Hi all - new here. I’ve had a terrible recent experience with FF5 and wondering if anyone else has had similar.
The power button broke after only two or three months so sent off to repair to Cordon - a third party. They send back photos saying the USB port had been oxidised, invalidating the warrenty, despite this being nothing to do with the power button fault.
In addition the phone has never been in contact with water and I strongly dispute it being misused, unless they class misuse as using in a “humid” environment like a normal kitchen or bathroom? Even if I were to pay for repair how can I have confidence the oxidation - it if wasn’t pre-existing - won’t happen again?
Fairphone is refusing to help and saying I have to pay the full cost of repair or even to return unrepaired. I suspect now it was never a new phone - perhaps reused parts?
I didn’t want to post here as was hoping FP would want to put this right but they are being really evasive about answering my direct questions and are just saying “there’s nothing we can do.” This on top of an earlier bad experience I had with FP3.
The idea of a five year plus lifespan seems ludicrous.
I’m feeling very foolish for giving them another chance.
My first experiences with the FP2 were quite frustrating as well. Fairphone would just refuse to respond in any adequate way.
Never had any issues with my FP3, FP4 or FP5. Then again it’s not the hardware that makes most of the problems it’s the Fairphone support.
Could you not just repair the button yourself? From your description it’s not clear what the exact problem is but repairing a button sounds doable.
The following is not addressing how to rlace/repair the buttons of a FP5 but might be a good start still… (I will keep looking to find a more current repair guide)
They’re asking for around £100 - it’s not a huge sum but it feels very wrong I have to pay anything and it opens the question as to whether this means my entire guarantee is invalid forever - so any further issues - which I now expect - won’t be covered.
Hi. I understand your frustration and sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience.
The thing is the oxidization voids the warranty, it is very clearly stated at the warranty rules and in the support pages.
I find this clause pretty common.
The general advice would be to check the phone for water damage before submitting it under the warranty claim as it is clearly stated this is the first thing they check.
I guess one claim oxidization should not happen if the phone was used indoors. I am not sure though how one could proceed with such a claim.
Yeah this is sort of where I am - my primary disupute is misuse - it hasn’t been. Or have parts of the phone been reused? An electronic engineer friend of mine says he think this is likely in combination with the power button fault that shouldn’t happen to a new model. They are also refusing to directly answer what they consider misuse to be - suggesting to me that they might know this happens even with normal use making it a design or construction problem.
Also yeah I get its a common clause for phones - but this seems to assume that normal use doesn’t cause oxidation. If normal use can then Fairphone should be very upfront about this not just in small print as it is VERY out of sync with every other manafacturer.
I guess I could try to fix it myself but I really don’t want to or feel I should. If Fairphone’s approach is going to be “this is a repairable phone so it will break a lot and you should be ready to fix it yourself at your own cost” then fair enough but they should say this very clearly and certainly not use stuff like a five year gurarantee so prominently in marketing which now feels a scam. As in “yeah but we won’t actually fix it if it breaks.”
But an official repair by the official repair support would revalidate/reinstate the warenty… would it not? At least that was my understanding until now… because what any other reason would there be to go through so much trouble…
So in case something breaks again you should be able to claim warenty. Any one here who can confirm this assumption. Might be also a good idea to ask that the repair guys and Fairphone directly.
Yeah perhaps - but then what’s the point? As in I have a warranty but it didn’t give me any protection because they said the phone had oxidation even though I’ve never misused it and it has never touched water. So what’s the point of me paying for repair given it’s likely this will just happen again? The most frustrating thing of all is I think the most likey outcome is Fairphone stonewalls me, I end up having to buy a new phone from another company which makes it both expensive and an enviromentally poor choice,
I think the best advice for other potential customers might be:
Check the phone when you buy it new for pre-existing oxidation.
Be aware it is fragile, likely to break and not to assume that Fariphone will be helpful if/when it does.
If people want to go ahead and buy one then I guess fine.
What I find a bit strange is that they claim oxidation is a problem for repair when my Fairphone 3+ does show at least some oxidation because it have been way too much in the rain. They just repaired the power button after warranty for less.
I don’t think this is what happened.
They are expected to proceed as described on their support page
Before performing any warranty repair, we check the integrity of these indicators along with other signs of clear oxidation which can help determine the presence of water damage. If any exposure to liquid, moisture or dampness is detected, it will void your warranty
I understand it’s unfortunate that it happened, and the user can try to raise that with the support, but as I mentioned before I see it as a common procedure.