Anyone get the "water damage" excuse?

I dropped my phone in water a couple weeks back. Pulled it out quick. Seemed ok except the keys on the keypad weren't all responding.
everything else like camera, bt was just fine. Well sealed i believe. It's an N73.

after a day or two all the keys were fine but the 8 key stopped working. I then took my phone to vodacare with the "i've got insurance" line and also said i'd dropped it in water. They gave me the water damage excuse, to which i candidly replied, "so what's the point in having insurance?"

sorry to say this and i hope i'm wrong, but i think we are getting bad service in general.
you don't ever seem to get the feeling that you're welcome or being listened to.

anyway, the 8 key on my phone is ok again but now the battery life seems shorter. Otherwise it's all good. One way of getting rid of that dirt you're always trying to remove :) don't try this at home folks. I was lucky i think, although the n73 seems to be moulded shut.

this is my first "water damagei" experience, and it really was, so i accepted their excuse.

i do however want to offer something to the community. Perhaps it will shed some light on this excuse.

i've noticed at times that after some time in my jeans pocket my phone has some condensation on the screen. This tells me that there's some moisture, which you would say is normal.
Here's the catch tho... Is it perhaps possible that the service centres detect moisture in your phone that resulted from this kind of exposure, eg being kept in your pocket, and then they call it water damage?

this is of course just a theory, but could be a conspiracy theory nonetheless :)

think about it. The less you have to pay out insurance claims, the more money you make.

i don't know all the specifics, but maybe others could share their experiences?
I think i may be onto something here :) stop me if u think i'm crazy
 
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Yes, I did. When I then stated I want my "water damaged" phone back, I had to pay a price, I received it in a non working state. All that was wrong was that the reception was bad. When I got it back the screen did not work, It battled to switch on, ect. I was lucky my boy wanted to play a game on it in the car and we realised it was not working as before, I knew then my parts was used to repair some elses phone and I stormed back, just before closing time, and demanded a working phone minus the reception. I refused to leave untill I saw a Senior manager. I was promised that they will restore the phone back to its former condition and I received it back a few days later working 100% fine. Still works today.

Nice ploy they use. "Sorry Sir, the phone is water damaged" Oh well just give it back then, "Sorry sir you have to pay in R150.00 to get it back".

"Ah well nevermind" 90% of people would say. I will just renew my contract. Why waste another R150.00?

Bottom line is 90% of the time they get working spares for R150.00 and resell the same for 10* more. Good bussiness.
 
Indeed, i smell a rat!

do service centres and/or technicians earn commission on repairs or what?

what's the motive for this kind of trickery? Something foul afoot
 
ianmdev said:
Indeed, i smell a rat!

do service centres and/or technicians earn commission on repairs or what?

what's the motive for this kind of trickery? Something foul afoot
Click to expand...

A whole heap of cheap parts, Technicians that cannot do their job covering their own ass and incompetance?
 
Yeah this strengthens my case that the networks care much less about devices than they do about their pockets. We care about cool phones and good service. Their goal is to coin it.

Here's my list. Feel free to add to it.

1. Problems with repairs (like insurance, water damage, bla bla bla)
2. Products out of touch with market demand (limited variety of phones and that 'take what you get' attitude).
3. Last but not least, bloated tarrifs that eat away your bank balance. Are we still paying R2 a mb for data? Let me know when it's like 10c. And R2+ per min for voice. Come on!
 
vodacare gave me a business card for 'cellshack' since they apparently do water damage repairs.

anyone had any experience with them? was it good or bad?

btw. my N73 is 100% now so no repairs required. guess the keypad just need a few days to dry out.
 
wasn't this all discussed in another thread? There's a sticker in the inside of the phone, that turns to a different colour when its exposed to moisture! This is why repair companies often fail warranty after opening the phone!
 
A few months after getting my N73 in 2007 I was removing my battery to lend it to a friend while we were camping. It was raining cats and dogs and, inevitably, one drop hit the the indicator directly. The bugger turned red. I dried the other drops off and the phone worked fine for the next 20 months.

