Is it reasable to pay for repairs of a 18month old phone?

July 9, 2012 3:20 PM

My Smart phone unable to be charged and it's outside of its warranty period. Store salesman said I would need to pay for repairs and as well as $50 just to see what's wrong, would this be true given the Consumer Guarantees Act (of New Zealand)?

The store in question is Dicksmiths.

I did drop it accidentally once but it stopped being able to charge a year after that, otherwise I have taken quite good care of it.

The phone was bought in March of 2011.

Your help is much appreciated.

posted by mataboy to law & government (9 answers total)

It comes down to whether a reasonable person would expect a smart phone to last longer than that. I'd lean towards yes, but only marginally - it's a fairly cheap phone. Certainly not a slam dunk REPLACE MY PHONE, DICK! argument.

Your likely option is taking a case to the Disputes Tribunal, and I wouldn't say you're guaranteed to win.

Have you looked into replacing the battery? Maybe getting them to pull a battery from a working phone and seeing if that works?
posted by Sebmojo at 4:00 PM on July 9, 2012

Not a lawyer, but the CGA does not set specific times for "a reasonable time". There's a great discussion of what that means in practice here:
Product lives

In that discussion, they suggest 5 years is a reasonable length of time for cellphones, and also mention how to deal with stores who say that it's outside the warranty (which the programme describes as a smokescreen - you have rights beyond what warranties provide). I really suggest listening to the whole thing, because it's great advice.
posted by Paragon at 4:01 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Two suggestions before paying a dime...

1) Try another charger.

2) Find a friend with the same model, and see if your phone will charge with the other phone's battery.
posted by pla at 4:01 PM on July 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Adding to pla's suggestion, if you haven't already, try another charger cable.
It might sound dumb, but over time, the resistance of my charger cable rises until the phone - despite acting as it normally would when you plug it in - doesn't charge. This has happened with several cables, and to my friend's phone too. A new cable and suddenly it all works again.
(I assume that the months of flexing the cable leads to more and more of the copper fibres breaking over time until it's a bottleneck on the current)
posted by -harlequin- at 4:07 PM on July 9, 2012

I have tried different chargers, pretty sure it's not a battery problem as it won't turn on even when plugged in. It did work for a time by putting a little downward pressure on the USB connector so I'm guessing it's something to do with the micro USB port.
posted by mataboy at 4:12 PM on July 9, 2012

I have tried different chargers, pretty sure it's not a battery problem as it won't turn on even when plugged in.

This could also mean the battery is completely dead and is not receiving any charge from the wall port. A quick search found a lot of people selling a battery for this phone so it sounds like it is user - replaceable. I would definitely try finding another battery to test.
posted by jacalata at 4:22 PM on July 9, 2012

a battery problem as it won't turn on even when plugged in.

Sorry to thread sit but what I meant was I used to be able to use the phone with the battery taken out completely with just the usb cable providing power but now I can't.

My main worry is whether or not the retailer has a resposiblity to fix it or if I do. I was prompted to ask this question because the sales guy told me it would be expensive to get it fixed via the manufacture and that I was better off going to a parallel import shop down the road to get it fixed which seemed kind of suspect.
posted by mataboy at 4:36 PM on July 9, 2012

I had an Evo 4G, aka HTC Supersonic, which had a problem of the USB port breaking off the main circuit board, rendering the thing unchargable/undockable.

If this is your phone, you may be able to revive it by getting the battery charged outside the phone. I found that buying a replacement battery and battery charger were affordable (less than USD$20 on Amazon, YMMV) and you could get back into some semblance of normal usage.

Even if it's not that phone, if it has a removable battery, perhaps you can get it charged at your carrier's corporate store (as I did) and see if it will live again. If so, buy a charger and an external battery or two.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:24 PM on July 9, 2012

By the way, Sprint was my carrier, and their Corporate store replaced the phone for $50, even though it wasn't insured. I can't recall what if any kind of warranty it was under at the time, but IMO it was a defect of the phone's design, a weak spot. You might try the same argument.
posted by Sunburnt at 7:28 PM on July 9, 2012