Frustrating cell phone warranty issue

I had an extremely frustrating warranty issue with my cell phone, which is still not resolved. I opened a warranty claim, due to a recent fault with GPS, which means I cannot use the phone for navigation any more.

My phone is older than 6 months, but within the supplier (Nokia) 12 month warranty. According to one of the automated return emails, the procedure is for Takealot to inspect the item, and then forward to the supplier for assessment.

What has happened in my case, is that the Takealot warehouse team has decided to not honour the warranty, due to "user damage", since the sceen has a crack - completely unrelated to the GPS issue.

My complains with the Takealot service are as follows: - Not following their own warranty procedure, i.e. not forwarding to Nokia - Not responding to multiple queries as to why it was not forwarded to Nokia - Dealing with multiple support staff (total of 6 so far), instead of a single person - Ignoring questions from my side, and giving repetitive copy paste answers - Completely inconsistent service between the 6 staff. At times generic answers without reading the previous messages. At other times sincere apologies, and "do not hesitate to contact me personally" - but without direct contact details. When replying, another person answered and I was back to square 0. - Insufficient communication about the return of the (still faulty) phone. It has now been couriered, but I do not know to which address. I was also never consulted regarding the transport option - i.e. warehouse, pickup point or courier.

So far I have dealt with: - David F. - Ghadeeja S. - Lushika P. - Ashlene R. - Aarifah M. - Aqeelah A.

At this point it feels like the support department is not there to help the customers, but only there to make the experience as frustrating as possible, until the customer gives up.

I hope I am mistaken though, and that the issue can be resolved quickly, as I have been without my phone for more than two weeks now.