Earlier this year I started experiencing problems with the speaker in the phone. I couldn't hear people properly and after a week or so the speaker died completely. I took the phone in to have it repaired and viola: "Eish, this is wateh damege. We cant repeh your foun."

No reasoning or explaining could get that phone repaired. I took it to a local cellphone workshop and the guy replaced the speaker for R400. Whatever.
 
Yeah it should have an indicator *inside* the phone, not just behind the battery for crying out loud.
 
What Vodacom does not tell you.. those stickers are effected by humidity. So people in Durbs are super (picture of a screw).

2 phones that were having software problems got the water damage excuse. Both were well looked after and had never got wet.

Someone should start waterdamage.co.za and get a petition going of people willing to submit affidavits to say they were taken by the same con (and I am sorry, from my own experience thats how I view it).
 
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w1z4rd said:
What Vodacom does not tell you.. those stickers are effected by humidity. So people in Durbs are super (picture of a screw).

2 phones that were having software problems got the water damage excuse. Both were well looked after and had never got wet.

Someone should start waterdamage.co.za and get a petition going of people willing to submit affidavits to say they were taken by the same con (and I am sorry, from my own experience thats how I view it).
Click to expand...

i've mentioned on this thread as well that you can even pick up moisture when your phone is in your pocket.

but then we're just the customer, so whatever we say holds no water with them (excuse the pun :) )

sad sad situation...
 
Another thing - what's the legality of the repair centres taking out working components of cellphones and replacing it with faulty components?

Surely you paid for your cellphone, and it's your property? And they're stripping your phone of working components to fix other phones... without your permission.

Just asking... anybody got an answer?
 
I was talking about this subject with a friend of mine. He had the same problem with his phone at the coast (Durbs I think). Sticker was affected by humidity and then he dropped the phone later on. Took it in for repairs and he got the water damage excuse, even though the phone was working just fine. It was only external structural damage as a result of dropping it. Lame excuse from repair centre yet again.

He gave me some really good advice:
Insure your phone under personal insurance because they also cover water damage.

He has his phone insured with Santam. Since he happens to be a financial advisor I'm going to take his advice and insure my next phone in this manner, instead of wasting 70 odd bucks a month on insurance that is really just a waste of time.

I'm thinking Vodasure etc. are a waste of time.
 
The_Librarian said:
Another thing - what's the legality of the repair centres taking out working components of cellphones and replacing it with faulty components?

Surely you paid for your cellphone, and it's your property? And they're stripping your phone of working components to fix other phones... without your permission.

Just asking... anybody got an answer?
Click to expand...

You'd probably have to prove that the parts are not the original ones (eg. by serial number) and that they were not faulty to begin with.

Difficult. And then who do you pin it on? Someone has to catch them out with a special phone that has working parts that have been marked somehow. If you get the phone back and you know for sure that 1) those parts have been removed and 2) that they working to begin with, i think you have a case.

Kind of like how they catch crooks in the movies with marked bills :)
 
I had a HTC S710 for two weeks and the ear piece stoped working. I then phoned vodacom and they said I should speak to Leaf. I got the phone to them and I was told that the phone got water damage. (something that never happened) Anyway they said they would fix it for free. I got the phone back and it worked, you have to question though if its not just a easy excuse out for all providers not to fix your phone?
 
water damage bs

I just brought a Nokia 5800 Express Music,it worked for less than 2 weeks. I switched on the camera while it was charging, it told me that a error has occurred: memory was full, please restart your phone" I had to pull out the battery to restart it, but it never turned on.


i sent it to MTN repairs, they came back with "water damage" which never happened !they refused to fix it. what a load of crap! it was working fine before the soft error!
 
Same issue with Vodacom. A mechanical error on my P990 I had sent it in for previously and it came back 'water damaged' and they broke it further (no longer picks up network signal properly). I'll never go back to them from there (and I complained everywhere and to everyone to no avail).
 
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