In December I bought a £139 G4 mobile handset from Motorola.co.uk as a Christmas present for my wife. Shortly after she started using it it became apparent the handset wasn’t working properly, and had an intermittent fault: so-called “ghost touch” – the screen registers touches without any contact, so you can’t unlock your phone.
We tried to use the Consumer Rights Act to reject the phone. Instead, Motorola gave us a voucher for a replacement and a second phone was sent, only for it to suffer the same problem.
Under the terms of the act, once the first replacement also turns out to be defective we thought we had a right to reject the goods. Again Motorola has refused, insisting on offering us a repair, which we find unacceptable.
We took this up with Tesco Bank, our credit card provider, and tried to make a claim under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974.
We provided a note from an independent phone repair shop that there was a fault, but it appears Tesco is taking Motorola’s side and thinks that a repair is a suitable outcome.
DB, Norwich
If only everyone was as clued-up on consumer rights. Everything you have said is correct; however, as you have found, big companies often try to deny these rights exist. It’s very frustrating, but the companies unfortunately hold most of the cards in these cases.
In general, Motorola phones have been great – many of us at the Guardian use them, and they are pretty robust. However, there do seem to have been instances of the problems you describe with the G4.
A spokesman for Lenovo, which supplies the handsets, says: “We are disappointed to learn of the customer’s experience with our device and our after-sales service. We pride ourselves on the quality of our engineering, and our team will be contacting the customer directly to resolve the situation.”
Your wife has been offered a new phone of higher specification in order to say sorry.
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