That's illegal under the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act.
Send them a certified letter. Inform them that they need to prove you caused the damage, repair or replace your device, or you'll be taking them to arbitration.
They generally have to pay for the arbiter, so it'll be cheaper to just replace your cheap phone even if they win.
I once tried to do a relatively basic repair on a phone, and ended up really breaking it. Like the touch screen won't work because I broke some shit on the motherboard that now requires micro soldering broke it.
So I send it to a repair company that allegedly does some micro soldering, and they call me to tell me they can't repair it because their diagnostic utility doesn't work unless it's the stock OS (I've been a GrapheneOS user for many years). What they do is... wipe my data and then tell me it's not the screen so they can't repair it.
Then I sent it to an actually good repair shop and they fixed it very quickly, easily understanding the problem. Good repair companies aren't easy to find but damn are they worth it. They're almost always smaller shops and they do not GAF what you do with your phone's software.
It's illegal for them to do that, BTW. They have to prove magisk damaged your battery.
I ran into this with Dell when they tried to claim after market RAM was the reason a CPU core wasn't responding to interrupt requests.
All it took was asking for the diagnostic data showing that the aftermarket RAM caused it to get the warranty repair approved.
You just gotta push back until they cave. Maybe ask for their mailing address for your FTC report or for the number to their legal department (most call centers are terrified of escalating anything to the actual company).
But, don't directly threaten legal action, because they'll stop the call right there.
It's illegal for them to do that, BTW. They have to prove magisk damaged your battery.
And you have to be able to afford those rights. If you can't afford to sue them then you're screwed.
That's where the arbitration clauses they make you agree to are actually helpful.
THEY have to pay for arbitration. You don't need an attorney, and generally they'll just take care of you because it's cheaper than hiring an arbiter.
If you read further, I give suggestions on how to do that without a lawyer.
It's going to cost the company more money to call their lawyers than just doing the repair, so it usually doesn't even take a ton of push back.
Don't go to any authorized repair center unless it's still in warranty. Those people don't care about you or your things. They are obligated to service you. Any 3rd party repair person has to work triple as hard and give you double the service to win your business.
As someone who used to work at and Apple and Samsung authorized repair center, it’s not that we don’t care. It’s that Apple and Samsung control every single thing we do and will fine us for deviating from their rules.
Here in Brazil the hardware and software are technically two different products, in such a way that you can't deny a hardware warranty repair due to software modifications. That's the good part.
The bad part is that manufacturers do that anyway because they know you won't pay the legal fees to challenge this in court. This strategy mostly pays off. If you're particularly annoying, or somebody from our customer protection watchdog happens to take interest in your claim, the company will fold and repair the modified device for you eventually.
We gotta get EU on board this train.
This kind of thing is illegal in mist eu countries but they also dont enforce it like in brasil. Iirc norway enforces it because a bunch of people sued samsung together.
Samsung have been trying to dodge honouring under warranty for years - check the comments for how much work had to be put in to get them to honour it. It pays to fight sometimes.
You cannot imagine the lies I had to tell to the people while working for Applecare.
I fried the battery charging chip for my HTC dream when I rooted and used it as a router for the family in holiday. I felt it was hot to the touch but I thought "it's gonna be ok, surely it has temperature sensors and it will throttle". High draw for a long time when charging = the chip exploded and it wouldn't charge anymore. Luckily the battery was removable and I already got an external charger for it from dealextreme. But HTC still repaired it for free under warranty even if it was my fault and I gave to them back rooted.
Same for LG when my rooted Nexus 5X boot looped, although that was an endemic problem caused by LG shitty manufacturing (they changed the stance a few months after that, never bought LG anymore)
Samsung should repair it, I thought they were the only ones root friendly left on the market...
I thought they were the only ones root friendly left on the market…
Not anymore.
you can absolutely do it yourself. be prepared and get the right tools, look up many many guides and videos before you start, but I honestly think it's doable for someone whose never opened a phone. those batteries are an absolute pain in the ass to remove, but as long as it's discharged below 20% you really don't have to worry about it it catching fire or anything catastrophic like you're lead to believe (just be careful ofc and wear PPE)
Would, but I don't have the equipment.
where I live there are shops for laptop, console and phone repairs. I'd keep it simple and go to one of those
If it's still under warranty, they HAVE to unless they can prove your modification caused the system to fail. It's no different than the silly stickers that say "warranty void if removed" - that's a nice fantasy for the manufacturer, but at least in the US it's been ruled those stickers mean absolutely nothing. If they're refusing to fix a phone under warranty, contact your local AG and enjoy watching them squirm. Loop in the FTC for good measure.
An ideal phone:
If it's under warranty, they almost certainly cannot deny the claim for this or really many bullshit reasons manufacturers say like removing a "warranty void" sticker - which is still covered. You can sue in small claims. Check out the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act should you need to prove your point.
Fuck Samsung. Not surprised though
In Europe, there are unofficial Samsung phones available 15-20% cheaper than from authorized stores. Just consider how often you need warranty repairs. I've changed 5-7 phones during my life and haven't had any problems with them except cracked screens and worn batteries.
Does Google still void warranty if you install GrapheneOS on a Pixel?
While this is some bullshit companies pull, you don't have third party repair companies in your area?
samsung does bullshit where the parts have serial codes paired to the phone or whatever and you need to match it using their proprietary software for it to function. apple does it too.
I bought a Samsung as well. We should both learn from our mistakes, and never do that again - this is simply the cost of doing business with them. Maybe Fairphone would be good?
where can I get a good phone like a pixel or fairphone or whatever in greece? phones like that cant be found anywhere.
Sadly I know very little there. I know I HATE my current Samsung (mostly due to the company practices like you mentioned), and I also felt incredibly betrayed by my OnePlus 7T before that (the device itself was amazing, until an update broke it and now it literally hurts my hand, like I wonder if it's giving me cancer by radiating something through the shielding that it burned through), and before that I absolutely adored my Nexus 5 (but Pixels are a whole other thing entirely - far too much camera and too little actual phone for my tastes). The entire smartphone world is incredibly predatory. I mostly figure that the next one I get will be a cheap phone, maybe even a dumb flip... but on the other hand I do live in an area where Google (or whatever) Maps could really help out so... I don't know what I'll do when my current one craps out:-(. Probably I will research a Fairphone, but if you live in an area where that would be difficult to repair, then yeah that may not be an option for you:-(. At least you live within the EU though where such is being forced to change, so you have that going for you.:-)
Wait, Samsung does that too now?
Whatever, it's just iPhones with Android now.
