How to buy Fairphone FP3 without having a working phone number

Help Fairphone 3
1

Hi,
i was trying to place an order for a Fairphone FP3. During the checkout process, the shop asked for my phone number and would not not let me continue without.

I currently do not have a working phone, because my old one broke (that’s why i want to buy the FP3), so i won’t be able to receive any messages/calls that Fairphone would send to that number.

What is the phone number used for? (I was unable to find that info in the privacy policy.) Is it possible to order a phone without one?

I was planning to use SEPA bank transfer for payment, which does not require a phone number. I’m in Germany, DHL is the only available shipping method and that should not require the phone number either.

Kind regards

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2

Just type a fantasy number in that field.

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I appreciate you replying me, but the reply does not answer any of my of my questions or give a reason why the phone number would not matter.

4

In some countries it maybe a carrier stipulation in case of delivery problems.

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Welcome to the community forum.
As it really is a community forum and not the company, Fairphone staff might read along here and engage occasionally, or not.

@formerFP.Com.Manager @lorahaspels: Is there a specific reason the shop checkout needs a phone number, or is this just a standard procedure of the web framework and could perhaps be changed?

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Hi there,

I have checked with the team and having a second point of contact has been standard procedure because it is sometimes used to reach customers in specific circumstances. That said, they are also having a look to see what other solutions exist. If anything changes, I will update this thread. :slight_smile:

(However, regarding this specific case, were you successful with your order @eej? If not, please pop me a message and I will see what can be done in these immediate circumstances.)

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Hi @formerFP.Com.Manager,
thank you for looking into this! I have now entered a relative’s phone number (with their permission). There’s been an unrelated issue with payment* after that, but i hope that clears up.

I’ll update this thread if my phone arrives.

* (my bank’s online interface offered to upgrade the transfer SEPA Instant Payment, but apparently that was not available with fairphone’s bank, and then the transfer was refused, and subsequent attempts to transfer the money were refused as duplicates. I visited a friend to call my bank’s support hotline. aaaarrghh!)

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I encountered this, too, with a bank at work, and this really is quite some height of stupidity from the bank, because

  1. The bank knows perfectly well that SEPA Instant Payment doesn’t work with each and every target bank, the target bank must have taken steps to take part in SEPA Instant Payment first.
  2. Of course, there is a list of banks taking part in this.
    And while there are cases in which this would not be trivial to check because of how BICs work with the optional three letter end part and because sometimes it’s complicated between mother banks and their subsidiaries … in most cases this could check out fine with some minor programming effort.

Yet they just give you this option in their online banking forms … and after they know the target BIC already, as far as I’ve seen … and they don’t check this and just let your payment fail instead. Inconceivable.

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Lol :smiley: The second part surprised me. In my bank’s web interface, the option for Instant Payment is usually grayed out when the other bank doesn’t support it. However, as the person on the hotline told me (when i borrowed my friend’s phone to call them), that only works if the other bank is also in Germany. When it’s a bank in another European country, the system just assumes it’s supported, subsequently causing the error I described. Maybe I should forward that PDF to my bank…

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phone arrived today, phone number was not needed.

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In situations like these, you can use the number 0612345678. The CS rep will usually recognize it as bogus. This counts for requirement of phone number in general; not Fairphone-specific.

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Hi @JeroenH, you are replying to a 4-months-old thread that has already been solved.

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@JeroenH while i appreciate any (late) info on this topic, suggesting to enter random phone numbers does not answer my initial question on whether a working number is needed in order to complete purchase and delivery.

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