Sydney IT executive Bryn Nicholson has told ZDNet Australia that he recently contacted Nokia's customer care line seeking to have the screen on his Nokia 8210 repaired. However, he alleges his claim was rejected on the grounds that he had purchased it from a "non-authorised distributor".
Nicholson said he questioned the Nokia care centre's response to his request but claims he was told by the operative that its accuracy had been verified with care centre supervisors.
"He went away and checked with a supervisor and came back and said that that was the policy," said Nicholson.
In April, NSW Fair Trading Minister John Aquilina ordered Nokia to repair all 8210s handsets that are less than two years old and had been affected by the inherent display fault.
In outlining the terms of the agreement, Aquilina said "anyone with a Nokia 8210 model that has a defective display can have it repaired free-of-charge".
Nokia spokesperson Antony Wilson denied the company was operating in breach of the Fair Trading directive and said that the incident was simply a "one-off human error" and, contradicting Nicholson's version of events, said that the operator never checked with his supervisor.
"It's possible that the operator said that they were checking and that didn't but I'm not sure what happened there," said Wilson.
Nicholson seems sceptical about Nokia's claim. Nokia Australia After Market Service manager, Mike Sainsbury, issued a apology to Nicholson, after the disgruntled customer threatened to approach NSW Fair Trading.
"Given that I'm kicking up a stink they seem to have changed their attitude towards my particular case but I wonder if they just try to put people off," said Bryn.
"This level of failure should lead to a properly managed product recall," said Nicholson, clearly angry about the situation.
I posted a comment on my unpleasant experience with Nokia customer service some months ago, regarding the faulty screen on my Nokia 8210.
I was told by Nokia, in no uncertain terms, that the problem with the screen was mine and mine alone. When I told the girl that the fault was a common one, she said it was the first she had ever heard of the problem - then hung up.
Since then, and being a heavy mobile phone user, I have wrestled with the decision of whether or not to buy another Nokia because I am so familiar with the menu system, however, there are some brands coming through on the market that are just as easy to use as the Nokia interface;
By pro-actively NOT buying their product again, I have gotten my own back.
So Nokia - if your sales are falling, perhaps you need to "search within".