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My gf's Nokia 7.2 was new in Nov '20, and has developed a dodgy power button which makes it hard to turn on and off. Getting worse and now phone is virtually unusable. Assumed it'd be a fairly simple warranty replacement, but having gone through Live Chat and their 'book a repair' section, it says that 'damaged (or missing) buttons' are excluded from warranty. This doesn't seem right - it's not damaged, it just doesn't work. Found a couple of threads on Reddit where others have had the same issue not covered under warranty.
I'm going to send it back and see what they say, but has anyone got any tips for excercising whatever consumer rights might be relevant here? The Live Chat people/bots have been particularly unhelpful.
Cheers,
Have you tried the retailer she bought it from? That would be my first port of call.
I had one of those - with the power button problem. It lasted about a year and in the end I recycled it and bought something else. Horrible thing. I couldn't be bothered with the battle, so sorry I'm not going to be any help on consumer rights. Xiaomi are generally better for the money IMO.
Where was it bought from? Nokia or other?
I had a 7.1 that was bricked by an update. Nokia wanted me to send it back to eastern Europe and it would be away for at least 2 weeks. Bought it from Amazon, spoke to them, and it was refunded before they even received it.
Purchased from Nokia direct unfortunately. Amazon might have been a better bet!
Purchased from Nokia direct unfortunately.
In which case I would just remind them that your statutory rights are in addition to any warranty they offer, and mean that items must be of satisfactory quality and reasonably fit for purpose (ss9 and 10 Consumer Rights Act 2015).
I would say that a phone purchased 6 months ago which is virtually now unusable is not of satisfactory quality. Depending on when the actual defect occurred, you may be able to rely on s19(14) of CRA which states that doods which do not conform to the contract at any time within the period of six months beginning with the day on which the goods were delivered to the consumer must be taken not to have conformed to it on that day which effectively places the onus on the retailer to prove that the goods are not faulty, rather you having to prove they are. However, if you're outside that 6 month window you'll need to prove it is faulty.
That's spot on, thanks. Will fire that over at them!
And, of course, that should read 'goods', not 'doods'.
effectively places the onus on the retailer to prove that the goods are not faulty, rather you having to prove they are.
That's not quite right. Rather, the fault is deemed to have been inherent at the time of purchase, that's what they have to disprove (which Jakester kinda said but then muddied it). No-one needs to prove it is or isn't faulty when it's clearly faulty!
Point of note here: you aren't making a warranty claim. As Jakester says, any warranty offered by Nokia is in addition to your statutory rights. Nokia can warranty whatever they like, up to and including "nothing whatsoever," so they're perfectly within their rights to tell you that moving parts aren't warrantied. But they are absolutely covered by the Consumer Rights Act and Nokia are breaking the law if they doesn't resolve the issue under CRA.
I've said this many times on the forum now, but I've had a 100% hit rate with the line "just so we're clear, can you please confirm that you are refusing to honour my statutory rights?"
I'll give that line a try, thanks. This is what they've said so far - not exactly refusing to cover it, but making it pretty clear they intend to write it off as 'damage'.
If I understood correctly, you have an issue with the power key of your Nokia 7.2
I checked the chat conversation with my colleague. Have you tried to do a factory reset like my colleague suggested in order to check whether the issue will be resolved after that? If the issue remains, this means that it is a hardware issue.
I would like to inform you that any physical damage is not covered by the warranty. I am sending you the full terms and conditions for your device: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_gb/support/warranty/nokia-7-2/GB/en
So you respond by saying it isn't physically damaged by anything other than ordinary use, which would take it back to whether or not it is of satisfactory quality.
I would have expected a mobile phone to stand up to at least six months' worth of switching on and off without breaking - unless your GF is one of those people that only switches it on and off when they want to use it, and even then, it should stand up to that unless she's doing it several times an hour.
I would like to inform you that any physical damage is not covered by the warranty.
Again - you are not making a warranty claim. You are making a Consumer Rights Act claim. This is important.
Under CRA, any fault developed in the first 6 months is automatically assumed to be inherent from day one unless they can prove otherwise.
Even if it were outside of six months, it still has to be of acceptable quality. Given that mobiles are routinely sold with two year contracts I would say you'd have a strong case for reasonably expecting a phone to last for the length of its contract.
You can make a claim under CRA for up to six years, though you're in an increasingly weaker position over time. It might be considered reasonable to expect a £1,000 iDevice to last six years, a thirty quid supermarket special, not so much.
But stop using the W word. It doesn't apply here and it's weakening your argument.