First of all, let me say I'm 40+ years old and I think by now I know how to look after my belongings..... The story is, I had a Nokia 6288 supplied by 3 through Phones 4 U last August. When I got it I noticed that the trim on the right hand side looked a little loose, but you know how excited you are with your new toy, I just kind of ignored it and got on with loading up my numbers and taking cute photos of the kids. Anyway, in February, the trim came away and I lost the slide volume control. My husband rang 3 and was told that they only replace handsets within 7 days of delivery. I was gutted, but the phone still worked so I thought tough luck, get on with it. However, in March I was out and about when the light on the phone just switched itself on - I tried to switch it off but couldn't - I switched off the phone but the light stayed on, so I took the battery out and that seemed to sort it. I then put it in the car and about half an hour later noticed a burning smell. The light had come back on and the back of the phone was melting. I went into phones 4 U, where several salesmen said 'Oh no, another exploding Nokia' and the manager arranged for 3 to collect it, he also stated that I would get a replacement as it obviously couldn't be fixed. Imagine my delight when, 3 days later, the same phone was returned to me by courier with a lovely letter showing a blurred photo of the motherboard and stating that it wouldn't be replaced as it wasn't due to a fault, but DAMAGE ie. dropped. Of course I dropped it - it was burning/melting my fingers when I picked it up. Phone calls to 3 customer service were greeted with complete arrogance and I was informed I could have a refurb for 50 quid which was declined. A Manager for 3 also said this was all that could be offered. Can anybody help? Has anyone had a similar fault with a Nokia 6288? Luckily I had another handset and can use the sim but otherwise I would now be paying 20 quid a month for no service. I had previously been very happy with 3, but now I realise that this was just because I didn't have any problems for them not to sort out. I think this Network has an appalling customer service policy if they have one at all.

the truth of the matter is" not oh! no another exploding nokia" but " oh for %^$$^ sake not another disgruntled 3 customer" because after contracts with "3" I should have learnt after the first contract, but no MUGGINS 'ere got lured into anther CHEAP contract for another 18 MONTHS of shoddy customer relations, also my wife got lured in to a 3 contract, so we both had a total of 54 months of hell when we cancelled the contract. they tried every excuse going to keep us - NEW phones EVEN CHEAPER contracts. i told them the signal was so bad that we had to go 5 miles from home to use the phones "which was true in the end, signal had dropped dramatically. even when told they did nothing about it". They even thought that 5 miles away meant the next room in the house. Most of the phone calls WE made was 3 complaining about their service lack customer service skills and I even offered to go out there and teach them as I used to work for the parent company when they owned orange and standard of customer service 1000 times better before they used foreign call centres. NO offence to foreingers but a lot of them see us british as landed gentry living in big mansions OH! HOW WE WISH that were true