Carphone Warehouse

fend

Back in January 2007, I purchased the Nokia N91 costing in or around €400. I thought being the top of the range phone on the market at the time, that it was the all singing all dancing phone. It was.... until my 30 day return policy ran out.

February came, the phone began to cause problems, and eventually would not work. I took it back to Carphone Warehouse, 34 days after I purchased it, where I was informed that my 30 days were up for a return, however I was entitled to a repair, which i reluctantly agreed to. I was informed that my hpne would be ready in 2 - 3 weeks and I would be informed.

4 weeks later, I arrived in to the shop were I was then told that my phone had been ready for a week and there was no answer the one and only time they had phoned me, a week previous. At this stage I was a little mad but i took my N91 free of charge. 3 days later, the same problem occoured.

Again, for a second time, I returned to Carphone Warehouse, a little furious that my top of the range phone was playing up again with the same problem and i requested a refund or replacement. I was refused a refund, and after many phonecalls to the customer care, I eventually got hold of a replacement.

Of course, you know whats coming, the damn thing did the same thing as the last one. I then decided I wanted my money back and that was final, but I was told that i needed the entire packaging for any kind of a refund. I had every single piece that was in the box down the manuels and advertisements however I did not have the box itself.

I was still refused a refund.

I believe that the law of the land states:

Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980

"If your purchase turns out to be faulty, the retailer, not the manufacturer, is responsible to you and must sort out your complaint. You are entitled to a refund, a replacement or a repair."

Carphone Warehouse's Policy is: without the box your screwed. Thats pretty much lame mans terms.

7 months later, the phone, manuels, charger, and other bits and pieces that came with the phone, are still sitting in the boot of my car. Untouched.

I am now barred from Carphone Warehouse for simply printing out the Sale of Goods Act ad leaving it on the counter, explaining that this IS the law of the land.

Any suggestions what my next step is??

Please Advise. Before the Nokia N91 in the boot of my car begins to grow some grey hairs. :mad:

Vagrant

I'd hit the citizen's advice bureau, down near the library in town. Then contact people higher up the chain in the Car Phone warehouse, plus Nokia, and whatever network the phone was sold to you on. The more people you can get to put pressure on them, the more likely you are to get a favourable resolution.

padi89

In the Galway forum???

Zzippy

Get thee to court!

Small Claims Court, Galway Courthouse.

You are legally in the right, they are just fobbing you off. Don't let them get away with this. :mad:

BillyGoatGruff

Ask a boarder who didn't buy one from the carphone Warehouse for a box. I am sure someone will oblige.

snubbleste

I had an experience with the Eyre Square store back in 2005.
Got the same message as OP from the staff.
The phone was faulty, clearly because it would'nt charge and after it came back from the 'repair centre, it still had the same problem.

After a few weeks, I phoned up Head Office and spoke to the CS manager for Ireland and told him my spiel, said that my contract was with the store and they had sold me a faulty product and that I had already accepted a reasonable remedy by having it sent for repair.
Threatened to go the Small Claims and all of a sudden he changed his tune.

I was told to go back to the store, they exchanged my faulty phone for another.

Always be polite.

stevecrow74

also have a nokia N91.. had a few small problems with it, but got it working again..
usually formatting the hard drive cures most problems..
or connecting to computer in mass storage mode then opening hard drive on computer and doing a disk error check will sort out the rest of the problems..

below are a few other tips to get the most out of your N91


15 Top Tips for N91

Most of these are available via web sites, user guides etc but here is a summary courtesy of our friends at Nokia.

1) PC suite: Always use the latest PC suite. They are always issuing improvements etc. The PC suite issued with the early N91's (6.80.22 SW versions 1.xx N91's) has issues with handling data over 1.5GB etc and should be replaced with 6.81.13 or later. You can get the latest PC suite from http://europe.nokia.com/A4144903, or other local regional sites.

2) PC suite , Nokia Audio Manager: PC suite was designed for phones with 64-512Mbyte cards, not mobile computers with 4GB of memory. It is good for managing contacts, calendar etc but not for managing the content on your HDD (Music, Images, Applications etc). Nokia audio Manager - same comment. Users should avoid using PCsuite/NAM to manage large amounts of content and keep it solely for managing the phones ROM (C drive). Note also when using PC suite do not start running applications (Gallery, etc) during the PC suite session. Use USB mass storage for managing your Music, Movies, Images etc and/or Windows Media Player (for Music). Note also that PC suite runs in the background on your PC so often when you plug in the N91 to use USB mass storage or WMP a pop up comes up saying " PC suite - N91 connected in non compatible mode please change from UI" ignore this (it is only applicable if you want to use PC suite).

3) SW update (refresh) at home: Always use the latest N91 SW (currently 2.00). Like your PC Nokia is always issuing improvements and even new features sometimes (ex: WDRM came with 2.00 sw). The update process is simple and can be done here : www.nokia.co.uk/softwareupdate . This is a UK site however it has all the languages, operator and country variants for the world. Read the "phone sw update FAQ's" there. The updater will recognize the version of your N91 (country, operator) and look for the sw. If there is a new version it will tell you, if not then you have the option of reloading the current sw (ie if you wanted to start "fresh" again) or try later. Do not disconnect, answer/make phone calls etc during the process. It has worked well for thousands of people so far . I suspect other sites in other languages will roll out eventually if you are uncomfortable doing the process in English. Also if you sw is not there it may be that your operator or country has not approved it yet. Keep trying. You can check you SW version by typing *#0000#.

