I’m still trying to resolve the ongoing problem with my FP2.
I have been following helpful support from community members here Phone won't bootup but sadly its not working.
I first contacted Fairphone support 2 weeks ago now and - following an expensive prompting call to them UK - Netherlands - they looked at my ticket. Nine days after I tried to follow their instructions replying by email to say I could not because the phone was not letting me, I today got a response to say:
“Thank you for contacting Fairphone. It’s unfortunate to hear that your Fairphone isn’t working properly. Due to the technicality of your issue, your case gets forwarded to our technical department.”
I appreciate Fairphone is a small set up, but can anyone offer guidance on what the Fairphone Technical Department is and how long they may take?
As previously mentioned, I suspect my phone will need to be sent off - so I’m desperate to follow all diagnostics ASAP so this can be done as sending it off won’t be a quick process I am sure!
It’s just guesswork on my behalf.
I would guess, that the support department handling requests on the first level is working based on a schooling and a manual covering all the usual complaints as well as the troubleshooting guides. As soon as they establish the problem to be going deeper and not being covered by the manual, they forward it to the technical department.
While support on the first level might be done by just specially trained folk, the more complicated tasks are handled by studied engineers, that do the repairs as well,
Well, that’s my conception, only someone from Fairphone like @Douwe can clarify it.
As to how long this might take, I have no idea and don’t wanna do any guesswork on that behalf, as it would be clawing at thin air.
I concur with everything you put - and am thankful both that there is support there via the Support team and on here via the Forum. I just need to be patient!
It took me more than three months to begin to get anywhere with various problems after buying a refurbished FPS, the most significant one being that the battery didn’t last more than three hours at a time, so wasn’t usable for any length of time except when I was near an electricity socket or recharger. Eventually someone agreed to send me a replacement battery but that wasn’t much better than the first one, dropping to 75% in 1.5 hours of minimum use. Then I was told that this behaviour was quite normal (‘Drops in the battery report graph—instead of an almost linear area—can appear the first days of usage, the battery needs a few charging/discharging cycles to be calibrated. So the screenshots you sent seem normal for us.’) This had never been the case with my FP1 and if it is the case then surely customers should be warned.
Then by some perverse fortune my phone was stolen. It is still a mystery to me how the thief managed it, but this has turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I have bought another phone for less than half the price of the Fairphone, a phone which actually works. The battery lasts the whole day. This is a new experience for me. (My old FP1 batteries only ever lasted about 7-8 hours.)
I might revert to a Fairphone in the future as I used to be an ardent supporter of the company and never had another phone, but my recent experience has made me lose faith in them as their customer service has deteriorated so badly. And the product itself seems to be only just viable - so many people have problems and after all these phones are not exactly cheap. Fairphone used to provide a good customer service some two to three years ago but - as you have discovered - they don’t any more.
If you are still within time to claim a replacement phone I suggest you go ahead and if not good luck with being persistent and getting a decent outcome to your rebooting problem.