HTC – the end of their fuckwittery

    So, since my last post regarding HTC’s total lack of respect for their paying customers, there has been some movement.

    The HTC representative (and apparent resident expert) Ian had touched upon me getting my phone back unrepaired with no charges being made – my response was that I wanted this in writing from HTC before I said yes or no. Imagine my (total lack of) surprise on getting an email on 30th June at 16:55:

    Dear Paul Bennett

    Device HTC One M9, Serial No. ************, is now awaiting shipment in our warehouse and should be returned to you within a couple of days.

    Many thanks,

    HTC Customer Care

    And there you have it; HTC’s answer to my 2 key questions:

    • Why are you changing most of the components for a simple screen repair?
    • Why does HTC seem to have their own special VAT rate of 23% when the rest of the UK has 20%?

    Is to simply send it back and refuse to repair it.

    Now, the email was sent on 30th June, and UPS attempted to deliver it to my home on 5th July – it takes that long to travel the 8 miles from Huntingdon to St Neots it seems…

    Anyhoo, what with arranging redelivery etc., I finally had my phone back in my hands on Thursday 7th July. I turned it on and it was (still) working fine – just the smashed screen to contend with.

    Along with the phone were 3 documents;

    Image1 Image2 Image3

    Document 1 is pretty straight forward, apart from the Polish address (the phone went to, and came back from Huntingdon), and reads exactly like Regenersis are contracted to HTC for repairs and have been instructed by HTC to release the phone.

    Documents 2 and 3 are very contradictory though; assuming the US date format, the first is dated June 9th and says it was internally inspected…some 4 days before I sent it in. Pretty impressive huh?

    The second document, dated 30th June says the damage was identifiable externally (no shit Sherlock)

    Wearing my best wry smile at the confusion created by the documents, I searched online and found a company – RaPhone – based in London, who for an all in charge of £89 will replace the LCD and touch screen of an HTC M9. I packaged the phone up again and off it went first class the following day (8th July). Monitoring online, the phone was received by them Saturday morning, and THE PHONE REPAIRED BEFORE 4PM THAT DAY.

    The phone was promptly returned to me on Tuesday (12th July) – only the weekend stopped this being a 48 hours turnaround it seems. Phone is working perfectly – screen, sound etc. all perfect.

    So why did HTC feel the need for new components?

    Robbing bastards
    Robbing bastards

    I will still be in touch with HMRC regarding the illegal rate of tax being charged by HTC UK, and I’m sure Trading Standards will be very interested to hear about this whole fiasco.

    All in all, it took 4 weeks to have a 48 hours repair done.

    I certainly won’t be holding my breath waiting for HTC to apologise for any part of this, and hope my posts here will serve as warning to anybody considering sending a phone to them for repair – if this is you, give RaPhone a call on 020 8453 7088

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