OFFICIAL - De-Branding Invalidates Nokia Warranty

dez_borders wrote:Bricking a phone is where a FW flash (upgrade, de-brand or attempted downgrade of firmware) fails, leaving the phone unbootable and the handset effectively becomes an expensive but useless "brick".

I got my handset on Orange in April 07 and very soon de-branded it to Generic EURO1 product to get VOIP enabled firmware. (I regularly upgraded FW using NSU and EURO-1 and ended up on V21 a few weeks ago).

The phone worked perfectly for just over a year then developed a screen problem where the screen would go black for 1 second out of every 5 then repeat the cycle every 5 seconds - research on forums indicated a relatively simple ribbon cable fault between the screen and motherboard.

Fearing NCC engineers would check the product code and realise I had de-branded, I changed the code back to the original Orange code using NSS and sent the handset back to Nokia for screen repair under 24 month warranty.

1 week later, the handset was returned to me and the delivery note stated "your phone has been repaired" - however it would no longer boot up and still the screen went black 1 second out of every 5.

I sent the phone back to Nokia, and it came back a week later this time with a letter indicating the handset was out of warranty because an unauthorised FW version had been detected by NCC engineers.

I believe the first time it went to Nokia, the engineer tried to re-flash the FW and as Orange dont support V21 the NSU program attempted to downgrade to an Orange FW variant, killing the handset.

Thats the way i see it, anyway.

Thank you Dez for explaining bricking and the other things to me.

I forgot to ask you, I have assumed you are no longer under contract to Orange am I right in thinking so?

14all wrote:Thank you Dez for explaining bricking and the other things to me.

I forgot to ask you, I have assumed you are no longer under contract to Orange am I right in thinking so?

Hi,

Yes, I bought out my 18 month contract at month 12 as our new office has no Orange reception. Therefore I don't think talking to Orange about the handset would be easy.

Anyway, I have made my own kind of solution - which many of you will probably disagree with - as it does not involve complaining to Nokia to resolve the issue.

I sold the faulty handset for £99.99 then got a new one (O2 branded - my current network) on an auction site for £150.
The buyer knows the handset was sold as faulty and is unbootable, and has purchased it for spares & repairs.
The new handset has 8Gb MicroSD and V20 FW and a full 2 year warranty with Nokia.

I figured a dead-phone FW re-flash would cost £20 and the screen repair another £30, so I was better off starting afresh.
I can also sell my 4Gb SanDisk memory card on eBay and make another £10 back.

Apoligies to forum members who have de-branded and wanted the satisfaction/comfort to read a future posting from me saying Nokia honoured the warranty and fixed my phone in the end. However, I don't feel the chances of success were high in my situation, and I have been without a working N95 for 3 weeks and simply can't do without it...

dez_borders wrote:Hi,

Yes, I bought out my 18 month contract at month 12 as our new office has no Orange reception. Therefore I don't think talking to Orange about the handset would be easy.

Anyway, I have made my own kind of solution - which many of you will probably disagree with - as it does not involve complaining to Nokia to resolve the issue.

I sold the faulty handset for �99.99 then got a new one (O2 branded - my current network) on an auction site for �150.
The buyer knows the handset was sold as faulty and is unbootable, and has purchased it for spares & repairs.
The new handset has 8Gb MicroSD and V20 FW and a full 2 year warranty with Nokia.

I figured a dead-phone FW re-flash would cost �20 and the screen repair another �30, so I was better off starting afresh.
I can also sell my 4Gb SanDisk memory card on eBay and make another �10 back.

Apoligies to forum members who have de-branded and wanted the satisfaction/comfort to read a future posting from me saying Nokia honoured the warranty and fixed my phone in the end. However, I don't feel the chances of success were high in my situation, and I have been without a working N95 for 3 weeks and simply can't do without it...

I think you did the right thing, I would have done the same in your situation, it is less hassle.

If the N95 still cost �300 plus on ebay, my thinking may have been different and I would have tried the Reflash/Repair route.

Just for future information, a network usually will doorstep swop a handset for the length of the contract, for example if you have an 18 month contract with vodafone you have a warranty with vodafone for 18 months.

Ratkat wrote:Just for future information, a network usually will doorstep swop a handset for the length of the contract, for example if you have an 18 month contract with vodafone you have a warranty with vodafone for 18 months.

Yes, thanks for the note above. If I had not bought out my Orange contract I probably would have started off with Orange and not Nokia as warranty agent.

Thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread, and hope there's some good advice come out of it for all owners of de-branded handsets.

I have to admit I would think twice now before de-branding...

i had the same problem, but got out of it. on O2, n95 kept switching off for no reason. i had euro1 on a o2 phone, changed the product code back to o2 original, took it to a o2 store, they sent it out and got it back perfectly working. didnt check if the changed the prod code back....
i think it was a hardware fault, as the phone was given back to me with all the stuff it had, so contacts, etc. i think they only done some hardware change, but.... well everything gone right!!!

Hi Dez,
I maintain that under consumer law you still had full warranty and as the phone technically remained the property of Orange (you only bought out the contract and there is never any reference to the title of the goods passing to the user) they are the ones that should have put it right.
I think Trading Standards would have backed you all the way. If you got as far as court then the "reasonableness" of your claim would have been solid.
Still a least you got a result in the end.

pa49 wrote:Hi Dez,
I maintain that under consumer law you still had full warranty and as the phone technically remained the property of Orange (you only bought out the contract and there is never any reference to the title of the goods passing to the user) they are the ones that should have put it right.
I think Trading Standards would have backed you all the way. If you got as far as court then the "reasonableness" of your claim would have been solid.
Still a least you got a result in the end.

