Consumer report claims many mobile phones are faulty

According to a Which? magazine report, two million of the 18 million mobile phones, sold last year in the UK, could have been faulty. The report claims that one in seven new mobiles developed problems, 70% of which occurred in the first six months. Twenty-seven percent of mobile owners with problems were dissatisfied with the service they received to sort the problems out.

The worst performing video phone operator was 3 – a third of handsets on its network were faulty.

According to Abigail Waraker, assistant editor of Which? magazine, the high percentage of faulty handset may be due to teething problems with the more sophisticated third generation mobile technology.

Rachel Channing from 3 said it is unrealistic to compare the new 3G technology, with GSM technology. 3G phones allow users to download full-length music videos and make video calls and as these services are new to many people, there is more chance of errors occurring.

Ms Channing also said that the sample was unrepresentative, as only 50 of 3’s customers were surveyed out of three million. The problems reported also related to 3’s oldest 3G handset model, released approximately two years ago.

If a mobile develops a fault within six months and the store cannot show it was the customer’s fault, the shop is legally required to solve the problem.

The survey of over 5,000 people on Which?’s online consumer panel, found that 20% of Motorola and Sony Ericsson handsets developed technical faults, while 10% of Nokia and Samsung phones were faulty.