Repair shop may have bricked my phone

[b0redom]

Hi All,
Looking for a bit of a legal steer here. I took my iPhone to a local repair shop as it was no longer connecting to wifi/4g. After about a week they came back and said they thought it was a daughterboard issue, and advised me it would be about £150 to repair, but they'd need to send it off to their head office.

A week or so later I called them up to find out what was happening, and the guy asked me what was I planning on doing with the phone? At this point alarm bells started ringing. They told me that they'd taken the phone to pieces, replaced the daughter board, put it back together and now the phone wouldn't turn on.

I had a whinge at them and they've subsequently told me that they can replace the whole motherboard and that will (probably) fix the problem, but that's going to cost a total of £250.

The phone in question is an iPhone X 256GB so it's probably worth doing. This all happened before Xmas, and they've not come back to me. I suspect they're going to tell me that it's still dead when I call them up and ask what is going on.

Do I have any sort of comeback here? I realise there was a problem with the phone before, but at least it powered up. Surely they can't just give it back to me in a worse condition than when I handed it to them and shrug their shoulders?

[Jonj1611]

I would say you do, it wasn't broken before you took it to them and now it is.

I am currently learning the ways of phone repair and microsoldering and the iphone x mainboard is 2 boards soldered together.

It is true the wifi chip is on the 2nd part of the board however also on that board is one of the power chips, my guess is they have tried to either fix one of the caps on the board and buggered it up or tried to replace the wifi chip and done the same thing.

Either way its their responsibility and even if they couldn't fix it they should return it to you in the same condition, ie working.

[Ferral]

One thing I would say is do not take it back no matter what or they could say it was fine when you collected it or say you never even took it to them for repair. I would say get in touch with them to find out what is going on and then also get in touch with Trading Standards

[Saracen999]

I think you're either going to have to rely on them doing the right thing, or you're going to have to force the issue. The latter may require being able to prove what was, and wasn't working when you gave it to them to fix. What paperwork did you get from them and does it itemise what needs to be done?

If not, you might have trouble with "you said, they said" about the nature of the problem.

This is always the problem with repairing tech gear. At this point, you'll probably end up with that £250 quote and, if you don't proceed, a bill for "investigating" the issue. Which generally, is fair enough - it is hard to accuratelt determine what's wrong until you start taking it apart.

I don't envy you this one.

[Jonj1611]

I wouldn't expect to take something to the shop just for it to be returned broken, taking that particular phone apart will not break anything, incompetence will though putting it back together.

Secondhand mainboards for that phone are around £200 and even in the trade you have to get them from secondhand devices. Sounds like they are just going to buy a secondhand board and charge for the privilege of fitting it. A "normal" wifi fix on a phone like that I would expect to be in the £60 range.

I would be livid if it was me.

On the other hand if you do receive a broken phone back I will give you £50 for it

[Saracen999]

I wouldn't expect to take something to the shop just for it to be returned broken, taking that particular phone apart will not break anything, incompetence will though putting it back together. ...

Agreed. It shouldn't happen. And maybe the shop will be decent about it.

But if they're not, and b0redom did ask for a bit of a legal steer, the issue will be proving what happened. What if, when (and if) it gets to court the shop say "But, yer judgeship, it was bricked when he gave it to us".

Hopefully, they'll be decent and do what we'd all hope for. I just wouldn't bet on it. But then, I'm a cynic and hopefully, wrong. b0redom, I guess, is thinking that way too, though.

[Jonj1611]

Have you got anything in writing? Emails etc to say it was working when they had it then they attempted the repair and now it doesn't work?

[matts-uk]

Do I have any sort of comeback here? I realise there was a problem with the phone before, but at least it powered up. Surely they can't just give it back to me in a worse condition than when I handed it to them and shrug their shoulders?

Have they broken the contract you agreed with them?
Have you suffered a financial loss?

Unless the contract included a promise to fix your phone for a quoted price I suspect you will struggle. Generally repair services are sold as best efforts time and expertise - You could do the work yourself but you have chosen to pay for the time it takes someone else to do it for you. There is an inferred condition that the work will be carried out with a reasonable degree of workmanship commensurate with the price that is charged. Be careful with not accepting your phone back as the contract may include a 'lien' clause and entitlement to charge for storage.

