Samsung watch5 repair overcharge

My husband, Leon Blignaut took out a contract in December 2022 with Telkom which comprised a Samsung A53 cellphone and a Samsung Watch5.

The watch started flickering and then didn't want to switch on one morning towards the end of March and we took it the following Sunday (the 26th of March) to Telkom who sent it in to ssscellular to be evaluated. My husband has been taking really good care of it. He checked the manual and the Samsung website for extra info, specifically regarding the waterproof specifications, so we had no reason to think that it would be out of warranty. We also expected it to be sent to Samsung and not just another repair company whose only interest apparently is to make a profit.

My husband received a call from someone weeks later. This person did not identify herself, so he is not sure if she was from Telkom or ssscellular. She told my husband that he will have to pay for the repairs because it is out of warranty. This person’s initial reason was that the watch was overcharged to which my husband pointed out that it then must be a factory fault. She then said that she would send the tech report - which had a completely different reason.

The report stated that the IP68 rating was exceeded as the reason for the water damage. According to the standard for IP68, my husband had to have been in water deeper than 1.5m for more than 30 minutes. I cannot see how this was possible. It means his head must be submerged, that he was lying on the bottom of the pool for 30 minutes or that he went diving, which I can assure you he did not. He is not a certified diver. He also always kept the watch on so he could count his steps, so no one could have taken it. He didn't drop the watch or man-handled it in any way, which is proven by the fact that the tech report only found water damage but no other physical damage and while their report may prove that the watch broke because of water damage, it definitely does not prove that it was any fault of my husband.

The amount ssscellular charged to have the phone fixed is R7,676.19, which is more than what a new one would cost. When my husband refused to have it fixed, they told him that he will have to pay R189.75 for the evaluation if he wants the watch returned. This amount was not disclosed beforehand. To us it seems that they have a really good opportunity for a side business, selling refurbished watches because nobody would pay more to have watch repaired than what it is worth or then pay to have a useless watch returned.