Shoddy service delivery by LG South Africa

The service delivery ethos and ethic of LG Electronics South Africa is shockingly bad.

I have thought long and hard about submitting this complaint to hellopeter; as the problem is one that, as a technical person, I can resolve by buying a replacement part and replacing it myself. This will, however, void the warranty (which LG South Africa claim is void anyway, a Catch 22 situation if I ever saw one).

Furthermore, as a technical person who now works exclusively in the arena of dealing with shoddy service delivery to customers; I feel that I am ethically obliged to complain about the service delivery LG feel able to pass on to their customers, otherwise I'd effectively be letting my own clients down for allowing myself to be the victim of bad service delivery ... and if I allow myself to accept bad service delivery it means I may expect my clients to do the same.

When I contacted LG South Africa regarding a warranty claim for a phone (LG G6) whose rear camera lens had spontaneouly shattered without any user-related damage having occured (ie the phone had not been dropped or damaged in any way); and after less than a week of use, their response was "unfortunately your device will not be covered under warranty since the crack is regarded as physical damage".

Please note that they had not examined the actual device, they simply looked at a photograph taken of the device; nor did LG South Africa arrange for the device to be collected and examined.

When I submitted my complaint I also listed a number of forums in which several other people had experienced the same issue. This information was, apparently, completely disregarded.

It should be noted that when you do a search on Amazon for 'lg g6 lens camera replacement', you get a large number of results (140 as of today's date, including a large handful of specialised camera lens protectors); indicating that there is a large market of people out there who have experienced this exact issue.

However, if I do the same search for a 'sony xperia z5 camera lens replacement' I get precisely 0 results.

Here it should be noted that I am currently still using my Sony Xperia Z5 which is over 24 months old, and in almost pristine condition. A close friend of mine is still using a nearly 5 year old Sony Xperia Z2 which I passed on to her! Curretnly I cannot use my brand new LG G6, which is an otherwise wonderful phone, it is completely unusable because taking photographs is a fundamental aspect of my job, and I cannot do it with this phone.

The other thing that should be noted is that I have never had occasion to consider the purchase of a specialised camera lens protector for any phone I have ever owned; but apparently the LG G6 needs one, at least enough so that a large proportion of 91 Amazon results feel they have a market for this item?

So, when I asked LG South Africa the following question:

"In other words, you are telling me that ... without examining the device at all ... LG South Africa has rejected my warranty claim out of hand because what what I contend is a structual fault in the handset has manifested in a cracked camera screen which is 'physical damage', it is therefore outside the scope of a warranty".

I was moderately stunned to note that their response was:

"the final response will be the one I gave you"

Effectively that LG South Africa have rejected my claim as 'physical damage' without giving either consideration or credence to the affidavit sent stating that the device had not been user damaged in any way, and that this damage manifested as the result of a structural defect of some kind. They also apparently did not read my affidavit where I noted that many other people had noted a similar issue.

Apparently they are also completely unaware of how many Amazon vendors are happily making small change off of unsuspecting users who chose the otherwise beautiful LG G6, only to discover that it has a nasty fault which seems to manifest in a cracked camera lens.

To my mind this is beyond shoddy service delivery, and is completely unacceptable. Rejecting a warranty claim out of hand based on a photograph alone, without considering that damage of this nature could easily occur for reasons which have everything to do with shoddy workmanship, and little to do with user damage is *********.

This is why I told LG South Africa that I would be complaining on hellopeter. I am interested in their response.

Needless to say I will give very serious consideration indeed to this kind of response from LG when I come to replacing other devices I've got at home which are LG branded (at least 5 on a quick mental count).