I submitted a request (#117824) 3 weeks ago because the screen of my Fairphone suddenly went broken. (It remains black all the time. Even the Fairphone logo doesn’t appear while booting.)
Since 2 days the status of my request changed from “OPEN” to “AWAITING YOUR REPLY”.
I don’t understand exactly what this means, as I still didn’t get a reply.
Did you check your spambox?
Oh. There it is. I have it.
Hello everyone, well, I should say Hello Fairphone-Team since this massage is directed to you guys 
.
I send a repair-request on the 10th of JUNE (!) about my completely dead FP2 and have not recieved an answer yet. My ticket number is 109726 and I already checked all possible solutions, but nothing worked. I begin to become slightly frustrated, but I’m trying real hard not to since I know you have been busy. Could someone PLEASE answer my request?
Hey supporters,
my support ticket (#106117) isn’t getting answered for ages. I tried to return my phone through the return portal, but unfortunately DHL seems to have lost it. Today the returns page doesn’t even display the issue anymore, so I can’t even check whether the phone has arrived by chance in the meantime. There’ a lot of questions without answer.
This is extremely unsatisfying as there’s a lot of money at stake.
Please urgently get in touch with me!
Hey Guys,
I know you are doing your best and I also think it’s the fairest way to handle things like @Douwe told us 16days ago, but I’m a little frustrated, too. I’m not frustrated because it takes so long to get an aswer (okay perhaps a little bit), but mainly I’m frustrated because of having no idea how long it will take to get an answer.
It would be nice if you give an update on which ticket(number) is under progress, so we (your customers) could make a rough estimation of the waiting time. I think it would calm us down - at least me.
Perhaps every day or every two days shortly before end of work? Would be my proposal…
I would much appreciate that.
Best regards
This is mainly a community forum, so don’t count on Fairphone staff reading your message here. Best way to urge action from Fairphone is to call them.
Thanks for the tip and sorry for possible spamming. Calling from abroad is not a viable option as it’s fairly costy, though.
I really don’t understand why they offer a support system if no one ever answers…
The problem is that the support is overworked and accumulated a huge backlog. They recently doubled the size of the team in order to get back on track. See:
https://www.fairphone.com/2016/08/04/were-sorry-to-keep-you-waiting-an-update-from-customer-support/
If a regular phone call is too expensive for you (even though within the EU with most providers the phone costs are pretty low in the mean time), you could also call them via VOIP (for example via skype it is only 2.1 cents per minute). This usually very cheap.
Hey Guys,
here is an Update for those who are still waiting.
My Request with the Nr. #119400 has just been solved.
Regards
My ticket nr. got answered after almost two months waiting with a link to the Fairphone Return Portal. They told me, they will send me an email within 48 hours with all instructions (“After your request was registered, we will check and approve it within 48 hours (during working days)”).
Now, 3 days later, still no email.
So don´t expect too much, just because your ticket gets answered…
I´m honestly disappointed…
Dear Fairphone Team,
I am still waiting for a reply to my Ticket #122985.
It has already been 3 weeks, numerous emails and no one seems to be answering my calls at your hotline.
Since I had not received an answer to my first email, I have sent my Fairphone 2 to the following address:
FP c/o Rhenus Advanced Service
Ekkersrijt 2060A
5692 BA SON & BREUGEL
THE NETHERLANDS
Has the phone arrived? Has it been checked? When can I expect an answer to my request?
Kind Regards
Christopher
Please do not send packages on your own to Fairphone. That will cause even more delays as you break their return process. Maybe they don’t know whose phone it is and what you want (repair? money back?) and have to research it. Maybe it’s at a wrong address (headquarters/office, distribution center and repair center are at different addresses) and they have to forward it.
Please:
Just 3 days ago, I got a first response to my ticket, 5 weeks after I submitted it.
Response times of more than 2 weeks still seem to be the status quo. Fairphone attempted to get their backlog cleared this month (September), but I feel like this goal will be missed when people are still waiting several weeks for their tickets to be answered. We’ll see.
