Complete failure on after-sale service and warranty

<p>I would like to express my complete dissatisfaction at the after sales warranty service experienced at MM All Electronic regarding my Note 4 LTE.</p> <p> </p> <p>I have been experiencing issues of freezing, lagging, and rebooting randomly and excessively to the point where the phone is not usable to me. I had only been able to answer 1 call successfully in 2 weeks every other call froze or rebooted when I attempted to answer. At times it would not power on at all, even when the battery is changed with a full one and would not charge. It then came on about 20-30 minutes later. At other times when it randomly reboots on it's own, it would startup in a different boot menu stating downloading updates but it would just stay there and never boot up. Sometimes the phone would heat up for no apprarent reason.</p> <p> </p> <p>I have attempted to self remedy prior to taking my phone in for repairs which was the last resort. I had first cleared the cache partition from the boot menu but that did not help. I had then taken out my memory card for 4 days but it made no difference so I eliminated that as the problem. I then used a brand new Samsung battery but that also did not help so I eliminated that as the problem.</p> <p> </p> <p>I then resorted unwilling to do a factory wipe and reset from the phone menu hoping that would solve the problem once and for all but the phone was exactly the same. I then proceeded to do a hard reset using the 3 phone buttons and did not restore my applications to see if it was application related. I had tried to use it like that for 4 days but the problem persisted which left me with no option but to take in into a Samsung repair center.</p> <p> </p> <p>I took the phone to MM All Electronics on Tuesday, 17 May 2016 as it was the only smart repair center near me. The job number for this was ***. I had explained all of the above to the front office assistant who ran Samsung diagnostics for freezing and it failed on "power" and "storage". She attempted to optimize but could not so she informed me that she needs to book it in and keep it. I then requested that she run a full diagnostic check since that does not address the rebooting, lagging, and failure to boot issues and as proceeded through the test, the diagnostic itself failed as the phone had frozen and disconnected. I was the first customer there at 8:30 that day waiting for them to open and an hour had already passed running the tests which she showed reluctance to do as "this was going to take long". She informed me that they would call me when the phone was ready. I had not heard anything from them so I called about 1:30pm and was informed that the phone was ready and that the resolution was to load the latest software.</p> <p> </p> <p>Upon collecting the phone and starting to setup, an 80MB came up which I recall doing about 8 months ago. When that finished, I was prompted to do another 77MB update which I had also done a few months ago, and then eventually another nearly 2GB update OTA for Marshmallow. This took the better part of a full day and many GIGs of data only to still have the same problems repeat. I tried to restore my data and use it for a few days but it was still unusable. </p> <p> </p> <p>I then took it back on Friday, 20 May at 8:30 again. I explained all of the above again and that the software update did not sort the problem out and that it is probably a hardware issue. The totally useless agent here tried to test by scrolling through the menu and insisted its working and that they would not have sent it out if it was not fixed. Then he attempted to open the dialler which is as basic as it gets on a phone but the phone froze on a white screen. Then he took it to the back and came back saying "it's probably one of your applications". The phone rebooted randomly on it's own while he had it, stayed on the Samsung screen for about 5 minutes and then rebooted again without anything running on the phone. He then proceeded to tell me that they where just going to load the latest software again as if it should yield a different result or I'm supposed to keep a phone I can't use and keep paying for it for another 8 months when it's faulty. I told him that the engineers should check it up properly and do whatever they need to, as long as they sort it out. I also told him that there's Marshmallow on it now (6.0.1) and that they should ensure that the software is at least the latest when I collect so that I don't have to do gigs of updates again. He proceeded to tell me that "it's not marshmallow, it's the normal Vodacom OS" which already showed me how *********** staff are working at the "Smart Center".</p> <p> </p> <p>I had not heard from them all day so I started calling for an update from 1pm. I was met with no answers, then told that "no one is in the service department", then promises to call back which never happened. At 3pm, I was told the engineer was on lunch and he would be back at 3:30 and they would call and give me an update but nothing happened. I then went there at 4:30pm and initially, they could not find my phone, then the lady at the collection desk told me they found it after 10 minutes. Then an engineer came with the phone and told her something. She then told me that they're just "QC'ing" it and I can take it. He brought it out 5 minutes later and the report said that everything was fixed and the loaded the latest software again. I was also told "not to reload my apps for a week and see how it goes as that was the problem". while waiting for the paperwork I tried using the phone with nothing on it and it froze just scrolling through the menu. I then complained and she took she phone to the back again. They gave me an excuse that it was because they had just loaded it so that is why it froze but it will be fine so I'm not sure what QC happened. I then checked the software version and found that they once again loaded software that was 3 version older. She then took the phone back. I waiting about 30 minutes and she came back with the boot update menu open and informed me that it was going to take a while but the update will happen and all will be fine. The collection form still showing that all was checked and and the problem was resolved as this time. Once the phone had started up, the issues resumed as normal and still persists right now and I have not restored my applications yet either so I am still left with an expensive but unusable phone that I have sent in twice to a "smart center" that promises speedy top notch service but so far it looks like a circus.</p> <p> </p> <p>I have read all the customer focused posters at the agents desks and I can tell you that none of it was followed in both my visits there last week. They proceeded to just do 5 minute updates on both occasions with no attempt to actually find the problems or fix the phone yet left me without the phone for 2 full days. They were completely dismissive to me as a customer which I found very rude and disgusting. They obviously have no respect for me or my time by wasting so much of it and only just doing an update at the end of the day when I went there. They have no knowledge or competence if they don't know that 6.0.1 is Marshmallow. Not once did they offer to back up and restore my data but did inform me that will lose my data on the second visit. They obviously make no attempt to recover or keep any of the customers information. They completely fail to communicate with the customer without a single call from them. They cost me more money to run up and down and call. Also informing me that I will lose my screen protector if they "place it in an oven" so I had to take off and ruin a very expensive tempered glass screen protector. Then there's the gigs and gigs of data I had to waste on updates that I had to redo and restore my data only to still have a faulty phone.</p> <p> </p> <p>I have no confidence in wasting my time taking my phone back for a third time and dealing with such horrid customer facing people.</p> <p> </p> <p>Please advise on how you are going to resolve this?</p>