Denied warranty on rooted oneplus 3

[i_rock098]

Hello guys, i recently made a post on reddit oneplus subreddit about how i was denied warranty for my oneplus 3 phone since i was rooted and i was told i should share it here so here it goes.

So I went to the oneplus service center today since my display had some issues. My phone was in the warranty period. Right on checking the phone the guy says that since this is a rooted phone they don't provide hardware warranty. I argued with him saying that oneplus advertises quite proudly that rooting does not infact void your warranty so how can they claim otherwise. On this I was told that they have officially been given in mail that hardware warranty will be void on rooted phone and it will only get software warranty. After arguing with him for quite some time he threatened me that if he marks this phone as rooted in the system I will never ever be able to claim warranty on the phone. I literally had to pleade and beg him for several hours to change the display did he finally agree. Even in this he said he is doing a big favor to me and warned me not to ever root the device again if I want warranty.

Now I want to ask has oneplus officially changed their policy on rooting? If so why does their website still say that rooting does not void your warranty if the service center claims otherwise.

 

[bencozzy]

Its called extortion, he was trying to get money out of you its common practice at all cell phone repair shops.

 

[Bobbika]

The technical process of rooting or unlocking the bootloader does not void the warranty of a OnePlus device. However, we strongly suggest for you to only root or unlock the bootloader of your OnePlus device if you are confident in your understanding of the risks involved.
By accessing resources regularly unavailable to the software, you may damage your hardware during or after the procedure. Such damage is not covered under warranty. In warranty handling, we will first need to verify that any faulty behavior is unrelated to rooting / unlocking.

This is what the website tells us about rooting and warranty. (source: https://oneplus.net/nl/support/answer/will-rooting-or-unlocking-the-bootloader-void-my-warranty)

As far as I know the policy didn't change. I can understand the confusion from the service center point of view, but there is no such thing as hardware or software warranty. Only hardware damage caused by software related hacks/tweaks (which can be used after unlocking/rooting), is not covered under warranty. I assume your screen damage does not fall under that category and it is caused by fall damage for example.

 

[i_rock098]

This is what the website tells us about rooting and warranty. (source: https://oneplus.net/nl/support/answer/will-rooting-or-unlocking-the-bootloader-void-my-warranty)

As far as I know the policy didn't change. I can understand the confusion from the service center point of view, but there is no such thing as hardware or software warranty. Only hardware damage caused by software related hacks/tweaks (which can be used after unlocking/rooting), is not covered under warranty. I assume your screen damage does not fall under that category and it is caused by fall damage for example.

I did not have a screen damage, my phone screen had lost sensitivity and was registering swipe motion as touch . This started happening even before I was rooted and in no way connected to the process of rooting. They tried to deny me warranty on this.

 

[Puddi_Puddin]

I did not have a screen damage, my phone screen had lost sensitivity and was registering swipe motion as touch . This started happening even before I was rooted and in no way connected to the process of rooting. They tried to deny me warranty on this.

May i ask in what country this happend? It's not only Oneplus that does this stuff btw. Next time show him what is on the site. If he denies you simply ask his name and send Oneplus a email about it.. I can work at a service center too and say this stuff.. Its not only Oneplus..

 

[Bobbika]

I did not have a screen damage, my phone screen had lost sensitivity and was registering swipe motion as touch . This started happening even before I was rooted and in no way connected to the process of rooting. They tried to deny me warranty on this.

In that case I'd say it was your own risk to start rooting your device after you knew there were issues with it.
The problem with the current warranty policy is that it's hard to prove what damage rooting could cause. In your case the repair shop could say that you might have overclocked your device with the acquired root. With that the device can overheat and the digitizer (which handles the touchscreen input) could be overheated as well and starts to fail. Not saying that is the case here, but it would be hard to prove otherwise.
In other words, when you have to deal with warranty and repair, it's a good advice to give them no reasons to deny the warranty.

TLDR: Repair your device before rooting

 

[emuandco]

At least here in Germany this is illegal and NOT possible. At least the given by law warranty has to be given even with root unless they can prove it caused the defect, so they have to prove their claim and not you. Any extened warranty from the company itself can be waaay different though.

 

[i_rock098]

May i ask in what country this happend? It's not only Oneplus that does this stuff btw. Next time show him what is on the site. If he denies you simply ask his name and send Oneplus a email about it.. I can work at a service center too and say this stuff.. Its not only Oneplus..

