I got an SMS from DHL this morning giving me options about the delivery, so I suppose I’ll be able to pick it up tonight. 
To sum it up: ordered and paid 11th Oct and delivery to Helsinki, Finland. I understood that there should have been a shipment notification email, but it hasn’t arrived, so there’s still something wrong with the process. And the status in the shop is still “Prepare batch”.
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Hey @csarven,
Thank you for your message. Last week we send out an email to some Fairphone 2 buyers about cover issues, I’m sorry to hear you might have missed it. I’ll paste the relevant bit here and hope it answers your question.
At the moment, we don’t have enough of the various cover colors to ship your phone with the back cover that you originally selected. At the manufacturer, the phones and back covers are produced separately. We asked our manufacturer to produce various quantities of the different colored back covers based on the (projected) phone orders.
Unfortunately, our planning was not taken into account, resulting in too many of one color and not enough of the others. And because there is only one tooling machine that makes the covers (which requires a full day to be cleaned and reset before switching colors), we can’t produce the necessary quantity of different colors as quickly as we’d like.
To complicate matters further, with so many factory workers gone during Chinese New Year, we’re expecting a delay of 2 to 4 weeks before the necessary colors are in stock. However, we know that you’ve been waiting patiently and we want to deliver your phone right away! Therefore, regardless of what color you originally ordered, your phone will arrive with a blue translucent back cover.
To compensate for the inconvenience, you’ll receive a voucher code by email in March that you can use in our webshop to order the back cover that you originally selected (free of charge; shipping included).
That means that I can buy some cheap blue translucent back covers from these FP2 owners. Hmm… I must think about it. I originally ordered an additional blue translucent back cover, but I cancelled it because the back cover change was harder than I expected.
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Clearly we highly encourage any second hand market that helps in people using any materials or resources more efficiently.
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Thank you for the info.
Can you also help everyone by letting us know about the delivery schedule ?
Originally, it was “first buyer -> first served” but we can see that people who ordered in December received their phone before some people who placed their order in October / November. Maybe it is only due to the back cover trouble but it does not seems to be only that as they seem to have ordered black / blue / transparent versions.
- Are there some rules about the destination country (or with an other context) ?
- What does the “prepare batch” mean ?
- Is there an issue with the status update in the shop section ?
- Did you resolve the problem with the email notifications ? Maybe the phones are already traveling but we don’t know about it…
As far as I know, any difference in delivery time is definitely related to:
- when payment was received
- how long the courier takes to actually deliver
It could be that the choice of back cover colour has delayed some orders, that is something that @Douwe may be able to confirm.
Keep in mind that the number of orders after the ordering window for the special edition probably was a lot lower. Though there were thousands of phones being ordered per week before the cut-off, after the cut-off this was probably* thousands per month (after the first phones were delivered, this hopefully picked up again). In terms of order numbers, phones paid in December are probably closer to phones ordered in October than phones ordered end of September are to those ordered mid-September. This means that if the courier takes two days longer to get to your house, it is perfectly possible someone on the forum will report they received a phone ordered weeks after yours. As long as the notifications don’t work, there’s no way of telling based on the information here.
*Judging by the counters on the website at the time.
The other questions you ask are basically addressed in the rest of this topic:
No.
The order has been passed on to the distribution centre, and they are fulfilling the order. It doesn’t mean the phone is in stock, or has been shipped. It just means the order has been passed on.
Yes. It appears to be linked to the problem regarding the e-mail notifications (it’s probably the same system).
Judging by the last 10 or so posts this hasn’t been solved.
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@Douwe That’s great, thank you! I didn’t get an email about that… I suppose I wasn’t in that group.
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I am becoming very concerned because I have heard nothing about my phone (ordered 24th October) and according to the blog, all phones ordered in October should have been shipped last week. My account also still says “prepare batch”. Have been trying to find out about this but there doesn’t seem to be any way to contact Fairphone directly, or perhaps it is just that I can’t navigate my way round the site! I have been replied to on this forum before, so here’s hoping. (Have also messaged through Facebook.) It seems that some people who ordered in December have already received their phones; is this correct? Mine was shown as paid for immediately after ordering, so I can’t understand what has happened.
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Could be a case of notifications not working. Also I’m not sure whether they mean the week between the Wednesday updates (which I guess will be Thursday again this week…). If you need official support: their contact details are nearly at the bottom of the support section of the main website (‘send a question’ for a contact form, or phone support number below that button). Please note that support seem to be incredibly busy and that it may take a significant time for them to respond. I’d personally wait for this week’s blog update first…
I can understand that you are concerned and there might be others out there who are in the same situation. Contacting customer support is still the right way to find out what is going on, because they (or “we” as I work in customer support) can look at the circumstance of every individual case.
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According to the latest blog post, some October orders got “lost” and should be sent this week.
This is getting really absurd…
One thing is for sure: Whether or not I’ll finally sometime receive my phone (paid for October 2nd!): I will NEVER again order anything from this organization!
Dear @Yukeli, I am sorry to hear we’ve upset you this much. We agree that things could have been much better in our logistics department and we are working hard to improve this.
We are happy to tell you that we are making a lot of progress with our programs for fair and conflict-free minerals, worker welfare and our new ewaste programs. But clearly these industry changing programs are damaged by our challenges to deliver a solid product in a reasonable time frame.
We are happy you kept faith and stood with us to this point but understand if you are no longer interested in supporting the movement for fairer electronics.
We hope you will enjoy your new Fairphone 2 once it arrives and are able to use it for many many years.
Best,
Douwe
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This morning my concierge handed a small parcel to me 
Ordered november 5 / Shipped 16/02 / received 18/02 in France
Didn’t receive the shipping confirmation email or any tracking number.
Order #700001788
It says ‘blue translucent’, so I guess i will have to wait a bit more to receive the transparent cover i originally chose. But cool, on the end i will have two cover colors
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Hey @jaymanu,
In March you’ll receive a mail with a code to order your original cover free of charge.
For more details see this post:
Fairphone ordered september 29, paid the same day (but confirmed a few days later due to paiement issues), no delivery number, and no fairphone, no notification email, no news, no answer to my mail… I strongly believe in this project but I really want my new phone now
Dear @Celine44, there is clearly something wrong with your order. I nudged support to look into your ticket as soon as possible. I am really sorry about this delay and uncertainty.
thanks for your reply, no problem, this kind of things happens in such projets. Looking forward to hear from the support team
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I got this email and am aware of this, just pointing out that it will cool to have a 2d cover in case.
Now the blue translucent cover is better looking than I expected from the photos.
Guys, let your nails grow a bit while you expect the delivery, as they will be needed to stretch the cover around the phone
Also, a hole has been scratched out in cardboard box, I guess the customs checked the inside for some narcotics… As the package comes from netherlands…
Now the phone boots… First boot seems to take ages.
Order Date: December 22, 2015
Status 18.02.2016, 12:00: Order #30003xxxx - Prepare Batch
DHL 18.02.2016, 10:03: unsuccessful delivery attempt, recipient not home 
I have recieved the email form fairphone that it’s on it’s way this morning @ 10h30
and, look at this, it got deliverd 2 hours later to south switzerland 
so order date 18 Dec 2015 - delivery date 18.Feb 2016 2 month, really great
I am happy, everything works, looks good, does charge, and thanks to that google stuff, all my apps and settings are beeing transferd to the new phone, I was able to select the app i’d like ond those I don’t all great so far
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