I completely understand your frustration and it is everything else than great when so many customers have faulty devices. However I do not think that fairphone is doing that on purpose or that they actually have other options. If customers keep reporting about faulty devices, they sooner or later will have an image problem and they certainly are not interested in that. However, they are still a small company with limited resources and I guess at one point they had to decide whether to put more money into quality control or to release the phones they had and hope that only as little customers as possible get affected. In that way they can at least earn some money, be able to grow and maybe someday invest more money into quality control.
Furthermore we do not know what proportion of customers actually has a faulty device and how many got lucky. It might seem as if no phone is working properly when one reads through that forum. But keep in mind; only people with problems come to that forum in the first place.
But of course, all of that does not change your situation, nor is it what you got promised when you bought the phone. By the way, I have to admit, that “hey we have a new phone, buy it and maybe you’ll get lucky, maybe you won’t”, indeed doesn’t sound like a great selling argument
I guess the most important question is: What can and should fairphone do for the ones facing one problem after the other? You talked about getting your money back. Of course that would be great, but I do not think that they have the resources for that. I can only assume that they already lose more money than initially calculated with all the refunds they have to provide (maybe this is also the reason, why they are making it so cumbersome to get a refund, which again, is not the way it should be).
A year ago it was quite easy to get a replacement of a defect piece, they changed that now. Most probably not out of cruelty but maybe they simply do not have the money anymore to be so generous.
In my opinion, it all comes down to customer support and unfortunately I have to agree with you, that they are not doing a great job in comforting customers with problems. They make it seem like they do not really care, which is just frustrating and makes you questioning yourself why you go through all that trouble.
I can only agree with @bfb when he sais that
In my opinion the support should stop making a fool out of their customers by giving lame excuses and making wrong promises. I whish, that fairphone could honestly apologize to people facing problems and show some sympathy. It should not be such a big deal to get a refund and they should not treat you as if it was your fault that the device broke down, until you can prove them differently. I do not know about you, but for me that would already make a big difference.
However, I can understand that you not only want some nice words from the customer support, but you also want get the money back for the microphone you bought. Maybe you can persuade them to let you send in your faulty microphone and after they have confirmed the defect, claim back the money you have spent for the replacement on your own. I really suggest calling instead of writing them. It takes ages until you get a reply from the contact centre and usually the first few answers are not helpful. I have made good experiences with calling them, although it is not the cheapest way. I understand that this is a lot of effort you have to make for something that was not really your fault and I really hope that fairphone soon will change their warranty support.