Cell phone nightmare! What does the Warranty say?

Gideon Nkala | Wednesday May 4, 2022 06:00

These phones are now a part of consumers lives and the demand is ever growing and so is the consumer pain. A number of local cell phone shops, tend to set their own terms when issuing out warranties on purchased cell phones without having regard to what the Law prescribes, as provided for in the Consumer Protection Act of 2018.

These varied terms would normally have some shops issue out warranties of a week, two (2) weeks, a month or in some instances, no warranty would be given on a purchased phone. A case in point is when one consumer lodged a complaint with the Authority that within 4 months her phone was freezing. The store that sold him the phone could not assist citing a two weeks warranty. The Authority intervened and the phone was fixed and the consumer was satisfied. The minimum warranty on a new product is six months.

Consumers need to be vigilant at all times in ensuring that they observe such conduct. There is a section on implied warranty of quality for the supply of goods in the Consumer Protection Act. Simply put, this implied warranty of quality is mainly provided for in the Act, to ensure that the products that are sold to the public comply with set requirements and standards.

Though the products that are sold should conform or should be of quality, it does not necessarily mean that the supplier of such product would always be liable or at fault since the product in question should be examined to see who is at fault between the supplier and consumer.

Consequently, section 16 (1) of the Consumer Protection Act of 2018 states that, “a transaction or agreement for the supply of goods to a consumer shall contain a provision that the producer or importer, the distributer and the retailer each warrant that the goods comply with the requirements and standards contemplated in this section, except that those goods have been altered contrary to the instructions, or after leaving the control, of the producer or importer, a distributor or the retailer, as the case may be”. Additionally, section 16 (2) states that “a consumer may return goods to a supplier in their merchantable or original state, within six months after the delivery of the goods, without penalty and at the supplier‘s risk and expense, if the goods fail to satisfy the requirements and standards contemplated in this section’’. From this section it can be deduced that within 6 months after purchase or delivery of product, in this case cell phones, it is expected that the consumer can return a defective phone to the cell phone shop for repairs without any charge, provided, it is established that it is a factory fault.

Both parties being the consumer and business are henceforth advised to always take note of this section and subsequent sub-sections 3 and 4 which mainly provide guidance of what needs to be done if the same problem persist within 3 months. Additionally, the Act states that a supplier shall give a warranty if goods have been repaired or reconditioned as espoused in Section 17(1) of the Act and which states that, “a supplier shall give a warranty on every new or reconditioned part installed during any repair or maintenance work, and the labour required to install, for a period of three months after the date of installation of the part or such longer periods as the supplier may specify, in writing’’.

The above sections of the Consumer Protection Act give the suppliers an obligation to provide warranties on phones and to provide consumers with the necessary assistance when the need arises. Consumers are therefore cautioned to desist from engaging independent technicians to carryout repairs on their cell phones especially when the cell phones are still under warranty. Rather, consumers should protect their goods by the practicing the above cited sections of the Act.

It should be noted that warranty does not cover all defects, most defects especially those resulting from negligence are not coved. Examples among others are liquid damage, screen broken, fallen phone etc. Observation is that, some of the cell phone repairers/technicians are not certified to carry out repairs and, as such, if engaged for repairs this nullifies the warranties on customer’ cell phones.

Consumers must demand that technicians provide them with relevant certificates before entrusting them to do repairs on our phones, particularly on phones that are on warranty? The Authority seeks to induct all certified cell phone technicians and therefrom carry a national list of cell phone service providers across the country as consumer information