Noted
I eventually got a reply from them, with my own email asking for an update, quoted and sent to their staff internally.
They asked me for the invoice of the phone, which I am pretty sure was just delay tactics, as I had sent them all of the required information at the start.
I forwarded everything to them again about 2 weeks ago.
At the start of this week I was asked if I would accept a replacement of a Xiaomi note 10 as the pixel is apparently non repairable. I declined the offer.
Today I have received an email asking for my IBAN for them to refund me, as their supply chain have informed them that they have no replacement available but no other information.
I am now wondering will the refund include the €50 excess fee I paid a few months back, plus the value of the phone today, 5 months ago, or the purchase price.
Without any doubt in my mind, these are the worst company that I have ever had to deal with on or offline ever. I had to push for all the updates, there was no correspondence with me as to what was going on, and the amount of time wasted from reporting the phone to the insurance and getting to where I am now has been way above and beyond what it should have been.
I could nor would not recommend these to anybody. I would highly recommend to avoid them at all costs. Save yourself a gigantic headache.
Nightmare
A small update on my refurbed insurance.
I decided to pay the €50, as the repair in store was actually €85, and I had already paid €30 to Refurbed for insurance.
Once I paid them, I received this auto-response from them:
Dear ,We are pleased to confirm that your excess fee payment has been processed, and the insured device can now be repaired by our repair partner. Our assigned repair partner will contact you shortly to arrange collection of your device: a courier will then collect your device and deliver it to the repair centre. Google Google Pixel 4A 5G XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Attached you will find the repair order for your claim. To avoid delaying the repair process, please make sure to follow the steps below: - Remove all inserted memory cards, SIM card and other accessories (e.g. headphones, protective covers) from the device. Leave the battery in the device. - Delete all lock/security codes and deactivate the lock functions on your device. - If the secured device is an Apple device, make sure that the Find My iPhone function is and remains deactivated (go to for more information). - Synchronise your device with another device, if this is technically possible. This way, your data can be restored after the repair. - Pack your device in a small, inconspicuous, sturdy box with sufficient filling material (e.g. newspaper, napkins, etc.) to protect the device from further damage. - Please ensure that the repair order attached to this e-mail is signed and enclosed with the unit in the box. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.We are pleased to count you among our customers!Kind regards,Your bolttech & Refurbed Plus GmbH customer service Customer portal: E-mail: refurbed-IE@bolttech.eu https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2702?viewlocale=de_DE https://refurbed.bolttech.eu/#/
Dear ,
We are pleased to confirm that your excess fee payment has been processed, and the insured device can now be repaired by our repair partner. Our assigned repair partner will contact you shortly to arrange collection of your device: a courier will then collect your device and deliver it to the repair centre. Google Google Pixel 4A 5G XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Attached you will find the repair order for your claim. To avoid delaying the repair process, please make sure to follow the steps below: - Remove all inserted memory cards, SIM card and other accessories (e.g. headphones, protective covers) from the device. Leave the battery in the device. - Delete all lock/security codes and deactivate the lock functions on your device. - If the secured device is an Apple device, make sure that the Find My iPhone function is and remains deactivated (go to for more information). - Synchronise your device with another device, if this is technically possible. This way, your data can be restored after the repair. - Pack your device in a small, inconspicuous, sturdy box with sufficient filling material (e.g. newspaper, napkins, etc.) to protect the device from further damage. - Please ensure that the repair order attached to this e-mail is signed and enclosed with the unit in the box. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.We are pleased to count you among our customers!
Kind regards,
Your bolttech & Refurbed Plus GmbH customer service
Customer portal:
E-mail: refurbed-IE@bolttech.eu https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2702?viewlocale=de_DE https://refurbed.bolttech.eu/#/
I have received nothing since. I have emailed and phoned a lot of times at this stage. I bought a Nothing phone in the Amazon sale, as I could no longer use my old xiaomi without my head exploding. So now I will just see how long it takes them to get back to me, if ever.
Sensible assessment
I've never heard of it before, but maybe my tech has been less expensive. This was a pixel 4a 5g. A relatively old phone to begin with.
I have taken out insurance before, but IIRC I never had the need to use it. As this was called a full policy, I assumed (I know, never assume) that it was fully covered. Paint this any colour at all, it just smells of scammy by the insurance company. The amount of people that must be paying insurance not realising that and it going straight to the insurance company must be fairly high. I will only imagine that if more people knew how it worked that they wouldn't bother with it.
any insurance I have ever had has had an excess. Somethings it’s zero but the policy would state it’s zero. the last tech insurance I had which was 2009 had an excess for a damaged laptop. I had to pay the first €100 or what ever it was for a repair
I have looked for answers to that, and it seems that paying excess is the new normal. I have never heard of it before, and they have not replied to my polite requests.
Hi, I paid full insurance for a year when I purchased the phone, could you please explain to me what the excess fees are required for.Regards,
Hi,
I paid full insurance for a year when I purchased the phone, could you please explain to me what the excess fees are required for.
