Is Fairphone Support no longer available?

[yvmuell]

@mdelladio

My email, which I repeated several times, received a response after a month and a half.

While the waiting time is far too long, repeated mails dont speed up, they rather cause the opposite.

@mdelladio

On October 16th, support received the phone, informing me that work had begun and that I would need to wait for a replacement part to complete it. It’s now the end of October and all is quiet: the replacement part is still pending, and it’s unclear when the “mission” will be completed.

Just to make that clear: the phone is not with Fairphone support its at a third party repair center. So who informed you about the delay? If not Fairphone support,.get in contact with them.

@mdelladio

the purchase contract provides for the return of the product for a refund/replacement, without a reason, within 14 days of purchase, and this behavior toward the customer is a first serious breach of contract.

I’m not sure I understand this correctly, in Germany you can return a product within 14 days by law, so in Germany I dont see a serious breach from what you describe above? So you are unhappy with the time span, or was you asked to give a reason and there was no option to select “I dont want to give a reason” ?
Normally even if FP does not respond, its enough to claim the 14 Day return period in that period. I think in the meantime the new repair portal covers this

Btw I moved your post here

[mdelladio]

It’s true. The manufacturer uses Cordon Electronics for support, but this is a manufacturer’s choice, not the end user’s. An email was forwarded to Fairphone, who responded that they would be interested in contacting and urging Cordon, but nothing happened.

The 14-day return policy also exists in Italy, but to do so and therefore find out who to return the product to and how, you need to contact them first. But if an email is answered after a month and a half, where would you find the procedure and the address to use for the return?

[janweiss]

@mdelladio

The 14-day return policy also exists in Italy, but to do so and therefore find out who to return the product to and how, you need to contact them first. But if an email is answered after a month and a half, where would you find the procedure and the address to use for the return?

As long as you sent the email within 14 days after purchase to Fairphone, you’re covered and they will send you the details of where to send it to after a while. Even if you’ve had it laying around for a month and a half by then, you can still send it back and get the refund once you got the reply from Fairphone.

[mdelladio]

I already suggested replacing it as a quick fix, but it wasn’t even considered. This behavior is simply shameful.

[yvmuell]

@mdelladio

Cordon Electronics for support

Not for support, for repair only, just to avoid misunderstanding.

@mdelladio

I already suggested replacing it as a quick fix

Is different to

@mdelladio

The 14-day return policy also exists in Italy

So did you make use of the 14- days period or did you directly ask for repair?

Overall you have to sort that out with support, maybe it helps to use the online chat (business hours can be found on FPs homepage)

[Meaghan]

Hello @mdelladio
I am sorry to hear about your experience which must have been understandably frustrating.

It will not necessarily help you but perhaps for other users it might be helpful to clarify few things.

In order to return the device within a 14 days period you need to contact the support and specifically ask for that. I understood you initially contacted the support to have it repaired and this is a different procedure. However, the waiting times in July were too long and that I believe might have reduced your options.

Now there is a repair portal that sped up warranty claims and I hope your experience will not be repeated.

Please also note the online chat availability as suggested by @yvmuell

Finally, the repair portal includes the option to track the repairs. Given you have been provided with any number, you could try checking this option.

[mdelladio]

You’re right, but I hadn’t actually initially requested either a repair or a replacement. In good faith, I simply reported a problem that, not having specific expertise, I could also attribute to the presence of incompatible apps, etc. It wouldn’t have been logical to request a replacement without reporting a problem that could have been easily resolved.
Having noticed that a proprietary app was installed on the smartphone (to be used upon request from support), I even suggested checking accordingly. But I didn’t receive a response to all this until a month and a half later. If I had used a carrier pigeon, I might have been more understanding…
It’s also true that the repair portal provides tracking information, but since they received the smartphone on October 15th, and now we’re on the 29th, it continues to indicate that they’re waiting for a replacement. Even the intervention of a kind and helpful representative on the Fairphone support portal, who had anticipated their work on the Cordon, had no effect.
So I see it as a matter of consistency: flaunting ethics and alternative visions doesn’t sit well with botched and unfair behavior. Essentially, I purchased a product four months ago that I’m still unable to use, and this, in my opinion, is shameful behavior.

