Bella contacted us about the mobile phone she’d taken on a hire-purchase agreement.
What happened
Bella contacted us about the mobile phone she’d taken on a hire-purchase agreement. She said it developed a fault not long after getting it, and she’d contacted the business to get it repaired. They refused to repair it, saying it wasn’t the same phone they’d supplied to her.
After Bella complained, the business offered to end the finance agreement – but Bella said this would leave her out of pocket and without a working phone. Bella insisted it was exactly the same phone and asked for our help to resolve the situation.
Our decision
We asked the business for their version of events. They said the model didn’t match their records and insisted that the phone Bella was trying to get repaired wasn’t the one they’d supplied.
We asked the finance provider to give us some evidence of the phone they’d supplied to Bella – including the serial number. They said they hadn’t recorded the serial number of the original phone so they weren’t able to verify the details.
In our view, the business hadn't treated Bella fairly when they couldn’t provide evidence that the phone wasn’t the one they’d supplied to her. We told them to accept the phone for repair. We also asked them to refund the payments Bella had made under her hire-purchase agreement while they’d delayed doing the repair.