Thanks all, I appreciate the time to respond. In many ways I was just making a record for future searchers (as I found others’ useful), I’m not sure there’s much anyone else can do to help! (But thanks nonetheless.)
I would pick up the phone and call them, this often helps to speed up
Thanks! I have phoned them lots, and it does seem to help, but I’m outside the EU and it’s not super cheap or convenient. (And it doesn’t get an immediate answer, I just feel it kinda moves that issue to the top of the pile - presumably at the cost of some other poor soul who had been waiting!)
I dont agree to the statement that FPs are bad quality
Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that at all. While I only had a week of use, I was very happy with the device. My sole problem is with support. (And personally I feel without decent support it takes a lot away from the long-life aspect of the device.)
By the way what was the “simple question regarding the phone warranty/registration”
Oh an embarrassingly simple one about the correct document to supply. And after half the cooling off period was finished and there still had been no response, I looked through the forums and noticed that there seemed to be a consistent issue with slow support. And that’s when I got cold feet and decided I might wait until a later Fairphone, but personally I didn’t feel comfortable tying myself long-term to this company (I’d only just heard of it, and it’s for a company phone and I’d want ok support in case of issues).
Regarding the multiple accounts, that is likely due to safe-guarding user data as the systems are separated, and the forum is a user managed system.
I mean I appreciate this isn’t their core business, and it wouldn’t drive me away by itself, and is perhaps a bit off-topic… but single sign-on is the answer there. Sharing an identity doesn’t mean sharing a data store. (Think of all the services you can access with eg. a gmail or facebook login - they don’t each have access to one another’s data.)
I’m not sure that is actually the case… this is more often down to the type of support
I’ve no doubt there are happy stories, and I’m just reporting my own not-so-happy one
I genuinely just posted this because I felt bad about having such a negative experience and not doing anything to let it be recorded. (Yes, people don’t share positive experiences as often; but I don’t think it’s helpful not sharing negative experiences for others to judge by :shrug:)
I’m still of the feeling that I couldn’t find a ‘better’ phone
Haha! My personal phone is an ancient pre-smartphone Nokia. But yeah, I know what you mean. I was over-the-moon when I discovered Fairphone.
did you at least get a ticket or acknowledgement of your request before you phoned ?
Oh yeah. I’ve had responses, thanks, they’re not just utterly ghosting me (that’s unfair: they’ve claimed it won’t be a problem). But typically it’s after a week passes and I phone. The latest response was on Jul 15 where they start by saying “I’m sorry for my late reply I was out of the office for the week.” (I kid you not.) I responded immediately the same day, then again a week later, and then again today.
For a small international company I don’t consider it unreasonable to only provide a land line in their country of origin
Appreciated, and I think it pays to look at things as a whole: if the tickets were better supported I don’t think I’d have any problem with their phone support.
Regarding returns: In the EU you have a 14-day return period to return online purchases without reason.
Yeah I think now I should’ve returned it under my own steam. But now I’m just waiting on them (and because of the time that’s past, I don’t want to do anything but follow their instructions).
The stress I read about and the blame etc. almost puts me off coming to the forum 
I appreciate your feedback (and giving you’ve responded to me I guess you’re fairly active in general, and I know it’s not much fun trying to be positive around others having a bad time). So thanks again! Maybe a dedicated feedback category where people can express positive and negative experiences, and longer-term users of the forum can choose to ignore/read from that as they wish? The thing that really made me push to write a post was that when I first got cold feet I couldn’t work out if I was being too uncharitable, and my decision making was partly driven by existing forum posts about slow support. The response I’ve had since then has reinforced that I made the right decision, and it felt rude not to add to the forum posts that had helped me.
Thanks again