This is in India. we have one of the worst consumer policies in the world where often service centers treat customers like ****. He was pretty confident in telling me to go talk to oneplus if i want it wont help and that if he ever marks the phone as rooted in the system i would never ever be able to claim warranty on the phone.

In that case I'd say it was your own risk to start rooting your device after you knew there were issues with it.
The problem with the current warranty policy is that it's hard to prove what damage rooting could cause. In your case the repair shop could say that you might have overclocked your device with the acquired root. With that the device can overheat and the digitizer (which handles the touchscreen input) could be overheated as well and starts to fail. Not saying that is the case here, but it would be hard to prove otherwise.
In other words, when you have to deal with warranty and repair, it's a good advice to give them no reasons to deny the warranty.

TLDR: Repair your device before rooting

I agree that I should have gone to fix it before rooting but then again if they had not mentioned on their site clearly that rooting does not void your warranty I would have not rooted at all in the first place till my warranty period got over. I dont mind taking a brunt for a fault of mine due to flashing like getting stuck in a bootlop or something but this clearly was a manufacturing defect and not mine.

At least here in Germany this is illegal and NOT possible. At least the given by law warranty has to be given even with root unless they can prove it caused the defect, so they have to prove their claim and not you. Any extened warranty from the company itself can be waaay different though.

Yeah unfortunately I am in India and here like i mentioned in the post earlier we have very weak consumer laws, even if i would sue them the case would drag on for like 5 years with no guaranty that it would still get resolved.

 

[LS.xD]

@i_rock098

I have no local stores in my country, everything must be shipped. When facing a problem you need to get some repair ticket from the website. That would mean you don't need the ... local support store. Also it should be possible to simply restore the phone's software to stock before sending it to OnePlus. Have you tried bringing itr back to stock or is the phone freaking out in a way making it impossible?

 

[Puddi_Puddin]

@i_rock098

I have no local stores in my country, everything must be shipped. When facing a problem you need to get some repair ticket from the website. That would mean you don't need the ... local support store. Also it should be possible to simply restore the phone's software to stock before sending it to OnePlus. Have you tried bringing itr back to stock or is the phone freaking out in a way making it impossible?

And to add to this.

If you have an issue with your phone feel free to make a post. As long as you provide decent information I'm pretty sure people including me are here to you help you.

 

[jim262]

Repeat after me, the store is in INDIA. I don't do business with India. I did business with OnePlus China and OnePlus US and received superior assistance, including a free replacement phone when my rooted phone could not be repaired.

 

[robogo1982]

These are topics where OnePlus customer service could (and should) step in and make a name for themselves, or at least start to.

OP, send a support ticket to OnePlus, add the e-mail address of the service centre to the cc and when you get a response from OnePlus, go back and politely ask them to repair the phone according to the OnePlus warranty terms.

 

[jim262]

Forget these repair shops in India. These are probably not official OnePlus service centers, as I don't think they have stores set up anywhere. According to the YouTube video that they OnePlus made, they only offer repair services through their website, OnePlus.net/support. You need to contact them via phone (It is listed on their website), and they will then determine if it needs to be sent to them for repair via RMA. https://youtu.be/KCdu8VhleVM

 

[TNSMANI]

Forget these repair shops in India. These are probably not official OnePlus service centers, as I don't think they have stores set up anywhere. According to the YouTube video that they OnePlus made, they only offer repair services through their website, OnePlus.net/support. You need to contact them via phone (It is listed on their website), and they will then determine if it needs to be sent to them for repair via RMA. https://youtu.be/KCdu8VhleVM

There are official repair centres (approved by OnePlus but not run by them) for OnePlus in India. But I don't know whether the OP went to an official centre or not.
As with almost all official repair centres of any manufacturer, there are two ways of asking for repair during warranty. One is what is mentioned by you ie. contact OnePlus directly, they will issue a ticket number and then armed with that, you approach the repair centre. The other way is directly walking into the repair centre and asking for warranty repair. I think the OP adopted this and as is likely in most such situations, the repair centre tried to outsmart him. IMO, if the OP had contacted OnePlus first, this issue might not have arisen at all.
I am speaking on the authority of my experience of approaching Acer directly the first time and going to the repair centre directly the second time. Ofcourse the second time I was given a run around which I ultimately overcame.