Don't Buy Cellphones sold at Edgars

Good Day. I wish to lodge a complaint with your complaints department. I purchased a Huawei Y5 Lite from Edgars Newtown Junction in April 2019. Further to that I also purchased insurance and was paying R66 per month by debit order. In June of the same year the phone got damaged and I claimed repairs on the insurance and subsequently paid the excess amount of R200. I was informed that the phone would take 4-6 weeks to repair. I only received the phone in September 2019 which was a good few weeks more that I had to wait to receive the phone. The phone worked for 5 weeks and in November 2019 I claimed repairs on the insurance for a second time. The phone manifested the same problem that had prompted me to claim for repairs on the insurance in the first place. I paid the excess amount of R400 and this time received my phone in May 2020. At this point I decided to cancel my insurance as I had concluded that the store had sold me a grey product. This time the phone worked for less than 1 month, thereafter it manifested the same problem again like the two previous occasions on 10 June 2020. Since I was given a guarantee on the repairs for 3 months, I lodged a complaint with Finrite. The contact person asked me to take the cellphone to the store and request that the staff file a reassessment form, which was done. The date was 18 June 2020. Subsequent to this no one contacted me and the store in question closed. Only when I contacted the Finrite contact person was I informed that the phone is damaged and required repairs. I then requested that the phone be sent to me unrepaired. She confirmed that the phone would be couriered to me. This was not done and I then contacted the Finrite contact person on 16 September 2020 to follow up on the promise to courier the phone. Her response was to apologise and say that the phone would be dispatched the same day.

I am very unhappy with the service I received and even the after sales service. I will never buy a phone from Edgars and its affiliates because the insurance of phones is not properly regulated. I don’t believe that the phone was ever repaired but because it’s my word against theirs, I will not be able to prove it. I was previously promised a replacement phone when I claimed repairs on insurance the second time, but this commitment was reneged on at the eleventh hour, only with the justification that I claimed for repairs and not a replacement, even though they sent me an sms to the effect that I will receive a replacement phone.

Given the timelines, one can see that I was deprived use and enjoyment of my phone for extended periods and in addition paying insurance which amounted to two-thirds of the value of the phone. This is what is causing people to claim for theft when the phone is just damaged and thereby drives up the premiums for other responsible insured users such as myself. I feel very raw about this because I bought this phone with insurance thinking that I would have peace of mind. Since April 2019 I have had this phone for less than 6 months. The other 8 months it's been in repairs. I paid excess twice for a phone that was never repaired and collectively paid 2/3 of the value of the phone in insurance premium s. That type of service leaves a lot to be desired.