We did a device swap for my wife's Galaxy S20 Plus through Samsung Care plus program. The new mobile Phone has had very poor reception since receiving it, and drops out of service in places where the previous device as well as my phone (Note 20 Ultra with the same provider) works.
We spoke with the Samsung care team who advised me this is a warranty issue and they won't do anything. They will not do another swap for a faulty device without needing another swap fee! For a faulty device they sent! This is an obvious process lacking to not allow for this kind of thing which has to happen from time to time.
We've spoken with technical support a number of times, going through all the requested steps, even to the point of a factory reset, all without change. The SIM card works fine in every other phone tested, and my sim card behaves the same in the swap device, so there's definitely an issue with the phone itself.
After not getting anywhere after a month we requested to raise a complaint, and a week later the complaints person tried to call the faulty device (Which of course didn't work), and the number they left wasn't clear enough to be able to call back! Of course calling support back and they have no way of passing us on to the complaints department....
The only option given to us was to drive 200 KMs away to the nearest Samsung store. The closest repair shop is not acceptable and frankly shouldn't be an authorised repairer based on the number of poor reviews on Google alone.
The FAQs state:
If your eligible device OR ANY SWAP DEVICE suffers a defect or failure which is covered by a consumer guarantee, you are entitled to a repair, replacement or refund (at Samsung’s discretion) for a minor failure or a refund or compensation for a major failure.
It seems Samsung's discretion is to try and ignore the customer and hope they don't have to do any of the above.
We've had a number of Samsung devices over the years, but as I'm just about fed up with the lack of support i don't think i'll be recommending Samsung to anyone in the future.
I think its a Software issue, I own a S21 Ultra and after the October update I'm facing the same issue. I did swap sims, did a network reset and Contacted Vodafone(my network service provider) and everything is fine. However, i only receive 3g network on my device. Currently I'm waiting for the Next big update (Android 12) to fix this issue.
It could be related! We did do the swap in early September though, so maybe it was in the September update for the S20+? Either that or this is actually a hardware fault.
I have read about some issues that could be software related, and Samsung support have been suggesting a potential software issue as well. We've sent our logs through the Samsung Members app a week ago, and still waiting to see if the error could be related to it.
We've seriously tried every avenue they've suggested.
I've tried configuring the phone to 2g/3g only, and manually setting the service provider, and it's still not working.
The biggest issue I have with this whole scenario is that we've put in a huge amount of time and effort to get this working, and if it is a problem with the phone why don't Samsung have a process or procedure available (like another fee free swap if it's faulty), without us spending more time and money to drive to a Capital city to have someone look at it? We've already spent nearly $400 on this program to swap for a device that hasn't worked properly since receiving it, and if we did this we would also have to pay travel costs and lose another day of our time.
We could've just got the screen replaced on the old phone for about this cost and been done with it.
In the meantime, I also suggest sending an error report via the Samsung Members app for this to be investigated. Error reports are sent to our team to identify any deviations in your device performance, once analysed, our team will get back to you with a response to advise further.
To send an error report:
Samsung Members > Get help > Error reports > select issue category > describe issue and frequency > Tick ‘send system log data’ > Send in top right.
As mentioned in the previous post we have already sent the error logs through to the team last week, and the last we heard on Tuesday was that it had been passed on to the software experts.
Hi there, thank you for sending that through. As you are posting on behalf of your partner, I am unable to match their error report to this post.
Would it be possible for you to send me a direct message, with the email account linked to your wife's Samsung account, so that I may look into the outcome of the error report?
Hello again, I've just received a response from our team. In this case, we would need the device assessed by our service centre to confirm the fault.
Additionally, please send through the email account linked to your wife's Samsung account, so that I may look into the outcome of the error report.
Please be aware that due to our Privacy Policy, your device may be factory reset before being assessed. I highly recommend backing up your device via Smart Switch, OneDrive and/or Google to ensure none of your data is lost.
I didn't receive a notification of this reply and missed it. The logs were sent through to Jo in the Samsung Members team. This was sent on the 26th.
I will send through my wife's email address via email.
The Phone is still not working, and we are nearly at 3 months(!) of not having a working phone. Just a reminder that this is the Samsung care+ replacement phone that has been faulty since receiving it.
We do not have a suitable service centre near us, and the closest Samsung Store is 2 hours drive away.
Being without the device to ship it away is not a reasonable solution when the care+ program was able to ship a replacement prior to us returning the previous one.
Why does the Samsung care+ program not allow a simple return and swap for a faulty device that was sent out?
Hi there, thanks for sending that through, I have responded to your email regarding the error report.
I understand your frustration with with getting this resolved. Our team are still looking into the log data. Once we have more information, our team will let you know of the next steps.
Thankyou for following up Laura. I thought I'd responded after your reply last week but I mustn't have hit Post.
It's been nearly another week with no response from the team.
Every avenue we've taken to put in complaints through Samsung support regarding the situation seems to have dried up as well. We are at the point of looking into a fair trading complaint now, as it has been over 3 months with a faulty phone supplied through the Samsung care+ program. My wife actually missed an important work message today, only receiving it hours later. We've had Samsung devices for some time now, but with this experience we will be looking elsewhere from now on.
