I’m not sure if anybody can help me with this problem, but maybe someone has been in a similar situation.
3,5 years ago I bought my Fairphone 4. About a year ago my phone started having problems with the loudspeaker (Nothing major, but people weren’t able to hear me on the other line when I had my phone in loudspeaker mode - so I just wouldn’t use it). At the time I bought my phone they were giving out 5 year warranties, so about 6 weeks ago I decided I might as well still take advantage of it and sent my phone in to be repaired, after following the troubleshooting steps on the website. A few days later I received a report from Cordon electronics saying there was nothing wrong with my phone and they’ll send it back to me. I was a bit surprised, but thought it might just be to specific of a problem for them to be able to diagnosis it.
Now when I got my phone back, this is where the problem starts. After I received it, I wasn’t able to turn my phone on anymore and it was stuck in a bootloop, a problem my phone never had had before. This is something I probably could’ve fixed myself with some research, but as I’ve never really done something like that before, was really busy and didn’t really feel responsible for causing the problem, I contacted Fairphone again. I let them know about my problem and they told me to send the phone in to be repaired again. So far so good. Now yesterday I received a report from Cordon electronics stating my phones repairs won’t be covered by my Warranty due to an oxidized Electronic card and a repair would cost me 436€ and if I didn’t want my phone to be repaired but sent back, I’d have to pay 38€ and otherwise they’d keep my phone and harvest it for spare parts. Some of the parts they listed that need to be replaced, like my camera or display don’t make any sense, as both of these are still fully functional. Overall the report doesn’t make sense to me though, because aside from minor issues with my speakers my phone was still working completely before sending it in to be repaired for the first time. To me it just seems Fairphone is purposefully trying to take a lot of money from me or hope to get an advantage and use my phones parts for future phones. I find it ridiculous to pay this much for the repairs, as I could buy a good phone for the same price and I don’t see why i would pay Fairphone 38€ for them to send a phone back to me that they broke and still isn’t fixed. I really don’t want them to keep my phone, because I paid a good amount for it only 3,5 years ago, believe it’s fixable and would like to still use it. Overall I’m just really disappointed. Originally I was really excited about Fairphone’s reusable and environmentally friendly approach, but after this experience I will discourage everyone I know from using their products.
Now this is what I’m curious about. Is there any way I’m actually wrong and just have to accept my phone’s faith? And if not is Fairphone’s handling of this situation legal? To me it just seems like they are scamming me. Has anyone been in a similar situation and knows if there is any way I can take recourse against fairphone? I’m based in germany, in case that is relevant. Or does anyone know if there is at least any way for me to get my phone back without having to pay these ridiculous sums too fairphone.
Thanks in advance to all of you for your help!