I'm not getting any support for a very annoying issue

Discuss The Industry
1

I’m writing here because, honestly, trying to contact Fairphone support has been one of the most frustrating customer support experiences I’ve had in years.

The original issue I’m trying to get help for is a serious stability problem on my Fairphone 6. Many apps randomly crash (TikTok, Instagram, even Android Settings), and sometimes the phone becomes almost unusable with black screens appearing repeatedly for an entire day. There are already multiple reports about this online, yet it does not seem to be officially acknowledged.

So I tried to contact support.

First, I used the chatbot. Completely useless experience. The bot basically just redirects you to FAQ pages and support articles over and over again, regardless of the problem you describe.

Then I tried the “Still need help? Send us an email” option. After filling in all the fields, if you select “I experience a problem / My product is broken”, you are no longer allowed to actually send an email. Instead, the system forces you into a “diagnose the issue” flow.

When pressing the button, I got redirected to a DUTCH website. Somehow the system completely forgot my language preference. Changing the language is also incredibly unintuitive: it’s not enough to click a flag, you also have to choose between two buttons written in a language you probably do not understand. Truly impressive UX design.

Then, after pressing “Diagnose issue” again, I was redirected to yet another website. The redirect itself took around 15 seconds.

I selected my device (Fairphone 6) and chose “stability issues”. In the next submenu, however, none of the available issues matched my problem. So I had to go back and select “my issue is not present” from the previous menu — even though that option would obviously make much more sense inside the second submenu as well. Again, amazing UX choices.

Finally, I pressed “I need further help”, filled in the textbox describing my issue, selected “Request a repair”… and got redirected to a screen where I literally cannot select anything or proceed further.

At this point I’m honestly shocked by how broken and convoluted the entire support system is. I bought a Fairphone because I believed in the company’s values, but this support experience feels incredibly disappointing and unprofessional.

Screenshot from 2026-05-18 12-11-40
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2

Hello
sorry to hear about this frustrating experience.

Just to clarify

  • contacting the chat outside the human agents working window is indeed (very) limited, you should have more luck (at least a chance to) talking to a human on workdays during 10-12 CEST
  • while I doubt sending the phone for repair for your issue is the most optimal solution (I would personally explore some software troubleshooting but it is a personal preference), the repair portal should be working (I personally used it and tested it).
  • the idea is to direct the flow of all the support requests to the repair portal (we are told it allows better tracking), and once you get to the repair request, the system recognises your warranty and creates a repair request
  • would you consider checking with a different browser?
3

Since I am considering becoming a new “fairphoner” and the user seems to be writing from Italy, does the repair portal allows for sending the phone to repair also in Italy?

4

Hello
Italy is officially included in the list of supported countries

I would say it should be even easier to send a phone from Italy to Cordon Electronics (France) than from Poland (my case).

5

I’m from Italy too and I had to contact the support for a hardware issue (that they solved).

My advice is to talk to a real person directly from the chat, they will create the issue for you and they will tell you what to do next.

The whole support process may be slow (poke them on the chat if your issue isn’t receiving updates for some time), but in the end they will do their best to help you.

P.S.

You can create an issue even from the Fairphone app which, if I remember it correctly, is a better experience than on the website (it’s just an interface to the website but at least the language is not changed randomly).

6

To be honest I am shocked by the user experience described. First of all we are customers who paid money for a working phone. And it’s not our duty to find workarounds for an almost non-existing customer support that seems to rely on friendly and helpful volunteers in this portal. Fairphone B.V. is a company, maybe with better ethics, but still a company and it should treat us professionally as customers. Just my two cents.