Nokia Phone Division's Crappy Customer Service

[mullf]

My girlfriend's mom has a Nokia phone. Actually, including the parents and daughters, Nokia sold four phones to the family. Anyway, my GF's mom's phone dies, and it is a couple of days within the warranty period, so she calls up Nokia and inquires about a replacement. They say to send in her phone, and they will send her a replacement in 1 to 3 weeks. She says that 2 or 3 weeks seems rather long, she is on a lot of committees and needs to be available before that long. (This woman is a saint, she is a grade school teacher, and volunteers for dozens of committees, including being on the Board of Directors at the local homeless shelter. Every Christmas morning, she has the entire family volunteer to serve breakfast at the shelter before coming home and opening presents.) Anyway, Nokia says they will see if they can do something to expedite the process and will get back to her. So they dink around a couple of days until the warranty expires, and she has to call back and ask about it, and now they refuse to provide a replacement because of the warranty expiration.

This is utter ********. :mad: She reported the problem while the warranty was in service. She did not refuse the offer for a new phone, she accepted their word when they would look into whether or not they could expedite the service. What kind of company is Nokia, anyway? This is bushleague. Their family bought four higher-end Nokia phones in one day, and I have an Internet Tablet that I bought the day it became available for sale to the public. It is utterly stupid to piss off good customers like this. Can any Nokia people on here recommend an avenue of recourse we can take?

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Fred

[krisse]

Course of action: I don't know exactly what they're called in the US but try contacting your local trading standards body and explain your problem to them. Remember to provide all the dates and times you contacted Nokia, what their response was, when the warranty was supposed to expire, all the receipts etc.

If a company trades badly, the local trading standards people should have power to intervene.


What kind of company is Nokia, anyway?

As I keep saying in other posts, the problem seems to be with Nokia's US customer service rather than the company as a whole. In fact quite a lot of companies seem to have their poorest customer service in the US, I've no idea why.

Nokia's European customer service is excellent, you can just drop the phone off at your nearest designated repair shop and Nokia will foot the bill. I had a phone repaired a few weeks ago, it took just four days, with no cost to me at all.

[andrewfblack]

Doesn't work that way in the US if a company doesn't follow their warranty all you can do is take them to court and then your just waisting your time it would cost you more money. You can complain to the BBB but they just keep records of what companys have complaints against them. They can't make them honor the warranty

[krisse]

Doesn't work that way in the US if a company doesn't follow their warranty all you can do is take them to court and then your just waisting your time it would cost you more money.

You don't have any kind of trading standards bodies that can take direct action?

No wonder US customer service is so poor if trading law enforcement there is so lax.

[andrewfblack]

There is no Trading Low Enforcement. Now if a company is frauding people that is a differant story but something like this wouldn't count.

[krisse]

There is no Trading Low Enforcement. Now if a company is frauding people that is a differant story but something like this wouldn't count.

As far as I know, in Britain if a company promised a particular guarantee period and failed to live up to that promise, it would be a trading standards matter which could result in fines.

[Texrat]

Andrew is right. The consumer in the US is not protected well at all. Laws tend to favor corporations, and it's getting worse that way.

[andrewfblack]

I love the new book The Appeal it about an Appeal Judge getting replaced by a company to get off on paying a huge settlement. It only took the company 10 million on the persons campain(send it secrect ways) to buy them a judge and get off on a 40 million dollar settlement.

[krisse]

Andrew is right. The consumer in the US is not protected well at all. Laws tend to favor corporations, and it's getting worse that way.

Shocking, totally shocking. Surely it's fundamental to a properly competitive market that people know they will get what they paid for? It's not just consumers either, businesses make purchases too.

As I said before, that difference in legal protection would totally explain why Nokia's customer service is so much worse in the US than in Europe.

It's perhaps nothing to do with cost, and entirely to do with legal requirements being more consumer-friendly in the EU.

[andrewfblack]

Shocking, totally shocking. Surely it's fundamental to a properly competitive market that people know they will get what they paid for? It's not just consumers either, businesses make purchases too.

As I said before, that difference in legal protection would totally explain why Nokia's customer service is so much worse in the US than in Europe.

It's perhaps nothing to do with cost, and entirely to do with legal requirements being more consumer-friendly in the EU.