[yvmuell]

@mdelladio

, I simply reported a problem that

And thats actually not claiming the 14-day return period. Reporting issues is somethibg different and will if not solvable remotely initiate a repair.

To resend within 14 days, you just need to say within the 14 days “I want to send it back”.

And I say this just to clarify wording, not say you made anything wrong.

I can only advise to get in contact with support via the online chat to ask how long repair takes or to ask for options, like replacement. We user feel you, however cant really help to sort that out

[wheelie]

I can confirm, that after chatting with an Agent, I got contacted within 3 days. Nevertheless, the newest Update has finally resolved my issue…

[Thomathan]

I’m getting really frustrated with my Fairphone experience and wanted to share the situation here to see if anyone has advice or similar experiences.

I bought my Fairphone 4 in 2022. Overall it’s been a mixed experience, but things really took a turn after one of the major Android updates. The battery life became noticeably worse, and I couldn’t find a real solution despite trying different settings (5G off, resets, etc.). Eventually I gave up on improving it and just lived with it.

Then in June this year, a new problem appeared: the phone started randomly restarting whenever the screen locks while running on battery. The reboots often happen in a loop every ~5 minutes — the phone restarts, reaches the lock screen, and then restarts again. The device essentially became unusable.

I replaced the battery, ran through the full troubleshooting process (multiple times), and even tested the phone with all optional components disabled (no SIM, no Wi-Fi, no NFC, no mobile data). The problem still occurs. After finishing all the required steps, I opened a support ticket in June.

Unfortunately, the ticket was automatically closed on October 6th due to a “backlog clean-up,” without any actual response. They suggested their new support portal was better, so I went through the entire troubleshooting procedure again — including applying a software update that came out in the meantime — only to end up at the same result. The one difference was that I could now directly request a repair with Cordon, so I sent the phone in.

Cordon then returned the phone saying they could not reproduce the issue, with a generic note ”power cycle your device regularly. Before using an application, be sure to close other applications. The software update is recommended to correct any bugs.” They essentially only applied the same software update I had already confirmed was installed before sending the phone in.

Before sending the device, I recorded a video clearly showing the restart issue on a freshly reset system. I also recorded a new video right after receiving it back, showing how quickly the reboot loop happens (it only took about 5 minutes including setup). I’m now going to send these videos to support and hope they actually look into it.

At this point, I’m honestly close to giving up and buying another phone — which is frustrating, because the entire reason I chose Fairphone was to avoid frequent replacement.

[abittner]

june… autoclose in october, repair place doing exactly nothing. you cant make these things up if you wanted to. sorry to hear about your dreadful situation.

you can absolutely recommend fairphone as a brand and as devices to absolutely nobody at all, that much is clear, and not only just recently. noone and nobody.

never did. never will.

[Thomathan]

Yes, this leaves me stuck with my outdated Oneplus 3 since then which does not support many recent apps anymore (and we don’t want to talk about security updates in that regard…)

I just wrote an email with the videos to info.fairphone@cordongroup.com (repair centre) because you can’t even directly create a support ticket with fairphone anymore if you select “I experience a problem / My product is broken”.
I understand that repairs need to go through them, but it feels like Fairphone Support is completely out of the loop, and as a customer it makes the whole process feel quite disconnected? Anyway I’m hoping I get a proper response from them.

[Meaghan]

Hi
I am sorry to hear about your experience.
The repair portal is indeed limited in certain regards but you can also submit a ticket using the website

https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

[Thomathan]

Yes, that’s the one I meant and I had another look at it.

If you select “I experience a problem / My product is broken” it is strongly suggested you can only “Diagnose the issue” (which leads to the repair site) because the once visible “Submit” button disappears.

The diagnose site suggest you have two ways to solve your issue - you can send in your device for a repair or repair the problem yourself - no mention of a support ticket.