Regards,
After a lot of googling, I could only find UK results, none from EU and those results seem to imply that it is a fee towards their cost to repair the phone. I eventually found the fee in the many (7) documents that were emailed to me.
Personally, I find it a bit scammy and disingenuous to not have it mentioned when purchasing the insurance and the only place that I have found it mentioned is in the GCI (General Conditions of Insurance) received after the Insurance was purchased.
It effectively means that any insurance claims will cost €80 if the phone was between €100 and €299.99 as the initial full insurance policy costs €30
I guess it is my own fault for not reading all of the documents after purchasing it. But I will post this for the benefit of any potential future buyers of the insurance. These are the excess fees on top of the insurance, should you make a claim.
This image will automatically delete after 1 month - not by choice.
https://hostimagepro.com/teQPdrAiKo85unK
Apart from the excess fees, I find both refurbed and refurbed insurance horrible to deal with, not impolite, but painfully slow.
I would 100% not recommend going for the insurance on a phone within the above mentioned bracket unless you just plan on claiming it as lost or stolen. It will still likely take close to two months to get it sorted, from my experience anyway.
I honestly believe that it may never have been addressed if I had not persisted in contacting them using any method I could find.
In most cases it would be cheaper to have it repaired locally or buy a kit from ifixit.com including screen or parts and do it yourself with a guide.
I had no issues with the phone itself before the accident, my main issues are their support and insurance with excess fees.
Is paying an excess not normal?
Robbing bastards,I'd be straight onto trust pilot and lay out your stall ref this gang of Ali babas
I'd get back on to them and tell them to refund you the insurance premium you paid, as its clearly worthless.
I eventually received an IMEI number from the seller, but no documents - I had to remind them for any sort of reply as they had not responded. I sent an email pointing out that I needed the IMEI for the insurance claim.
Once I received it, I forwarded it to refurbed insurance, to which they replied that I needed a document or a screenshot of the email, which I sent.
It said nothing other than that was my IMEI.
After I sent off the IMEI code with screenshot, I have received this email.
contact-refurbed@bolttech.eu Dear ,We acknowledge the receipt of your claim CLXXXXXXXXX. Our team has already accepted this subject to payment of the excess fee. To proceed to the next step, we kindly ask you to pay your customer excess fee of 50.00EUR. We've made it easy for you: just click here and follow the instructions. Once we receive confirmation the deductible was paid, we will send you:either the repair instructions for your device along with the repair order, if you opened a claim for a damage,or a replacement device, if you opened a claim for a theft.We are pleased to count you among our customers!Kind regards,Your bolttech & Refurbed Plus GmbH customer service Customer portal: E-mail: refurbed-IE@bolttech.eu
We acknowledge the receipt of your claim CLXXXXXXXXX. Our team has already accepted this subject to payment of the excess fee. To proceed to the next step, we kindly ask you to pay your customer excess fee of 50.00EUR. We've made it easy for you: just click here and follow the instructions. Once we receive confirmation the deductible was paid, we will send you:
either the repair instructions for your device along with the repair order, if you opened a claim for a damage,
or a replacement device, if you opened a claim for a theft.
We are pleased to count you among our customers!Kind regards,Your bolttech & Refurbed Plus GmbH customer service Customer portal: E-mail: refurbed-IE@bolttech.eu
I will not be paying another €50 on top of the year insurance. It seems that they will send me instructions which I assume are going to be how to pack it and send it, even though it worryingly reads like they are going to send me instructions on how to repair it myself I truly doubt that is the case.
I can get this phone repaired for €75 and have it back the same day, having got a quote when I started to realise that this process was taking more time than I thought.
They are effectively planning on charging me €80. It looks like the €30 'insurance' was just an advance payment on the repair.
Disgusting company if this is the case. I have queried it.
I have eventually been able to contact somebody in there. Yesterday I received an email from them confirming to me that my phone call had seemed to have started things moving.
The email told me that I need to contact the seller to get my IMEI code which is needed for insurance. I was unable to get it from the broken phone, they told me that it should be etched on the back of the phone. It isn't. I emailed the seller immediately and was told I would receive a reply within one business day. Received an email from the seller today:
Hello Customer, I hope you are doing well. Apologies for the inconvenience. I confirm i have asked our warehouse team for further information regarding this issue, . We appreciate your patience and will provide updates as soon as we have more information. Thanks, and have a lovely day! ********** Customer Service
And today I also received another reply from refurbed, telling me again, that I can contact the seller to request the IMEI.
I am beginning to think that I should have just said it was stolen. Although I would have had the same experience up to this point, I have a feeling going forward that this is going to continue taking a long time at each step.
That's shoddy treatment
I purchased a small laptop/netbook from them two weeks ago, not entirely happy with how it went. It came from Poland.
It took a week longer to deliver then stated, and also when it arrived, all the settings had been installed as Gaeilge! Which took me quite a while to figure out and reset (seeing as I don't speak Irish).