Typically the maximum liability is the direct financial loss that can be demonstrated. Taking a phone to a repair shop implies the phone was broken. As far as I can see you are reduced to arguing over the difference between one broken phone and another.

I am not a lawyer but I have seen disputes like this pan out in small claims.

[b0redom]

So I have this which kind of proves it parts of it were working when I handed it over.

[philehidiot]

If you have proof it was working then they have caused damage and should put it back to working condition.

There are some repair shops which will say (reasonably in my view) "we know that this job is fiddly and there's a chance we will cause damage to other parts whilst making the repair. The worst case scenario is X and we would only charge you cost of parts for repairing any damage we cause attempting to undertake the work. If you don't explicitly agree to this, feel free to take it elsewhere or return to the manufacturer for repair". But this should be made explicity clear and be in writing. Otherwise, the onus is on them to put it back to the original condition.

But, if they are trying it on in this way, you may have no choice but to go down the trading standards / small claims route.

You might try posting something on the "money saving expert" forums, as there are lots of Consumer Rights Act nerds on there. Or, threatening them with a complaint to Which magazine. Especially if they are a nationwide business who rely on reputation to suceed.

I'd be livid if this was me.

EDIT: Their website has a Trustpilot 5* logo but their rating is acutally 4*. Google reviews are 4.7-5* with numerous ratings. This may be to your advantage as they might not want to spoil their good reviews.

Additionally, the Company is owned by Wiji Gorwara, an Afghani who now has Dutch nationality and is aged 31ish. He has a degree in Finance and Financial Management. He lives in Surrey and his email address is wiji@phonesurgeryonline.co.uk. He has been doing free repairs for the NHS recently. You could try 07950 363256 as a phone number.

I got bored.

[virtuo]

Additionally, the Company is owned by Wiji Gorwara, [[doxx]]
...
I got bored.

Wiji Bored. Sorry

[ACBRAH]

wiji@phonesurgeryonline.co.uk[/email]. He has been doing free repairs for the NHS recently. You could try 07950 363256 as a phone number.

seems like a responsible CEO/owner. Nothing like the phone repair shops here. Rubbish quality work.

[philehidiot]

seems like a responsible CEO/owner. Nothing like the phone repair shops here. Rubbish quality work.

Aye, sounds like a decent bloke, which is why I gave contact details. His stores also have really good reviews on customer service but, there is a line in the online disclaimer saying that repairs may cause faults. If you walked into a shop and these terms were not presented to you and you didn't interact with the website, you probably can't be said to have entered into that contract.

I expect one phone call / email to the guy would sort this out.

[philehidiot]

As for the doxx comment, be very careful when making such accusations.

That information is all public and mostly taken from the website, facebook and linkedin. He has chosen to release his name as CEO of the company as part of his marketing of both self and business. If that is doxxing, you can say that going to the Conservatives homepage and seeing the leader is Boris and writing that on the internet is doxxing.

If the guy had not chosen to make that name, email and that phone number public as a means of contact, I wouldn't have posted it. The history gives context for how you approach the problem. He has come over here and built a business of multiple stores from seemingly nothing (looks like he started working in call centres and worked his way up from the bottom), as well as getting a degree. Atop that he's been offering free services to the NHS during the pandemic and is proud of his near spotless review status. Sounds like a decent bloke who has worked hard for what he has and is rightly proud of it. That gives ample information on how to approach the problem and, again, is all in the public domain.

I chose not to share his home address, middle name and date of birth because they weren't relevant. I also didn't share several other "juicy" details which came up as that is gossip and doesn't help solve the problem at hand.

If admin think that the above represents doxxing, they can feel free to delete it and slap me. I'd class that as aggregating the public contact details, directing you to the boss who can resolve your problem and giving some background into the guy and company so you can see he's not obviously a prat.

/rant.

[PlusNomad]

Are they charging the £250 on top of the £150 they already charged you?

If not then I think its probably worth going for and a bit less than sketchy, warrants a bad review but not much more. If they are charging both prices rather than just £100 more then I definitely think you can seek legal aid unless you specifically saw and agreed to terms saying they are allowed to.

Also I know this thread is a week old I'm just curious to ask you if you have any updates on this story yet.