[Galaxy S I9000 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] greeced:
We "People" make no sense? Well let me boil it down for you...

Bell is not on the hook for any warranty repair. Samsung is. However Bell, at least in Ontario is the ONLY authorized cell provider licensed by Samsung to purchase the phone at or for. So if you buy it at Best Buy, Future Shop, or any other cellular place without contract, they are NOT authorized to activate that non-contract phone with any other cell provider.

So with that being said. Those phones that Best Buy and Future Shop and those other companies get are obtained through the same source Bell gets their stock from. Why? Because that is the person that tells bell the phone is theirs.

So no matter where they get the phone from, there is one person, or a group of people at Samsung telling Bell another phone has been sold.

So why is Bell a good place to go to? Try phoning Samsung to get warranty work done without the assistance of Bell or the place you bought it at. They won't do it. Why? Because its a branded phone and they don't have the same system Bell does when it comes to tracking stolen goods.

Think about it. Why would anyone have to go to Bell at all? Why wouldn't Samsung just do all the warranty work themselves absolving Bell of any post-relations with their clients? Simple. Because you bring it in, they check the serial numbers against a flagged database only they, and their point-of-sale partners have. The same list that is shared with other providers to track stolen equipment.

So Samsung won't do the repair straight out, unless you buy the phone directly from them. And to that, I don't even think they sell the phone in Canada without the assistance of a provider. They do however in other countries from what I understand.

So making this extremely long story short. Samsung is on the hook for the cost of repair. Not bell. So tell me why bell can't be the intermediary for a person that didn't buy it there? It costs them nothing and improves relations with the general public.

Make sense now? Clear as mud? Didn't think so.

EDIT: And no one said anything about Bell giving them a replacement. They only do that as a courtesy to THEIR customers if need be or if Samsung says there's no other choice.. Again, samsung is on the hook for the replacement of any I9000M phone. Whether Bells or Not. If Bell gives their customer a replacement and Samsung said no, that is the only way Bell would have to pocket anything.

But for this purpose, I only spoke of warranty repair, not replacement. But again, thats up to Samsungs discretion based on what FutureTel, the only repair centre for them, tells them.

LAST EDIT: It is in the best interest of any person out there looking for warranty work to ensure you go to a Bell CORPORATE store and not a franchised store. I confirmed yesterday (EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A CONTRACT WITH BELL) that franchised stores can make up their own rules and do not have to accept the repair (Like they didn't mine) because I didn't buy it from that franchise. The owner of that store says the Corporate stores will take anything regardless of where it was purchased.

Oh and I had my contract, and my receipt for the purchase with me too.. still wouldn't take it. HMMMM.