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How is this considered "damage not covered by warranty"?

I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge I purchased in December of 2016. Since I bought the phone, I've had nothing but issues with battery life, phone freezes and microSD card corruptions. I've had to factory reset this phone 25 times. I have an actual log of dates and events where the phone malfunctioned.

This past Friday my phone fell off my bed onto a carpeted floor. I measured the distance and it's a 3 foot drop. The LCD underneath is now malfunctioning. There is a black circle on the bottom left of my screen and the bottom 1/4" of the screen is unusable (flashing white). I called customer service and explained the issue. They told me to take it into the store to have them look at it.

I took it to the store today and the Verizon employee took it in the back room for less than a full minute. He returned to me and stated that the device is damaged and not eligible for the 1 year warranty. I explained to him that this phone has had problems starting in January of this year and explained what those problems were. He stated that I would be charged the full retail value of the phone if they sent it in.

My question is how is this the case? Shouldn't a reasonable person expect their Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge to survive a 3 foot fall onto carpeted floor? This seems to me like this would fall under physical manufacturer defect. There was obviously something not right with the phone and definitely something not right with the LCD screen that is "now" damaged.

On the phone with customer service right now. They're trying to get Samsung on the line.

Comments

Jordan983

Just finished speaking with the customer service representative and Samsung representative. The Samsung representative told me that the warranty is now voided because I dropped the phone.

How does that make any sense? A 3 foot drop? Where is the threshold? With that logic, someone placing their phone on a table can be considered voiding the warranty. Is the threshold 2 foot? 1 foot? Where does it state that in the warranty?

It's obvious that the LCD and the rest of the phone was already malfunctioning. The 3 foot drop onto CARPETED floor just made the LCD defect readily apparent.

jrh4054

Did you not buy the insurance from VZW? If you didn't, you're probably out of luck.

Jordan983

I do have insurance. If I had dropped my phone onto a hard surface or really did anything with that phone that SHOULD have resulted in damage, I would have filed an insurance claim, paid my deductible and been fine.

Just spoke with Verizon customer service through online chat. I explained thoroughly what happened, what the circumstances were and all of the issues with the phone. They agreed that, because there was no external damage or signs of damage, it just might very well be plausible that there was a physical manufacturers defect.

They are sending me a replacement phone now under the 1 year manufacturers warranty.

rcschnoor

Jordan983 wrote:
I do have insurance. If I had dropped my phone onto a hard surface or really did anything with that phone that SHOULD have resulted in damage, I would have filed an insurance claim, paid my deductible and been fine.
Just spoke with Verizon customer service through online chat. I explained thoroughly what happened, what the circumstances were and all of the issues with the phone. They agreed that, because there was no external damage or signs of damage, it just might very well be plausible that there was a physical manufacturers defect.
They are sending me a replacement phone now under the 1 year manufacturers warranty.

This is a VERY risky thing. They cannot tell over the phone whether or not the phone has any physical damage, only go on what you say. They WILL look at the phone you return when you do so, though, and IF they deem it to have any physical damage, you WILL be liable for the full retail value of the device they are now sending you. Additionally, if you are making any payments on the phone you are sending back, you will be liable for those future payments, too. Finally, you will not be able to get the phone you are returning back if you do not like the decision they make as to the status of the phone you are returning.

You stated that you dropped the phone. Height does not matter. Sometimes it is only the angle at which the phone lands which is why some drops result in damage and others do not. Personally, I think you would have been better off going the insurance route, but hopefully accepting the warranty replacement and returning your current phone will not come back to bite you. Good luck.

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