Your rights

Should a customer be financially responsible for condensation? While mobile phone manufacturers and sellers may say that any moisture damage to a mobile phone is the owner's fault, the law disagrees.

The Consumer Guarantees Act (CGA) says that goods must be fit for their usual purpose. It also says that they must be of acceptable quality: they must do what they're meant to do, be free from minor defects, and be safe and durable.

The purpose of a mobile phone is to be mobile, to be carried in a pocket ... and to be used on a humid Northland beach or a frosty Southland farm, not in an air-tight container while standing next to a running dehumidifier.

Mobile phone manufacturers' claims that the warranty is void because of moisture damage doesn't automatically give them an escape clause from the CGA unless the water damage is obviously your fault.

What the industry says

We asked Vodafone and one of its repair agents, Mobilefone Repair, for answers. Mobilefone Repair declined to comment with an excuse of "strict confidentiality constraints". According to Vodafone, information on the number of phones claimed to have water damage or on the number of phones repaired at no cost to the customer was confidential to the manufacturer.

Telecom was more forthcoming. The Telecom-owned repairer Telegistics finds that about six percent of the phones it inspects have water damage. It also repairs about 80 percent of devices under warranty at no cost to the customer. Water damage isn't covered by manufacturers' warranties and so an assessment fee usually applies.

We asked Vodafone and Telecom whether water damage was always the fault of the owner.

Paul Brislen from Vodafone replied that phones weren't sealed and shouldn't be treated as water resistant: "Phones are delicate electronic devices. Some handsets are on a par with digital cameras for complexity (hard drives, slides, lenses) and should be treated as such." But that doesn't really answer the question.

Telecom deftly avoided the same question. Telecom spokeswoman Rebecca Earl told us that mobile phones are not designed to be exposed to moisture: "Water can enter through any opening in the device such as the charging socket, headset jack, keypad, etc." Once again, there's no indication of why this should be the user's fault when they haven't got the phone wet.

According to Telecom, there's no conspiracy between it and the manufacturers to deny warranty claims. "It's important to clarify here," Rebecca Earl said, "that there is no cost to Telecom or Telegistics if a repair is accepted under warranty, as the companies are reimbursed by the manufacturer. Given this, it is actually our preference and Telegistics' preference to accept a warranty claim."

A Nokia spokesperson says water damage is very difficult because some customers say they've never had the phone in contact with water. "But the moisture from the air or the way the customer has used the phone has allowed moisture into the phone and especially into the components." Nokia told us it wasn't able to confirm whether the customer was using the phone properly and it was not hard to assume they weren't.

It seems they want you to believe you're solely to blame for condensation. But you don't have to accept that. You've got rights under the CGA - and you can enforce them (see "Our advice").