Glo Glo HD- non physical damage and warranty refusal

[Maritimer555]

Hi Folks,

I was recently vacationing in Mexico and my reader gave out towards the end of my stay. The problem is the reader will turn on, but the screen is showing 4 quadrants and with each one showing different parts of previous screens. It’s not physically damaged. I assumed it has frozen up, and the software is “broken”.

I have reset the reader and am unable to reboot it.

Kobo helpline is telling me they can tell by looking at my screen photo that its physically damaged and therefore not subject to warranty.

The link they provided to explain the warranty is the User Guide and the index in the User Guide points to page 49 for warranty info. When you go to page 49, for the Glo HD it points you in a circular fashion back to the user guide and therefore does not contain any info. (This is how it reads on page 49;

Safety, regulatory, and warranty information Important safety, regulatory, and warranty details about your eReader can be found at kobo.com/userguides.
Note: The Declaration of Conformity may vary for different models of the Kobo eReader. Kobo.com/userguides includes information about how to ¾nd your Kobo eReader's model number

I’m pasting below their response and attaching the pic.

I guess I’m wondering how they determine that there is physical damage by looking at a screen shot. should I protest this and I feel its more software or equipment failure and not physical damage. do i have a case to escalatae with their help team ?

Thank you for providing the photo(s) of your Kobo eReader.

Unfortunately, close analysis has determined that your eReader screen was physically damaged. We attached the picture that you sent us and we circled the section where we can see a triangle shape.

Physical damage is not covered by our Standard One -Year Limited Warranty which only covers defects in materials and manufacturing.

With most device screens, a material or manufacturing defect is evident when the fracture lines on the screen run perfectly vertical and/or horizontal across the screen, meet at right angles, and are not curved or jagged.

In contrast, physically damaged screens display completely random, often jagged, curved, and diagonal lines.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

If you’d like more information on Kobo’s warranty policies, please visit: http://www.kobo.com/help/Search?q=*&type=documentation

Sincerely,
Rakuten Kobo Team

[Ripplinger]

That is definitely a broken substrate of the screen, they are fragile. Possibly something pressed against the reader and put pressure on it, or the reader was "flexed" very slightly, both would result in a cracked screen. The substrate lies under the top layer so that's why you can't seem to feel any crack or damage in the screen. But it's definitely a cracked screen caused by physical damage and not covered under Kobo's warranty.

It's the uneven angled slice in the circled area that can be nothing else other than a cracked screen. If it were just pefectly straight lines, either vertical or horizontal, it could be a bad controller, but that's not the case in your image. In reading their full response, they referred to the specific area as well and said how they could tell it was physical damage.

[Maritimer555]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

That is definitely a broken substrate of the screen, they are fragile. Possibly something pressed against the reader and put pressure on it, or the reader was "flexed" very slightly, both would result in a cracked screen. The substrate lies under the top layer so that's why you can't seem to feel any crack or damage in the screen. But it's definitely a cracked screen caused by physical damage and not covered under Kobo's warranty.

It's the uneven anged slice in the circled area that can be nothing else other than a cracked screen. If it were just pefectly straight lines, either vertical or horizontal, it could be a bad controller, but that's not the case in your image. In reading their full response, they referred to the specific area as well and said how they could tell it was physical damage.

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I wont bother fighting it.