Very poor service from O2 repairs

[Hughmungus]

Short version, my iphone 6 wouldnt charge and eventually became unusable. As it was now 14 month old it was out of support with Apple so I contacted O2 via online chat and explained the issue. They advised my not to try any form of repair and kindly arranged for it to be sent to their repair dept for inspection.

Thats when it all went pear shaped.

The repair dept had it for 3 days and sent me a nice email with photos showing me that the lightning socket on the phone had a 'foreign body' stuck inside stopping the connection between lead and phone. The photos showed some dark stuff inside the socket which I immediatley recognised as maybe fluff from being in pockets etc. Now rather than just clean the socket and test it they went to great pains to get me to stump up £212 for a new phone as in their word mine was now u/s.

This I refused and asked for the phone back which took them another 3 days to return.

When I got it back I decided to try some major and very complicated mechanical repair which required years of training. A cocktail stick and some cotton wool, and guess what the fluff was removed and the phone is now working.

Some will say why didnt I do this in the first place, but having been specifically warned by O2 not to try any repair as their skilled engineers would be the only ones able to do any work on the phone I left it to them.

My question to O2 via this community and other avenues is why were your skilled engineers unable to operate a cocktail stick type instrument and remove the foreign object, and more worryingly why try and force me to buy a replacement phone when my was perfectly ok apart from a bit of fluff.?

Mw thinks our friend Watchdog may find this incident interesting.

Yours, soon to be ex customer.

[MI5]

Not unusual for Anovo at all I'm afraid....
Maybe the tech who had your phone was off sick on the day they covered cocktail sticks during training?

[jonsie]

None of the regulars on here would ever recommend sending a phone to O2's repairers, far too many horror stories on here about alleged water damage, user damage and phones coming back with dents and scratches. You are just the latest in a long line of their victims. Always deal with the manufacturer rather than let supposed experts loose on your phone.

[viridis]

In my experience, you got off lightly.

[Cleoriff]

This is up there as one of the most ridiculous of all Anova stories. They actually took photos of the fluff...but couldn't remove it? Then wanted £212 for another phone? Beggars belief.

[adamtemp64]

When will these subcontractors be taken to task.

@Hughmungus Apple would have looked at this in store and offered advice or even cleaned it foc even out of warranty there customer service is excellent in my opinion

[Cleoriff]

I think @Hughmungus did a pretty good job of the repair. Obviously took cocktail stick training

[jonsie]

It's having the right tool for the job rather than sending the phone to the tools.....

[Hughmungus]

This was the picture they sent me, and the repair their skilled engineers couldnt handle !

[adamtemp64]

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@jonsie wrote:

It's having the right tool for the job rather than sending the phone to the tools.....

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A well known Swiss multi tool has a plastic toothpick that works well on Apple 30 pin and lightning ports and headphone ports. (Another common issue)