If people post in here, how long it took for their ticket to be answered, the community might get an idea how things are developing in this regard.
It is now more that one month ago that I handed in ticket no 118936 and still no answer (apart from that their response time is slow for the next few weeks)
My Fair phone does not work and I have had to by anotherone (not Fairphone obvisously). Fairphone may be sustainable, but having to by two phones because it does not work is NOT sustainable at all!
If support is overworked employ more people or (better) produce better phones!!
If you scroll up in this thread, you’ll find that they actually did increase the people working in support, from 8 to 20 (or even more now).
Repeating myself from Everything is a problem [solved]:
Ok, I’ve truly had ENOUGH.
I bought my Fairphone in 2015 and to this date I’ve not had a usable phone.
I got a replacement recently but oh, surprise! It’s faulty too.
I submitted the return claim a few days ago and had no reply, confirmation email or anything else, so I logged in today to find that my return claim is sitting in drafts! IT WAS SUBMITTED THE FIRST TIME!!
I had to go through the whole process of filling in the form again. As the form says, I expect a reply within 48 hours.
I have to say that at this point what I want is a FULL REFUND which I’m entitled to according to European law as the replacement is also faulty.
Edit:
and suddenly there are 2 return claims appearing. I really don’t know what to think anymore. If the first claim was submitted why did it suddenly appear as a draft AND how come I’ve had no confirmation or anything else?
Pity that you’ve had such bad luck with your phone and then also with your return claim. Things like that shouldn’t happen, but inthe end, Murphy’s Law cannot be eliminated.
To quote @freibadschwimmer from another thread:
Yes, let’s blame Murphy’s law for bad after sales service, a bad product and a bad web system. While we’re at it we can also blame Murphy for a complaints system that makes you send an email and once you get no reply it makes you go to a public forum to list your claim number ?!?!?? Seriously?? what kind of system is this?
I also find all the support suggestions for problems that are clearly WIDESPREAD laughable. “Wiggle this or wiggle that” that would be great if I had bought a toy in a €1 shop but I’m afraid that is NOT the case. I payed a premium price for what I though was a premium product but that’s clearly not the case.
How can it be acceptable to still not have a usable phone after 10 months? Ahh! must be Murphy’s law.
Firstly: Do you use any Ad- or Script-Blockers in your browser (NoScript, Ghostery, AdBlock …)? They could cause unexpected behaviour on some websites, for instance if necessary scripts cannot be loaded/executed or certain browser operations are blocked. I realized that one of these prevents me from logging into my 12return account, so I disabled them for this particular page.
Secondly: Fairphone is barely to blaim for a system they rent from a service provider, namely 12return. I don’t know to what extent Fairphone can customize that software, but if the system itself has an error, it’s most likely the maintainer 12return who is to blaim.
Thirdly: It is absolutely reasonable for the support to suggest seemingly dull or stupid “first aid” actions. If you had worked in IT support (which I did professionally for a short time and am still doing on a hobby basis), you would know how utterly stupid some “problems” actually are and how many unnecessary tickets are created by issues which you can solve by absolutely simple actions (e.g. “unplug your whatever” or “reboot your device”).
Finally: If you consider 520€ a “premium price” and expect premium hardware and services, you obviously didn’t understand what Fairphone is about. Take a look at the cost breakdown of the Fairphone 2 to learn where the money goes.
For instance: Just because a certain degree of the phone’s price is invested for “green” projects and to reduce the exploitation of people, doesn’t make the product or it’s producer automatically better in technical terms or in terms of provided services.
And by the way:
Since you seem to read my “murphy’s law” statement as the explanation for everything, let me clearify:
It is NOT an explanation. Saying “anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” simply means that in the end, there will always be that hand full of incidents, where - for whatever reason - the worst will happen (not saying that you are one of these). Even though, you might not be the only one having a bad time, I doubt that your case is any close to being common or usual.