it is not clear to me (and other users) when a customer just gets a replacement module for the Fairphone 2 and when a customer has to send the whole phone in. In the forum here are different cases where the treatment was different: While one customer just gets a new module from support, another customer with the same problem had to send in the whole device. So let’s collect support cases and how they were treated.
It’s a wiki. So click on the green pencil in the upper right corner to edit the post.
Please add your forum user name and your problem (short description, a link to the correspondent thread if such a one exists) to the correspondent list. Do also mention if the problem occurred for the first time or if the support already exchanged the affected module before. I added my case and those by @bfb as examples in the lists.
.@Patrick1 - got a new camera module after providing sample images for inspecting the focusing issue. Then received my spare part for self-replace promising to get the broken one recycled properly. All went fine within a few days back in last July. I love items being able to get repaired so smooth.
How I understood the AMA and some posts from an unhappy FP1 user here, they use an external repair center. So most phones will have to be send to them and they decide on how to proceed. Also they have to ensure that is was not the users fault, I assume. (@anon48893843 called it “been swimming in river” )
But @anon48893843 also told me “… Since having a repair center in the Netherlands is expensive (Dutch labour costs…) you want to make to make sure that when a phone is sent to our repair center, it really needs to go there.”
So it’s all a bit confusing, so I guess they don’t have a good workflow establish for all this already. @anon48893843 called it “Not because FP2 is a bad product, but the modularity, the reverse logistics coming with the modularity and the complexity of our systems and processes overall made it difficult to keep up.”
The did not told any details so it’s difficult to speculate about this or … and that’s even worse … help them. Using Zendesk and having an external repair center sounds pretty good to me. The only open question I still have: What kind of problems do all the phones they get back mostly have? Is it just the “normal” module/phone error rate they couldn’t handle? I personally don’t think so … it looks like they have to handle a big mix of software/firmware/module related issues.
An answer to this could also help answering your questions above. If the camera module is known to be broken in a certain unrepairable way, the phone does not really need to be sent in, all you need is a new module.
That is also in my interest as a customer. I don’t want to send my expensive phone around with lots of personal data, settings and apps on it and put the phone and its contents in jeopardy of loss and damage if it’s not really necessary.
Of course, sometimes sending the whole phone in is necessary. Like when the phone does not work at all. Or the problem is not solved by exchanging the module.
If I always want to send the whole phone around when something is not working, I could buy a smartphone of another brand where even the battery should not be replaced by the user.
Maybe it’s a good idea to add the date (or month) when the issue occurred, because there seemed to be a change in Fairphone’s reuests to send in phones some weeks / months ago.
In the beginning they generally (or mostly) asked to send the phone in because they needed to find out themselves what kinds if issues existed and how to solve them. Lateron there was a move to more often send out modules for self-repair instead. At least that’s my perception from some forum threads I read.
I got a new bottom module because the speaker disorted at high volume. I asked from the beginning for the new part and said that I could replace it myself. Didn’t have to send back the broken one. this happened in the middle of march.
@BeMiGro I agree I think that it is better to specify the exact date when the issue occurred.Mainly depends upon the intensity of the issue.Most issues can be fixed with a self repair.
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