Out of stock/missing FP2 spare parts from online store

I want to share something is happening to me that is quite making me losing the confidence.
After few months of intensive usage (for business) right side of touch screen stopped working.
I got in touch with the support, went thru their recommendation and sent them screenshot of the tester application.
They recognized touch screen was defective but informed me they have no spare parts and they are changing some process so they don’t know when new part will be available.
I informed them I was is trouble, due to business usage, but I got the strange suggestion of borrowing a phone from a friend. After other two reminders I have no feedback, one week passed and no signs.

I am puzzled, some of main K factor of FP have been missing here (fair, long life cycle, easy spare parts swapping).

Any suggestion to get out from this situation?

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I understand this experience is frustrating.
But then any smartphone of any vendor may break at any given time, and repairing it may take weeks if it had to be sent in.
What is your plan of securing your business usage in that case? How about a cheap second hand backup phone?

Sure, it could be happen to any brand but spare parts lead time should be known, at least a reference. Customer service is very important, and here is failing.

My backup plan was to buy a commercial phone, even because FP2 is not available.
However this is not relevant for the problem I am spotting out.
FP2 is not entry level cheap phone, it’s customers deserve high level support or at least a fairer relationship than common manufacturer.
I do love this project, indeed I never complained about several sw issues, battery and CPU performances. Values behind the project are very important, but they are not excluding good level of service.

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According to @Douwe it should be back in stock by the end of the month. (That’s the info he added here along with info about the bottom module coming back end of May - which he was right about/off by a few days)

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Thanks.
Thumb up for the community

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Hi Marco,

I had the same issue, and it took me a couple weeks of insisting and trying until they accepted to replace my phone. Perhaps you just have to play the “angry customer” long enough for it to work.

Anyhow, as you can see by this (Parts of the touchscreen don't work - See first post for troubleshooting) thread, many people are experiencing the same issue and support told me they are a bit overwhelmed with the responses at the moment.

Good luck and let us know how it went :+1:

Hey,

Kind of the same issue here: my screen broke more than 2 months ago, and still (!) the website of FairPhone does not sell a spare display-module.

It is exactly what you say: I love the thought behind Fairphone and am promoting to my friends as “the modular phone that you don`t have to replace with a whole new phone if a part breaks”, but right now, I am lying straight into their faces and it bothers me a lot.

It is a lack of transparency, that the website of Fairphone does not even indicate when new screens would be available. Also, if you promote your phone as a phone where you can easily replaces parts of it, then just take care you have those parts in stock. This is unbelievable and very, very annoying (especially, as the screen is slowly breaking down further and I am waiting for it to totally fall apart :s ).

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Thanks for sharing.
To be honest, with this situation, it’s not my problem if they are overloaded.
It takes 30 seconds to reply something reasonable.

However I am writing them everyday, also doing the angry customer, but they don’t reply.

I am with your argumentation, but I guess right now you will not get any other information than the one @paulakreuzer replied recently:

As soon as there is any news, the community forum will be the first to know.

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Well, considering the price of FP2 I would expect a better customer service.
At least for failures they shouldn’t demand the solutioning to community…

Good luck!! FP1 users had the same problem!! As a company, they must know how common is to replace the screen, looks that they are not learning the lesson of the FP1. Maybe they have to create an undestructible screen, plastic, rather than glass, at least! I decided not to upgrade into FP2 just for that, shame!

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You may be able to buy a replacement screen from vireo.de. costs a little more.

I had to do this in January when I dropped the phone and cracked the glass.

It’s an annoying expense, more than the cost of a basic unfair phone… but that’s the reality of ethical vs non ethical business, I guess.

Actually, the vireo.de screen then stopped talking to the base module and fp replaced the whole phone with a reconditioned one … within the warranty. THAT is good service.

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Well dang, my display module died this week (went black while chatting, still got notification sounds …) and now i know why I got no support answer so far.

Its even my second display module (first one was damaged by repair center while replacing a defective camera module) and replacement took ages last time - I had to send in the whole phone instead of just recieving a spare part.

Colleagues begin to mock me because of the many repairs (and long repair times) of a phone I bought because of its supposedly fast and easy repair in the first place T_T

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Well, same here, it is just disappointing.
Opened the request on May 31st, got an answer after some day, then a lot of pain to get a serious one and then 2 weeks without any reaction despite 5 reminders.
Very bad customer service and very unfair!

So you got an answer.

Why should Fairphone answer the same request again and again when the situation has not changed so far?

Maybe you got a bad answer, but “unfair”, uhm … no, I do not think so.

Unfair at all.
I got answer, useless, then I have been left alone with no info about spare parts availability.

Customer service must be good, phone has relevant cost and it should cover also support for RMA in warranty.
I am not the only one it seemed me.

I am sure you will be contacted by Fairphone as soon as new information is available.

If it was that easy, Fairphone could disassemble one phone and send the necessary module to you. It seems, they just do not have the possibility to serve the part at the moment.

Your claim is enqueued, just like the other ones.

Do you believe it makes sense to write the same complaints over and over again? That certainly will not shorten the time it takes to process your claim.

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It does not making any sense as well as the way the “support” customers with broken devices in warranty… If it was happened to you using FP2 as business phone probably you would have had another opinion

Hi Marco. One can understand your agumentation, long wait time for reply, no screen in stock and you really need one. Feels like you did buy a product that is not what you expected. FairPhone love to sell you a new screen - if they could, I’m sure you would have a quick support reply - if they could. FairPhone has problems now, any one can see that. And yes they are not living up to what a perfect scenario would look like. But you will get a solution as soon as FairPhone is able to help you. I argue more transparency in the matter would be the best way to ease the frustration. The control is out of our hands, one word : patience.

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I think glass is more scratch-proof than plastic. A plastic screen has to be replaced after some years because of scratches.

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