28th April 2013 Rude. Deceitful. Scornful. Think they are untouchable by New Zealand Law.
If you buy something here, I sincerely hope that you never need to come back with any complaints because they WILL give you the runaround.
I bought a Samsung smartphone at the beginning of 2012 that started to have episodes of freezing. The problem became progressively more frequent and in December I took the phone in to have them sort it out.
I was denied a refund or replacement outright prior to inspection on the grounds that I had used the phone for "nearly a year" - the warranty was for 1 year. So I left it with them for "servicing".
When I got it back, it had a new and worse problem - it would have episodes when it would type gibberish (the phone would register points on the screen where I did not touch when typing) and the only way to fix it was to do a factory reset, erasing all of my settings and applications each time it happened.
When I complained to Cool Mobile a second time, they shrugged off all responsibility because it had been over a year since purchase. After making a scene they said they could "send it off again", I asked them where and they said Samsung in Albany or to Vodafone. So I decided to go to the Samsung Customer Service Plaza myself to see whether I could get it serviced there. They told me that my retailer had voided my official Samsung warranty by installing invalid firmware that wasn't covered under Samsung NZ. It was then that I realised Cool Mobile had been lying about where they send their phones for servicing, and that they had denied my rights as a consumer to have the issue redressed not only with them, but with the manufacturer as well. The manager scorned my mentioning of the Consumer Guarantees Act and talked with his friends in Korean (which I can't understand) while I was speaking to him.
After much ranting with my friends, one of them mentioned that their service request form had a fake phone number to divert calls from customers who were having their phones serviced. To my disbelief, when I called the number at the top left corner of my service request form it led to another business entirely. The manager of that business had been putting up with calls from Cool Mobile customers for about a year, and had complained multiple times to them to rectify the issue.
On top of everything else, the staff sneered at me when I went to complain, avoided eye contact out of contempt when I spoke to them, and the manager even tried to furtively take my service request form on my second visit to erase evidence that I ever came in for servicing during the warranty period.
I know many friends who have told me about their bad experiences with this retailer, but none have been persistent enough to pursue justice through the barricade of contrived inconvenience and rudeness. I initially intended to take this case to the Disputes Tribunal, but I feel that this business should be revealed for what it is to protect other NZ consumers. It's appalling that this kind of shady business could thrive right in the middle of the Auckland CBD.
Rude. Deceitful. Scornful. Think they are untouchable by New Zealand Law. If you buy something here, I sincerely hope that you never need to come back with any complaints because they WILL give you the runaround. I bought a Samsung smartphone at the beginning of 2012 that started to have episodes of freezing. The problem became progressively more frequent and in December I took the phone in to have them sort it out. I was denied a refund or replacement outright prior to inspection on the grounds that I had used the phone for "nearly a year" - the warranty was for 1 year. So I left it with them for "servicing". When I got it back, it had a new and worse problem - it would have episodes when it would type gibberish (the phone would register points on the screen where I did not touch when typing) and the only way to fix it was to do a factory reset, erasing all of my settings and applications each time it happened. When I complained to Cool Mobile a second time, they shrugged off all responsibility because it had been over a year since purchase. After making a scene they said they could "send it off again", I asked them where and they said Samsung in Albany or to Vodafone. So I decided to go to the Samsung Customer Service Plaza myself to see whether I could get it serviced there. They told me that my retailer had voided my official Samsung warranty by installing invalid firmware that wasn't covered under Samsung NZ. It was then that I realised Cool Mobile had been lying about where they send their phones for servicing, and that they had denied my rights as a consumer to have the issue redressed not only with them, but with the manufacturer as well. The manager scorned my mentioning of the Consumer Guarantees Act and talked with his friends in Korean (which I can't understand) while I was speaking to him. After much ranting with my friends, one of them mentioned that their service request form had a fake phone number to divert calls from customers who were having their phones serviced. To my disbelief, when I called the number at the top left corner of my service request form it led to another business entirely. The manager of that business had been putting up with calls from Cool Mobile customers for about a year, and had complained multiple times to them to rectify the issue. On top of everything else, the staff sneered at me when I went to complain, avoided eye contact out of contempt when I spoke to them, and the manager even tried to furtively take my service request form on my second visit to erase evidence that I ever came in for servicing during the warranty period. I know many friends who have told me about their bad experiences with this retailer, but none have been persistent enough to pursue justice through the barricade of contrived inconvenience and rudeness. I initially intended to take this case to the Disputes Tribunal, but I feel that this business should be revealed for what it is to protect other NZ consumers. It's appalling that this kind of shady business could thrive right in the middle of the Auckland CBD.