But doesn't it seem you guys pay more for you electronics I'm not taking about just the exchange rate someone was selling an N810 over on that side of the pond and they wanted more for it in US money then it cost brand new here.

[Texrat]

Shocking, totally shocking. Surely it's fundamental to a properly competitive market that people know they will get what they paid for? It's not just consumers either, businesses make purchases too.

We don't have much of a competitive market anymore... especially where cell phones are concerned.

[andrewfblack]

Yeah most people now and days just buy the best looking or cheapest cell phone. If Noika loses 4 sales from this they don't care because they have 4million more.

[krisse]

Yeah most people now and days just buy the best looking or cheapest cell phone.

It's worse than that: they buy the best looking or cheapest phone THAT THE OPERATOR SELLS.

The operator shouldn't be involved in the sales at all, they're just meant to be selling the service. You should be able to use any device you want, and move it to another service if you're unhappy.

Buying a phone from an operator is like buying a car from a fuel station.


But doesn't it seem you guys pay more for you electronics I'm not taking about just the exchange rate someone was selling an N810 over on that side of the pond and they wanted more for it in US money then it cost brand new here.

All European countries have very high sales taxes, 20% or more, whereas most American states seem to have no sales tax at all. So that's 20% added. I know second hand stuff doesn't have sales tax, but second hand prices are based on new prices.

The rest IS mostly from the exchange rate. A few years ago one pound bought less than 1.5 dollars, now it buys over 2 dollars. Even the Euro is starting to approach 2 dollars, when it used to be worth less than 0.8 dollars. The US dollar is incredibly weak, and it makes all foreign prices seem much higher.

[andrewfblack]

The 20% tax might be part of it. Its 9% where I live and that is alot higher then alot of places. That would make final price of an N810 about $50 more for you then me. $100 more for someone who has no sales tax. Yeah there is alot of talk about changing so you can use your cell phone on any company. Verision is supose to start since they got part of that FCC Ebay auction. I don't know if we will ever really see it happen or not.

[krisse]

Yeah there is alot of talk about changing so you can use your cell phone on any company. Verision is supose to start since they got part of that FCC Ebay auction. I don't know if we will ever really see it happen or not.

The thing is, phones are unlocked by default when they're manufactured. The very first phones to hit the streets are the unlocked versions, because they're the "plain vanilla" model.

As I have mentioned before in other threads, here in Finland locking was actually illegal for many years, so for many years everyone used unlocked phones, and it didn't cause any problems at all.

Operators which lock phones deliberately lock them to stop you changing operator, there's absolutely no technical reason for locking.

All that locking does is reduce competition between operators, which raises prices and lowers service quality. It makes them try less hard to please their customers.

[andrewfblack]

Yeah, I personally use a Nextel Phone on a SouthernLinc service. I unlocked the phone my self and moved the sim card over.

[qwerty12]

here in Finland locking was actually illegal for many years, .

I can't believe it was made legal :(

(As for me, I just unlock my phones, for my W810, I paid £15 for a service cable and downloaded a cracked version of SEMCTool which generated me the codes)

(Then a year later, you can do it for free with included cable :P)

[tabletrat]

As far as I know, in Britain if a company promised a particular guarantee period and failed to live up to that promise, it would be a trading standards matter which could result in fines.

The guarantee is only a safety net, it isn't the end of service. If your phone dies at 1 year and one day, you still can get it replaced, regardless of guarantee as consumer rights cover it. You bought the phone with a reasonable expectation that it would last longer than a year.

[mullf]

Nokia sucks. :-/

[shiroinazuma]

I have an N810 that I purchased in the USA and I live in Canada. Unfortunately I took a tumble and cracked my screen. Called Customer I don't care service and was told to send it to repair facility in Ontario Canada. So I did and it was sent back to me that they can't repair USA Model. ???? It's same part in every country. Called back to Nokia and they said I can send to USA repair but they can't return it to me in Canada. They have to send it to a USA address???? Holy crap!!!

I am willing to pay for the repair. Not warrenty related. Their best answer was "I can't do anything for you" and basically hang up on me.

Please....Anyone no where to get an new LCD display at a resonable price. Part # 4850070. Thanks for any help.