4) HDD Users Guide : Nokia has now issued a HDD maintenance guide. Go to europe.nokia.com http://europe.nokia.com/A4158095 and select - Get support then from the list of phones select Nokia N91 there select User guides and from the list of languages select English. Then download the PDF. It has data about backing up and restoring (ie when to use PC suite and when no to), SW updates (goes through how to prepare for a sw update ), Themes and other TIPs. Alot of the tips from before seem to be in here. Also copying contacts to HDD has issues with 1.xx sw on GSM only China units (from Blogs), not on WCDMA units. Note WDRM rights will not be saved with a backup-restore (MSFT rules) but usually when you buy a song you get multiple synchs so it is usually not a problems.

5) SMS accelerator : Nokia has issued an application that improves the speed of your SMS messaging. Heavy SMS users have complained about sms messaging getting sluggish over time. This fixes it and keep sms fast. Its recommended that everyone install this and re-install this after any sw update or user reset (e.g. use of *#7370). It is available at http://europe.nokia.com/A4158100

6) Battery Life: If you do not care about WCDMA then in tools/settings/network - switch from DUAL to GSM. Make sure your WLAN "show availability" in Tools/Connection is set to "never". Do not leave Bluetooth On unless you are using it for an accessory. Do not set the HDD as your "memory in use" for messaging (SMS, MMS). HDD is not optimised for messaging. Avoid these fancy 3D active screen savers,

7) Profiles : I just leave the keypad tones off. It seems people in the past had issues with this so just leave them off on profiles. Also using the vibra in profiles that had a short beep as the message or ringtone caused problems with 1.xx SW

8) Messaging Memory: Do not set the HDD as your "memory in use" for messaging (SMS, MMS). In addition to reducing battery life - its slow (HDD buffering is optimized for Video, Music playback), you have to switch back to the phone memory each time you want to use mass storage to connect to PC. In short why keep a bunch of messages on you phone anyhow?

9) Hard resets: If you get you phone into real trouble there are two resets available. Note these should be treated as a SW update (i.e. you will lose data on your phone memory so back it up). Follow the standard backup procedure for you phone before dong this (take a look at the HDD guide TIP section). The first one is *#7370# (Code 12345), it will restore the phones memory and clean it up. If you have managed to get the phone to a state where it will not even boot up then - Press and hold simultaneously Green, 3 and * and then press simultaneously power key.

10) Gallery - When you have loaded new content via USB, after a sw update, hard resets, after removing the battery or the occasional reset the Gallery takes a while to open up (if you have alot of content it could be ~ 5-10 minutes). This is a one-off thing so be patient let it update its database and then after that it should be alot faster. The progress bar is a barber-pole thingy that does not give a very good indication (just spins). Be patient it has not crashed or hung-up just let it finish.

11) "Out of Memory" - The Web browser is great but it does not handle its memory very well. At some point the web browser may issue an "Out of memory" message. This has nothing to do with the HDD memory but rather the RAM memory. Closing applications may help but it seems to work best if you simply power cycle the device (clean up RAM) before using OSS. Each Sw release seems to improve this situation so its another reason to always update to the latest SW.

12) Pausing while playing a song - This happens sometimes when the file has been corrupted somewhat (during ripping, download) etc. Some songs that will play on the PC may pause on the N91. It is rare however it requires the song be ripped again.

13) "HDD unavailable" etc - In older versions of sw it was possible to get this and even with 2.xx it can happen (more rare). Make sure the battery cover is on fully (and its magnet is not damaged - check the little box in the battery cover with a paper clip for the magnet). Make sure USB cable is not connected. Make sure you are not running any applications that are using the HDD. Sometimes 3rd party apps it seems have been found to leave a file open on the HDD even when closed and then this can happen - you may have to uninstall that app. Some apps screw up there databases and it look slike a HDD issue. Finally if none of this works then you may have to do a HDD format, or a SW update/refresh or hard reset to clean out any offending applications.

14) Gallery cant see data, content missing - PC suite can cause this if you were using this for content (PC suite looks like it finished the transfer but you have to look at the correct window in PC suit for progress..another reason why it should not be used for content management). In some cases you need to

15) Common sense and INFO - Some common sense things - do not disconnect USB cable in the middle of a transfer (disconnect properly). Dont try and pop the battery out while accessing the HDD. The HDD can survive drops (in testing dropped >300 times) but if you are determined to abuse the N91 something will break eventually. N91-1 (WCDMA device Silver with light blue for Europe, Dark grey for APAC). N91-5 (GSM for APAC - Silver with light blue), N91 (GSM for China Silver with dark grey). RM43 is a type number for WCDMA units, RM158 is the type number for GSM only units. Yes its a 3G device (with no front facing camera), you can do video calls but it requires some flipping back and forth...the device was not optimised for Video calls (its focus was/is music!). It has WLAN. It supports many different vide codecs etc (go to N91 FAQ and type in video) etc. Read you users Guide and also check:

Support (FAQ etc): http://europe.nokia.com/A4158095 , Support (UK): http://www.nokia.co.uk/nokia/0,,91861,00.html , Tech discussion board at Nokia (type in N91 in search and sort by latest date etc) : http://discussions.nokia.co.uk/discussions/board?board.id=swupdate and finally the N91 page http://www.nokia.com/nseries/index.html?lang=en&country=GB#product,n91 . enjoy

fend

thanks for the replies!

It was the screen that just caved in! kept making snowy shapes and eventually just stopped working.

Then, it wouldn't charge! At all!! Not one of Nokia's finest!