In fairness though, once I got the language sorted, it seems to be running well.
I emailed them about the Irish settings, and they replied quite sarkily that they install in the language based on the country the item is going to, which for Ireland, meant Irish. I pointed out that Ireland's first language is English, and they said they'd "consider that in future".
They also sent an EU charger with a UK adapter, which is bulky and not very portable. That annoyed me, as there was no mention of it on the site, or option to select a UK charger which I felt there should have been, and would have been willing to pay extra for.
I received another email from them (insurance) today, replying to my email from yesterday:
Thank you for your message, we are happy to confirm the receipt.We are reviewing your request and will contact you within the next 48 hours. Please be patient.Many ThanksYour bolttech service team
Thank you for your message, we are happy to confirm the receipt.
We are reviewing your request and will contact you within the next 48 hours. Please be patient.
Many Thanks
Your bolttech service team
and yesterday from refurbed:
Dear Customer,We are happy to confirm that we’ve received your message.We are reviewing your request and will contact you within the next 48 hours.Thank you for your patience.ATTENTION: The email and any attachments transmitted with it are private and confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email and any attachments from your system. You should not use, disclose, copy or store this email and any attachments. Messages and attachments are scanned for all viruses known. However, you are advised that you open any attachments at your own risk. If this message contains password-protected attachments, the files have NOT been scanned for viruses by our mail domain. Please always scan for viruses before opening any attachments.
Dear Customer,
We are happy to confirm that we’ve received your message.
We are reviewing your request and will contact you within the next 48 hours.
Thank you for your patience.
ATTENTION: The email and any attachments transmitted with it are private and confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete this email and any attachments from your system. You should not use, disclose, copy or store this email and any attachments. Messages and attachments are scanned for all viruses known. However, you are advised that you open any attachments at your own risk. If this message contains password-protected attachments, the files have NOT been scanned for viruses by our mail domain. Please always scan for viruses before opening any attachments.
Still nothing else. I will ring the 1800 number tomorrow, but I really dislike ringing those time wasting centres.
Id personally ask for a manager or a contact number/ email whatever who ever is in charge in Ireland,
If no satisfaction comes shortly,local radio may be interested,know ours in Cork would,
For without doubt that's shoddy customer service,
Tell whomever your plan ,that u don't want to go down this road etc etc,
Other option is small claims court ,
Obviously wouldn't rush into it tbh,give them reasonable time to respond as who knows your particular claim may have got misplaced,lost etc etc
Trust pilot is always there if u get no joy also,
Bad PR isn't good for any one
My twopence worth
Hi.
I purchased a phone from refurbed.ie last year and I paid for full insurance:
With this insurance, you cover the risks of Damage, Liquid Damage, Robbery and Burglary of your Insured Device in accordance with the General Insurance Conditions (GIC). Device category Manufacturer Date of purchase Purchase price IMEI / Serial number Mobile Google 12.09.2023 174,99 EUR
About three weeks ago I damaged my phone and smashed the screen. I contacted refurbed who forwarded me to refurbed plus - refurbed.bolttech.eu
I have put in a claim and received an auto-response telling me that they will be in contact in 48 hours. It has since been over 2 weeks since I first contacted them and I have received nothing back. I contacted refurbed again last week, but I have also not received any reply from them to date.
Has anybody dealt with these before? Does anybody have any idea where I should go from here?
Thanks for reading.
do refurb or back market iPad Pro’s come with new batteries? A refurb iPad Pro Gen 5 12.9 on Apple refurb is 1600 where on back market it’s 1200 for gen 5 pro and 1325 for gen 6 pro
Thanks for the tip, I might just do that... I'm not saying I regret the purchase by the way, you pay for what you get lol
Though tbf if trading in an apple phone U get a decent voucher price
Traded in a 14 pro max and got a near new grade A pixel 8 pro
Cost me nothing,I'd e140 voucher left over which my son used to purchase a few games he was after
But one would need to travel to a few Cex shops as they vary in what they will give U,
Cex grand parade Cork classed my 14 pro max as B grade
Yet Cex Blackpool shopping centre gave it an A grade
Similarly my pixel 7 pro and watch a while back were graded B and C in town,
Yet in Blackpool SC were graded A and B
Aha yeah theres the issue. 4GB RAM.
Have a look at upgrading to 8GB. Will make a huge difference.
https://www.mrmemory.co.uk/memory-ram-upgrades/lenovo/thinkpad/x250
Oh sorry, from the specs in the email
No I mean the spec of the machine. i3, i5, how much RAM etc?
As a benchmark, bought a Lenovo L480 for € 450 cra**y 4 gb ram in january 2020. This was soon upgraded to 8 gb. still runs quite slow. 7th gen i3 processor.
Probably about €400 worth brand new
Whats the spec?
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wd.vanillicon.com/v2/dbd35c43580ff62b54e9919958f2a898.svg)
