Unfiltered Story #174542

(We do repairs for mobile phones. Most are free of charge under the warranty unless it is customer damage, at which point we have to charge)

Me: “Thanks for calling [company] repair centre, how can I help you today?”

Customer: “I sent my phone in to you and the screen was damaged so I had to pay over £100 to get it fixed but when I got it back, the screen was still broken.”

Me: “I am very sorry to hear that – it may have happened in transit. Can I take your reference please?” The customer gives me an old sounding reference, so I bring up a list of all the jobs we have on record for her, but I can only find one.

Me: “Can I just confirm if this was the repair from February?”

Customer “Yes that is right”

Me: “I am very sorry, but this was repaired and returned to you 9 months ago. We have not had any communication from you regarding this before today, so the only thing I could advise would be to book it back in, but we would have to charge for the repair again.”

Customer: “Are you having a laugh? I have already paid for this repair in February and you have not done the job. If I pay you to do something, legally you need to do it.

Me: “I am sorry, but I do see that a repair was carried out and the parts were replaced, and it passed the quality checks before we sent it back. My guess would be it happened in transit. If that is the case we need to let the courier know within 14 days -”

Customer: “That is unacceptable. Who has the time to call within 14 days? Do your repairs not have a guarantee?”

Me: “Our outside of warranty repairs have a 30 day guarantee. Had you called us within that time we would have been able to investigate-”

Customer: “Unacceptable. I have had a baby and had other things to do! I have not used the phone. You can check my phone records. There is no way I am paying you another £100 to fix my phone when you failed to do it the first time.”

(The customer continues to rant for a few minutes about how we need to check her phone records to prove that she hasn’t used it despite her contract costing £45 a month, and how she has been too busy since having a baby to call to deal with such “minor” matters. She then announces she is going to pass me over to her mother)

Customer’s mother: “As my daughter said, this is unacceptable. If you pay a company to do something, it needs to be done or the money needs to be refunded.”

Me: “As I have advised your daughter, if something does go wrong, there is a procedure in place, but we do need to be notified within 14 days if damaged during delivery, or in some cases at the absolute most within 30 days. As we have not been contacted until today, which is 9 months since we sent it back, we are unable to open an investigation. I am sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.”

Customer’s mother: “Unacceptable, outrageous and despicable. She has told you she has not used the phone – she has not been able to as she has had a baby and it is very hard work. The fact you expect us to tell you in that timescale is disgusting! I am going to report you to trading standards, then you will be sorry! *click*