[Galaxy S III Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Akhil John:
I had upgraded my old contract with 3 mobile (carrier) and got myself the Samsung Galaxy S3. It had just been about 4 months since I got the phone and I was happy with it. It was working perfectly with no issues or problems. On the 2nd of Feb 2013, I woke up in the morning to find that my phone had only 1% battery remaining. After making myself a cup of coffee, I got back to charge the phone but I found it had turned off due to low battery. I immediately plugged it in and after a few minutes I tried switching it on, but for some reason the phone wouldn't turn on. It would just go till the black and white screen showing the Samsung logo and then that was it. Thinking that it might have been drained of battery I decided to charge it till it showed 100% battery. After it got fully charged, I tried turning it on again, but the result was still the same. It wouldn’t move from the black and white screen showing the logo. At this point I realized that the problem was not something i could handle; I took it to the 3 mobile stores where I had originally purchased the phone from. The lady, whom I spoke to at the shop, did inspect my phone and tried to do a factory reset, but all that was of no use. After about 20 minutes I was told that I could drop it in for repairs by either posting it myself after getting into touch with the customer care team or I was told I could bring it back to the shop on Tuesday when they usually do pickups for repairs and send it from the shop. I chose to take it to the shop on Tuesday and have them send my phone to the repair centre. I was given the battery and back case for me to keep it with me and filled up a form for repairs and got told that they would get back to me in a weeks’ time.

Now here is where the problem starts...

Roughly after a week I got a letter sent to me by 3 mobile customer services. The content in the letter was...

"We are sorry to say there is evidence of unauthorized repair activity on your Samsung Galaxy S3. This suggests that the phone has been handled by a non- approved third party prior to receipt by our repair centre. As this invalidates your manufacturer's warranty we are unfortunately unable to progress with the repair."

I immediately phoned up customer services to let them know that I was not happy with these falls claims of a 3rd party trying to fix my phone. And they insisted that they cannot go against the decision of their engineer. And that they would not send such a letter through without thoroughly examining the phone. They person whom I was speaking to said that he had forwarded this to the complaints department and they will contact me within 48hrs.

The first thing I did when my phoned died was take it to the 3 store, knowing that I had 2 years warranty. I don’t see why I would want to pay a third person to fix my phone, when I can get it fixed for free by the 3 mobile.

The next day I got a call from this guy from 3 mobile who said he was a supervisor in the complaint handling department. I got told that their repair team believe that when they got my phone it was not in economic condition. And therefore they would not be able to carry on with repair. I kept on insisting that my phone has never been looked at by any unauthorized person. And I asked them to show me what proof they have to say that it was tampered with, to which they replied it could be anything, but they will not go against the decision of the engineer. I was told that they would return my phone to me so that I could give it somewhere else for repair and that they wouldn't replace my phone under any circumstances. I have told them to send me their statements in writing. As soon as I finished the call I went straight to the 3 store that I got my phone from. I spoke to the same guy, whom I had spoken to while handing my phone in for repairs and he said to me there is not much they can do at the store and the best thing I could do was to phone up customer care again and ask what proof they had to suggest that my phone got handled by a 3rd party.

I will be heading to citizens advice, hoping that they could help me in this matter. The fault that I had with my S3 seemed to be a common one , as I had read quite a few blogs and articles on it in the internet.

I just found out about this forum through a friend today. I hope there is someone here who can help me or give me suggestions on what to do.

Thnx