[Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dxzh:
In brief, it is the responsibility of the retailer to sort out repairs or refunds for defective products under UK consumer law. If the problem with the product is not caused by the consumer, then the consumer may well have a good case against the retailer. The retailer's statutory obligations are not likely to fall away if the consumenr simply flashes new firmware which causes no damage to the product.

The link given by Samsung seems to be a general description of the additional manufacturer's warrany and how to claim under it, not the detailed wording of the warranty itself. Digging out my old SGS2 manufacturer's warranty card received from Samsung in the box, there is at the end a typical statement that:

"This warranty does not affect the consumers statutory rights nor the consumers rights against the dealer from their purchase/sales agreement."

While the manufacturer's additional warranty set out on the warranty card (or wherever) on whatever terms it chooses may be lost by rooting, etc, I would take some comfort knowing that the important and valuable statutory rights a consumer has under the relevant local legislation, in the UK at least, subsist independently, primarily against the retailer. The consumer does not even need to go looking for the wording mentioned above in the manufacturer's warranty as, whether it is there or not, is not relevant to the continued existence of your statutory rights against the retailer.

From a retailer perspective, the obligations which they have to the consumer will depend on the circumstances. For example:

- if there was an underlying fault (such as duff pixels or a defective switch unconnected with the software loaded onto the device) or the device was not "fit for its purpose" or it was misdescribed, then the retailer (not its distributor or Samsung) is the one under an obligation to arrange a repair or refund in accordance with the legislation, irrespective of any manufacturer's warranty.

- if the problem is caused by the consumer dropping the phone or frying the CPU by overclocking it, then that is a matter not typically protected by the legislation. In this type of circumstance the loss of the additional rights might be significant, perhaps because additional accidental damage cover offered with the phone in the form of a warranty or insurance is invalidated or has exclusions linked to the modification of the device. However, even then the consumer's position may not be completely hopeless if:

** a term dening the warranty or insurance could be deemed unfair under UCTA 1977 (or similar legislation) - for example, it might be unfair to be denied accidental damage coverage for damage caused by dropping a phone in water if the reason coverage is denied is simply because the phone had been previously rooted. Warning: this type of claim based on unfairness though is not an ideal path to follow as outcome is uncertain (given legal judgement call) and journey there likely to be time-consuming; or

** a retailer (or the repairer on its behalf) does not associate revisions to the firmware with the problem resulting in the claim or chooses not to enforce the exceptions for some reason (eg the retailer is nice, incompetent, values ongoing relationship, has better things to do than argue, etc).

The OFT guide to the position of a UK retailer (http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/738..._explained.pdf) mentioned in my earlier post seems to be informative and written in plain English and gives, I believe, a really useful indicator of the grounds for returning goods for repair or refund in the UK and of a few extra rights a consumer might have when buying remotely - many of these rights will exist in a similar form throughout the EU, though implemented in a different way. Whether or not the average high street employee of the retailer in the UK is aware of the obligations of the retailer is a bit of a lottery, but someone in its head office will be and it is to the head office that the consumer may have to turn if the store itself is unhelpful. Fortunately in the UK at least, it is not generally the consumer's problem as to how the retailer sorts out with its distributor or the ultimate manufacturer (in this case Samsung) which of the retailer, distributor or manufacturer ultimately pays for the repair or refund where there is a good statutory claim.