If you walk trough the troubleshooter (6 questions +), describing your problem in “one line” and hit the “Request a repair” button, you will get another login, another device selection and IMEI input - and then - instead of requesting a shipping label, you can indeed submit a support ticket.
And hopefully you entered everything important into that one line, before you pressed “Request a repair”, because after selecting the customer support ticket route the ticket is immediately created and that’s the only place for you to enter information yourself.

If you want a quick repair, I get why you would design it that way. But you might end up needing customer support later anyway and for that it’s not a great process.

[Meaghan]

Hi
Yes
Thanks for that. I also understand the rationale behind guiding the users in their troubleshooting process but in some cases it is pretty restricting.

What I meant was a classical support ticket, without going through the self-diagnosis, just choosing something else.

[CeceR]

Hi, yes, thanks for answering,
The microphone seem not to be broken because it works when I use the speakers when speaking to some one who calls from messenger

I have contacted the Fairphone support in august, I can not contact the seller in Sweden as their warranty is two years phone is more then two years old, and there is but Fairphone has a fiver year long warrant/garantee so they are legaly the on who should fix this.

[Meaghan]

Hello
From what you said (running the diagnostics and learning that mic 3 is not working, also saying that people cannot hear you well), I am implying that indeed one of your microphones is broken. There are three different microphones on FP5 and also on FP4 and I believe which one is used depends on the settings (apps and hands-free mode might use a different microphone).

Location of FP4 microphone(s?)

I’m a happy user of FP4, but sometimes people I’m phoning complain that they can’t hear me, and I think that I can help that by talking directly into the microphone. But I’ve never actually worked out where the microphone is, and I’ve searched the website without finding any answer to the question. An embarrassing question but we’re among friends here.

Fairphone website on warranty quite clearly suggests that you need to contact the seller in case of any problems.

Claiming your warranty. If you need to make a warranty claim, you should always approach the company you originally purchased the device from. The costs for any repairs, replacements and shipping, if applicable, will be arranged by that company.

I have tried to find the relevant information also in the legal hub, and while it is bit more vague, they seem to reiterate this information. I have also run it with their AI bot.

I understood that your two-year guarantee expired but I would still suggest contacting the seller, also because as you noted the FP customer support has - regrettably - not been responsive.

I don’t think I will be able to help you any further.
My suggestions:

• contact the seller
• try to contact FP via online chat

Alternatively you may reach out to some Swedish Angels based in Stockholm, 👼 The Fairphone Angels Program and Map (Local support by community members)

[anon66320559]

@FFMbyBicycle

“Please note, we are closing all original support tickets in an effort to streamline our backlog and clear out cases that might not need our intervention anymore

Wow… This deserves some clarification from the new CM @Fairphone_CM I guess… Why not entirely close down Customer Service, that will streamline even more!

[T4om]

I understand Fairphone’s decision, even though it’s not something I like to see. It must have been a painful choice to close unsolved support tickets older than a certain number of days. But given the serious issues with their support system, it’s also a logical step.

Facing a backlog of 3–4 months and struggling to keep up with new requests, there’s simply no realistic way to catch up. Closing old tickets , definitely not a nice stap, may be the only way to clear out requests that were already resolved, became irrelevant, or had no realistic chance of receiving a reply.

I hope Fairphone now has a better system in place. One where similar questions are grouped together, so known issues don’t get denied or overlooked again, like this one.

it hopefully would make responses more efficient and accurate, allowing research and writing to be done once and reused for all customers with the same concern.

This clearly wasn’t happening before, and it caused a lot of frustration for me and don’t need to read far back to see by others as well.

[yvmuell]

@anon66320559

Wow… This deserves some clarification from the new CM @Fairphone_CM I guess… Why not entirely close down Customer Service, that will streamline even more!

I already see the next monthly update posted here in the forum “its time to celebrate, our backlog is down to 0”…

@Fairphone_CM you really make it difficult for people to understand and stay constructive.