Thanks for the support. Hopefully if someone else gets into the same situation, they will have the time and stamina to take it all the way to a court.

In my case I had already prevailed on Trading Standards in 2008 regarding a dispute with my local builder (took 6 months to do a job promised in 3 weeks!) so I felt I had used up my quota of good will will T-S and that a new handset with 8Gb memory card for a net cost of �50 was a simple and worthy solution for me.

All the best.
:icon14:

3 fixed mine and it had been debranded unlocked and firmware updated and even though i told them i broke the screen on my n95 they repaired it free of charge

puddy

puddy wrote:3 fixed mine and it had been debranded unlocked and firmware updated and even though i told them i broke the screen on my n95 they repaired it free of charge

puddy

Yup, the supplier has the responsibility under warranty!

I have what appears to be a battery problem with my handset. Basically the phone keeps shutting off and if you remove the battery press power on, remove, power on eventually it will. Sometimes it goes white vibrates and boom off.

If its plugged in it will stay switched on until you unplug it and usually when it dies the screen has the old lines down it you usually get when you remove the battery. It nearly always asks for data and time as well when you boot it up.

I took it into the Nokia Care Point earlier and told him what was happening and to me it sounded like a battery problem and he took the phone and returned 3 minutes later saying it had "Unauthroised Firmware" and was coming up as v21 ( I tried to look surprised ) he then told me that the warranty was void and they wanted �15 to reflash the phone. He also told me I had made "two attempts" so he obviously thought it was a Dodge flash and the phone just wasn't booting rather than listening to what I had said in the first place.

Im tempted to play him at his own game and ask if he reflashes it will it sort the problem and then play on the fact that will �15 be ALL I have to pay. chances are after he has flashed it back to tbags generic firmware he will find he has to replace the battery anyway and it ill save me paying �25-�30 for a new one.

The phone has a few other faults such as a faulty volume key and the flash doesn't work so chances are if I return to the network and they refuse ti fix it the phone will prob have a slight drunken accident rather than waiting for tbag to actually release the v21 variant so I can warranty job it properly.

Unplugged wrote:
I took it into the Nokia Care Point earlier and told him what was happening and to me it sounded like a battery problem and he took the phone and returned 3 minutes later saying it had "Unauthroised Firmware" and was coming up as v21 ( I tried to look surprised ) he then told me that the warranty was void and they wanted �15 to reflash the phone

I wonder if Nokia have recently tightened up their checks for unauthorised FW version prior to doing a warranty repair?

Depending on who you believe in AAS, you have a number of choices.

1. Insist your warranty is honoured and take them (Nokia) to court if they refuse - potentially costly and stressful.

2. Send the handset back to your Network and hope they simply replace it with a re-conditioned handset.

3. Insurance Job - (report as lost, feed to the dog, drop in loo, stamp on with foot, etc.). Dishonest, potential to be charged with fraud, increases next years insurance premium, �50+ excess charge deducted from claim.

4. Pay the NCC to re-flash to correct FW then hope the warranty covers other repairs.

5. Buy a cheap �1.99 battery off eBay and if it cures the main problem, buy an official Nokia battery. You may find the Nokia battery is only covered by warranty for 6 or 12 months anyway, and not the full 24 months, as batteries are considered to be consumables

6. Sell for spares on eBay (I got �99) and buy a new one for �150.

7. Lastly. Do you de-brand the new/repaired/replaced handset or live with (lower) Official Branded FW to comply with warranty conditions.

how did he know you flashed it twice? did you put the t-mobile code back into the phone.

I can't remember what product code is on the phone. I do remember him saying it was a t-mobile handset but I cant remember if that was from looking at the product code on the sticker or the scratched off t-mobile from the back cover. Not expecting him to check I wasn't paying to much attention.

I will though of course make a complaint in any case both to the care point and to Nokia stating the facts as I wasn't asking for my phone to be checked or taken and connected to anything and was simply asking for a replacement battery.

I will most likely buy a cheap replacement first and see how that goes.

Im assuming the phone has a counter of the number of times the firmware has been upgraded.

Once to v20 and then to v21. He probably assumed because it said 2 I had had 2 attempts at flashing the phone and bricked it when in fact the phone is still operating.

Casperuk wrote:how did he know you flashed it twice? did you put the t-mobile code back into the phone.

So putting the product code back to the original will not fool them.

Even if you change it back and load the operator's variant (when they catch up with the latest version), they will still know that you previously debranded it.

what if you said it was an unbranded one, i guess they would know.

GordonShowers wrote:Because every software upgrade performed with NSU logs the phone's IMEI number against the firmware version it's upgrading to.

So putting the product code back to the original will not fool them.

Even if you change it back and load the operator's variant (when they catch up with the latest version), they will still know that you previously debranded it.

Well technnically it will say two flashes to the same firmware surely ( when they catch up of course ) unless they looked at the date you could quite rightly say you flashed it anyway.

Unplugged wrote:Well technnically it will say two flashes to the same firmware surely ( when they catch up of course ) unless they looked at the date you could quite rightly say you flashed it anyway.

So they would almost certainly store your current product code as well as the version of firmware that you download every time.

And yes, as you say, they can check the date that you downloaded each version. That will definitely be stored.

I'd better add that I am assuming this is what they are doing. It might be that certain registers in the phone are updated to tell them what you've been up to, but if that was the case then something like NSS could overcome it by writing over it.

Indeed I don't know the process either I know int he past things like warranty date counters etc have been stored in the phone.

He hooked it up and read the data from it and said "it was coming up as version 21" and "ive tried 2 times" so it wouldn't surprise me if the records where stored on the phone.

Ive never used network branded firmware because there stuck in the past so I always assumed the numbers where the same and it was the product code which told them what variant to download.