Warranty repair outside Europe

I’m currently outside Europe. My FP2 is in warranty but has stopped working.

Fairphone support emailed me to arrange a pickup. Fine, I thought. What I expected to find on the returns web page was an option for a delivery address. Instead, one is supposed to have DHL pick up the phone. That does not help me, being outside Europe!

I’ve sent several emails back to ask for a delivery address to which I can post it at my expense and that I will cover the return postage. No response to my emails. I also posted on the support ticket - again, no response.

I find this lack of communication from Fairphone disappointing, to say the least.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to proceed?

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You’ll have to send the phone to a friend in Europe and have them let DHL pick it up.

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I am not sure, if that is correct from a legal point of view.
It certainly is a good and helpful idea.
The support by FP is - sad to say so - once again not really supportive.
My guess - judging by the investment paper - would be, that they are prioritizing B2B customers, as they seem to be vital to Fairphone’s business. So, while I really understand and even support it, the outcome is not very satisfying for “just customers”.

It’s all my guessing of course; and I might be completely wrong/mistaken. Therefore, please don’t hold FP accountable for the crap I am posting. :kissing_closed_eyes:

Thanks for the comments. I have made little progress here. The difficulty is that the Fairphone Support staff do not read emails!

I have sent many, many emails to them. I have tried to explain that the Returns web page has a pull down list that has European countries. Australia is not one of them. It is not possible to complete the returns request without providing an address, which I cannot do.

All I want is an address to which I can post the phone to them at my expense.

Some of the responses I have received so far from Fairphone support are as follows.
“Please still create a request, so we can generate a label for you.”
Okay, so I explained my problem again.
Then I got:
“Thank you for your e-mail. After checking our system, we couldn’t find your request, could you please try and send it in again.”
So I explained my problem once more.
Then I got:
“Do you get an error message? Please fill all the fields and then your request will be created.”
Ahh! I just responded once again.

I also sent a second support email with a map of the world. Is geography so difficult a concept?
image

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A million emails won’t change that. Fairphone doesn’t have the legal requirements to serve customers outside Europe, so you can’t use customer service as someone living in Europe can.

Fairphone doesn’t just give out an address, because they would never be able to figure out from whom a parcel came from if it’s sent to them. Customers have to go through the appropriate return procedure and have it picked up - but that only works in Europe.

As I understood it, @rossc7 is a European customer, who just happens to not be in Europe currently.
That’s perhaps not a standard support case, but still a European customer.
Or did I get that wrong?

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From the returns policy:

Territoriality

Fairphone currently sells and delivers product(s) only to customers located in: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Holy See (Vatican City State), Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom.

If you are located outside these countries and would like to return it, you will have to ship it, taking care of the costs, to an address located in one of the aforementioned countries. Then, the parcel can be picked up there. Please contact our customer support to get more details about this process.

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Good. This makes customer support’s job very easy in this case. Cite the policy and, if needed, explain in detail what to do.
Did they do that?

I have offered to mail it and to pay costs. I would like to know to which address I should post it That is the obvious solution! Yes, I have asked for details on the process, but I get nowhere.

The solution according to the policy was already given …

That sounds like blame the customer to me. I have approached a friend and that may work out, but simply asking for a suitable address cannot be that hard to handle!

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I don’t blame you. I blame customer support for not explaining to you what to do when there even is a written clear policy in place for your exact case.

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Sorry, I really support Fairphone.
But that behaviour is not just a lack of explanation but exactly NO SUPPORT AT ALL.
It seems to be just automailing or illiterate support folk.
Why can each and every other seller present it’s customers with a RMA-number and a return-adress and FP just sticks to “We need to pick it up.”

I get it, that they do not sell outside EU, as they would have to offer support, warranty and would have to meet the technical and legal requirements of those markets.
If a legal EU customer offers to cover the costs for returning the phone and for delivery, they at least should accept that and present him with an adress. As to returning the phone to the customer, that might be a different thing.

I really have the feeling, that FP is focusing on B2B and normal customers “are left behind” in a way. Especially since they strive to expand their market shares and are working on finance and marketing.
That’s really fine by me - not to be misunderstood -, they just should at least explain that to the customers.

@Monica.Ciovica
Just to let you know of the troubles of @rossc7.
Maybe FP can find a solution or at least send some explanation to him.
When I received such a mail in the support trouble-case that brought me to this forum, this did quite a lot to reassure me and my confidence in Fairphone.

Thanks Bert. You hit the nail on the head with your comments.

I like the idea of a company that at least tries not to be unethical, which is one of the reasons I bought the phone. I also like the product, but that appearance of an ethical stance was a big part of the decision buying choice. However, this experience could be interpreted otherwise. I hope that’s not the case.

Hi @rossc7, apologies for all your inconveniences! The returns policy shared by Paula is indeed the process we have in place right now. I do understand that it’s not the most convenient to have the phone shipped to someone in Europe only to have it picked up from there by DHL, but that is the only possibility available.

As for the communication issue with our Support team, can you please send me the request number you have been using in your email exchanges with them so we can follow up and improve the way information is communicated?
Thank you,
Monica

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Please do look into this process once the investment trouble, that surely is binding lots of workforce right now, is over.
In my opinion there has to be a solution for support cases from outside of the EU - at the expense of the customer of course.
From reading in the forum for some time, to me it seems, there are quite a lot of Fairphoners, that are working abroad for longer times every once in a while. And not everyone might have someone in the EU to handle this for him/her; e.g. I would happen to be one of those people.
Therefore - planning for the medium-term - this should be part of the agenda, even if the phone is sold in the EU only (for very good reasons).
Well that’s my personal opinion of course.

Hi Monica

You will understand that I’m very unimpressed by Fairphone’s support. It comes across as bureaucratic and slow. I suspect the support agents tend to only read one or two lines, do not read the history, and then make hasty deductions; there is little or no in-depth support. To be frank, it’s amateurish.

I may have missed it, but I cannot even find a telephone number for support, which for a telephone manufacturer seems ludicrous.

I cannot be the only person who has bought a phone from Fairphone and used it outside Europe!

The request number is 248652.

Thanks for your interest.

Ross

Hi Ross,
I flagged your case to our Support team and explained the ‘back and forth’ you’ve been having with the request. They should be in touch with you.
However, in terms of the warranty procedure, the process stays the same. We have to stick to our ‘Returns policy’ for legal requirements.

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