Foschini Stole Phone!!!!!

I purchased a Nokia 2.1 Blue/Copper in colour from Exact on 6 October 2018. I purchased the phone with my Exact account with a 12 months repayment plan. On the same day of purchase I signed up for a TFG Device Insurance Policy for the Nokia 2.1 that I had purchased. Around some time in July 2019 the Nokia 2.1 fell off my hand and the screen went blank. I went to the nearest Foschini to inquire about claiming for insurance for the device. An employee told me that I had to first call the insurance and the only would I be able to hand the phone back to shop. I called the insurance number that the employee gave me ***. Upon calling the TFG insurance, they took my details and the extent of the phone damaged and concluded that insurance would cover the repair. They then instructed me to deliver the phone at the closest store, which was Foschini (at the corner of Elof and Albertina Sisulu in JHB CBD). The following day after calling insurance, I went to Foschini to deliver the phone. I gave the Nokia 2.1 in its package book to a Foschini employee who wore an official Foschini badge which had the name Lihle on it. Lihle took phone and handed back the package book back to me, stating that the box was not needed. She went into their staff room to store the phone. Before leaving, I asked if she did not need to write anything down or give me a receipt to which she said no. She said insurance would call me once the repairs were done. She instructed me to keep calling and checking with the store about the progress of the phone

About two months passed and insurance still hadn't called. I decided then to call insurance myself. I was then informed by insurance that they had not received my phone. The insurance company thus told me that they would called the Foschini Store after my phone to inquire and asked me the name of the employee who i handed the phone to. I returned to Foschini to inquire. I could find the employee on that day, it was her day off. I was instructed again call the store for regular updates and to speak to Lihle when she returned to work. I thus started regularly. The information I received from those phone calls was that the employee Lihle was not there/unavailable. In January 2020 I then decided to return to the Foschini, I found a Foschini employee a the Till Point and I asked about whether Lihle was there and she said no. She told me that Lihle was no longer employed by Foschini. She thus asked if she could I assist me. I told her the whole story about my phone and how I wanted to know the progress. She said told me she could follow up on the case and would inform the manager. she tried to contact the manager telephonically but there was no answer. She gave me her name (Ntombi) and cellphone number for me to regularly check if she had spoken to the manager and found a solution to my case. I instead went to the store regularly for an update. Ntombi informed that she had spoken to the manager and that the manager is looking personally into the case.

During the lockdown, I sent an email to the Foschini store and received no reply. When the lockdown eased to level 4 I decided to return to the store on Thursday (21 May 2020). I found Ntombi at the store, she told me that they could find the phone in the store. She also said they were to fix the mess that the former employee Lihle had made. She told me she spoke to the manager about the phone. She told me the manager had instructed them to give me a new phone, but not the same, even though she did not specify what model I would be receiving as a replacement. However, she told me that the phone they were proposing to give me as a replacement would be of a lesser value than the Nokia 2.1 phone that I had purchased. I asked them why, they said because my phone had been broken and as such they could not give me the same model. I asked them to call insurance to hear how to deal with the situation since they had been already informed of the extent of the damage but Ntombi insisted that this was not an insurance issue but a Foschini issue

This has been a distressing situation for me. This matter has dragged on for almost a year now. I bought this phone on account, I paid it up. I am also still paying for the insurance of the phone even though I do not have it anymore. I was not wreckless, I followed all the instructions given to me by the Foschini employees. I left the phone in their possession, security cameras can confirm that as well. I do not see why I need to get a replacement phone of lesser value than the one I purchased when a Foschini employee is the one who received the phone. Especially when they cannot allocate the phone, and admit that their former employee had committed some form of wrongdoing while under Foschini employment. I do not understand why I must receive a phone of less value when the current employees did not see or assess the extent of the damage to accurately deduce if I deserved a replacement phone of less value. Because had the phone been taken to insurance, it would've have been fixed and I would still have the phone I paid for.