centre. They are far better and quicker.

kissenger · 21 Jul 2016 at 20:03

y2w2003 said:
I would go straight to a samsung centre. They are far better and quicker.

See I would have done this had I known, but now CW have my handset.

dakaiez · 21 Jul 2016 at 20:06

y2w2003 said:
I would go straight to a samsung centre. They are far better and quicker.

Indeed when my S5 had issues, walked into one on a Tuesday, went to pick it up fixed and good against on the Thursday.

thep02 · 22 Jul 2016 at 15:37

kissenger said:
See I would have done this had I known, but now CW have my handset.

Iirc Samsung have a big well set up repair centre in Birmingham from what I hear the best in the UK.

mame · 22 Jul 2016 at 16:18

I've had 2 phones repaired (well, replaced) by CPW. Both times, the online tracker stayed at the first step for the full 2-3 weeks before fully populating all those tabs to say it's complete. Both times it said that the handset was ready to collect from the shop as soon as it left the repair centre. It wasn't

Raumarik · 22 Jul 2016 at 17:18

^^ Sounds like most helpdesk systems I've used, staff only update it when it's started/finished and not the various steps in between despite what management tell them to do.

kissenger · 27 Jul 2016 at 12:02

Unbelievably, I'm still waiting on this. The tracker said it was ready for pick-up on Friday so I drove a 20 mile round trip in heavy traffic to collect and of course it wasn't there. They said when they checked their records that it's 'in transit' and that it should arrive Saturday or Monday.

It didn't. It still shows as in transit so who knows if it's lost or just delayed. This is the worst possible time to be without a phone as well because I'm job hunting and probably missing all sorts of calls. Carphone Warehouse, never again.

mame · 27 Jul 2016 at 17:15

kissenger said:
Unbelievably, I'm still waiting on this. The tracker said it was ready for pick-up on Friday so I drove a 20 mile round trip in heavy traffic to collect and of course it wasn't there. They said when they checked their records that it's 'in transit' and that it should arrive Saturday or Monday.

It didn't. It still shows as in transit so who knows if it's lost or just delayed. This is the worst possible time to be without a phone as well because I'm job hunting and probably missing all sorts of calls. Carphone Warehouse, never again.

that's what I warned you about a few posts up. Both times I used it, the tracker was updated to ready to collect in-store as soon as it was booked out of the repair centre.

oap · 28 Jul 2016 at 16:34

Though you had a crappy huawei replacement to use, surely this accepts calls?

tom_e · 28 Jul 2016 at 16:38

28 days is normally the quoted worst case turnaround so you're not even close yet, you've got a stand in phone so why would you be missing phone calls and if you knew you'd be relying on an old sat nav then frankly you should have planned better people managed to get places before sat navs were invented.