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technology_repairs

Technology Repairs

My Experience

I had my second mobile phone started to play up recently. actually it's been playing up ever since new, in that it would randomly switch itself off, but it developed a new fault. the top part all the screen would not respond when touched.

although the phone is well out of the manufacturer's warranty, I made a claim under the statutory warranty and the retailer except it Kogan. iv just send the phone away to be repaired.

Statutory Warranty

one of the many benefits of a statutory warranty over a manufacturer's warranty is there's no time limit. I was willing to put up with the phone randomly switching itself off because I was mainly using another phone. and I simply hadn't got around to getting it fixed. with a statutory warranty the device concerned has to be fit for purpose. if it keeps switching itself off, it's obviously not fit for purpose.

my experience has been when asking for something to be replaced or repaired under a statutory warranty, I alway have been told that it's outside of the manufacturer's warranty. I'm not sure if this is done deliberately by marketers or they don't know the difference between a statutory and a manufacturer's warranty. I inevitably have to point out that I'm not claiming under a manufacturer's warranty but under a statutory warranty. sometimes I have to referred the organisation concerned to the ACCC website, covering the matter.

https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees

Not Having the Devise

one of the issues with any type of warranty is that you don't have the device while it's getting fixed or assessed for replacement.

with modern technological devices it's very hard to live without them, such that most people have a 2nd or 3rd item. this was the situation in my case, as I had a second phone. I use my phone so often that I can't be without one. yet I reary make or received phone calls. I mainly use it as a pocket computer.

Who will be repairing it

I was sending my phone to the person I originally bought it from. Kogan. however I get the impression they don't repair them, themselves. They would get an outside organisation to do it for them. I don't even know who that organisation is. I definitely don't know the people that worked there. so it would make sense to take some precautions.

Precautions to Take

Kogan did send me an email saying what I should do before sending them the phone. I also did a bit of investigation online and found this.

“Things You Should Do Before Handing Your Android Phone For Repairs

From:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cashify.in/things-you-should-do-before-handing-your-android-phone-for-repairs%3famp=1

  1. Create a Full Back Up.
  2. Remove Your SIM Card.
  3. Remove Security Locks.
  4. Remove External Storage.
  5. Note Down Your IMEI.
  6. Perform a Factory Reset.
  7. Remove Google Account & Disable Factory Reset Protection.
  8. Go to The Reputed Technician.”

to do all that would take me quite some time. then assuming I got the phone back repaired it would take me even longer to get the phone back to the state it was in before I sent it away. the factory reset would render the phone the same as it was when it was new. all the applications and settings would have to be done again to the phone.

What I did Do

I did remove the SIM card and my micro SD memory card. I went through and removed any personal information that was stored on the phone. I also disabled the accounts that were setup on the phone.

lastly I removed remote access to my server from the phone. something that's not in the above list. some people may not realise that if they have a non phone manufacturers cloud storage, that if they leave some file manager apps on the phone that allows access to that cloud storage, that anyone with access to the phone can get access to the cloud storage files.

fortunately I know how to do all this. I'm sure most people wouldent.

I did it this way because I took a risk assessment and figured what was likely to go wrong. just having all the apps left installed on the phone wasn't a particularly big risk.

also somewhere along the line you have to have faith in your fellow human beings. even though there's a lot of bad people out there well beyond the majority of people are good. and any bad ones that do exist don't usually last long in jobs repairing phones if they do something illegal.

If the device won't switch on

if the device that you want repaired is not capable of being switched on you will not be able to remove any data from it if it's not got user removable parts. however if you've got accounts with Google, Microsoft or apple, there is usually some sort of a web page you can go to, from another device, which will disable the use of the faulty device. but that will not remove any data from the device if the device can't be switched on. if the device then does get repaired, the repair person will have access to all information is stored on it. that's why it's very important to trust the organisation is going to be repairing the device.

MicroSD card placement

I had the need to check the webcam videos on my car recently. I discovered that hadn't written any files since September 2020. I was able to read all the files on my card but I couldn't write to the card. I could not even reformat it. seems logical, now, that when these devices fail, they will fail to write before they fail to read. On checking back on my records I discovered the card was probably about 3 years old. I took it back when I bought it from, Officeworks, and said I wanted to claim under the statutory warranty. They had no qualms about giving me a replacement one. interesting on the packaging for the replacement it said it comes with an 8 year warranty. so it was possible that my memory card was in manufacturer's warranty anyway.

the more important thing is I had to give them the old card to get a replacement. and I was not able to wipe the data off the old card. in my case it didn't matter all it was, was car dash cam video. but I'm thinking what would have happened if there were personal files on it that I did not want anyone else to see. I wonder if they would have allowed me to have destroyed the card.

as with what usally happens in technology, the replacement card was a lower price than what I paid for the original one.

technology_repairs.txt · Last modified: 2021/01/07 14:47 by geoff