Nokia Care - Useless!

[Captain Stubing]

I've had a Nokia N97 for about 18 months now. In the last 6 months or so, I've noticed it's gotten sensitive to how the charger was plugged in. The charger port is a mini USB port on the side of the phone, and I've had to push down on the charger plug to get it to connect to the phone. I thought the USB port might have a bad solder joint in it. The phone is out of the warranty period.

The end result is that the phone is hard to charge. A slight movement will disconnect the charge circuit, and the phone will stop charging.

After days of my phone running out of charge, I decided to take it to be fixed. So I went to the Nokia Care centre in Brisbane, and left it there, after being told they won't repair phones affected by impact or water damage. Nope! That's not happened to my phone! I was told they would email me when the phone was ready for pickup - 4 to 5 days I was told.

After 8 days, I phoned Nokia (no contact number for the repair centre) and they informed me they had tried to phone me 7 days ago, but couldn't get me. Then they informed me that my handset would be returned unrepaired, because of water damage!

Now, I'm ****ed off, because I know the handset hasn't been wet. They said the corrosion is near the camera module, and they emailed me pics this arvo, but this is nowhere near the USB port.

So I go in to pick up the handset, I asked why they didn't explore the broken USB port problem, rather than look for water damage in an unrelated area of the phone, and they told me they couldn't fix it, as they couldn't maintain the manufacturer's warranty. I told them it was out of warranty, and I just wanted the problem fixed, but they weren't interested.

It shites me that I was willing to pay to get my phone fixed, but the techs seemed more willing to find some macroscopic corrosion to void my needs, and a reason not to repair the problem I had. I bought the phone over a 24 month contract, which has about 6 months left to go, so I'm feeling a bit bitter about it... a top end Nokia should last for years! I've been using my old N73 as a backup while I've been without the N97.

I've searched the internet since, and see that Nokia phones less than 24 hours old have been rejected because of water damage. Water damage can happen from speaking into a phone in a high humidity area!

I've gone off Nokia as of today... and I've had them since my first analogue mobile phone. I know I'm not going to make a difference, but I'd like to share my crappy feelings for their company!

On the side, I tried to reassemble the phone/battery/sim before I left, and found the Techs had bent a metal tab outwards, making it impossible to insert the batter. The counterman offered to take it to the techs to look at, but I told him that his techs had shown they can't fix phones, so I'll fix it myself (Done!)

I'd hate to be a Nokia Care front man....!


Now I've got a 800 buck phone, which is almost impossible to charge.