can sprint really void warranty/insurance for software

[ryan00davis]

i took my phone in today to get them to fix a couple broken buttons, and they told me i voided the warranty by installing windows mobile 6.1. my claim was that this had nothing to do with the broken buttons, so they should have to replace it, and eventually got a manager who agreed to let me downgrade to 6.0 and he will personally fix/replace it. i've now looked it up and am finding that that's harder than i had anticipated. my question here is how can they void our warranty for this?

i looked up the paperwork and do not see any mention of this, here is a link to the pdf:
http://nextelonline.nextel.com/asset...ure_combo2.pdf

i would understand if we were doing something illegal by putting leaked roms onto our phone, but as far as i know, everything done on this forum is legal.

this is just me venting/wondering how they can do this... here is my link to the more technical side of my problem if any of you have any advice:
http://forum.ppcgeeks.com/showthread...locker&page=14

thanks
-Ryan

[EtherealRemnant]

Sprint has a policy that states if you go in there with a custom ROM on your phone, you have voided the warranty and will have to go through the insurance company at that point. They mark them as damaged beyond repair.

Its not technically illegal to flash your phone with other ROMs, however, Sprint is well within their rights to tell you that you have voided your warranty in doing so.

[ryan00davis]

even if they hadn't clearly stated it when i started to pay for the plan? it may (although probably wouldnt have) kept me from using other ROMs, i at least would have done some more research into the ability to downgrade back to the original rom.

not trying to be argumentative, it just doesn't seem right to me.

[firegeek]

A very good rule of thumb is to simply flash a stock sprint ROM before you go into the store for any kind of help. I saves lots of hassles and grief.

E.

[Gulanowski]

Unfortunately, providers pull that crap Ryan. Verizon did that when a friend of mine went in with an E815 who had put on the monster flash pack and the technicians caught it. Scary stuff. Just be smart and flash back to what you had on before. It's too bad they don't support flashing rom's and such, then they'd be a lot more popular among us ; )

[ryan00davis]

yea, lesson learned, and someone just showed me a 3.35 rom on htc's website that i hadnt been able to find previously, so hopefully that solves my immediate problem.

[holo]

heh flashing these roms is definitely a grey area legally at best. sprint can't support them, that would definitely be illegal. the builds being used here are not licensed and many features are not licensed by all providers (gps to name one is not licensed by most carriers), and full WM version upgrades (wm6 on apache etc).

while everyone might be looking the other way right now about this and not really care, what is being done here is certainly not legal. providers supporting this would certainly lead to lawsuits. not to mention how many people return their phones 'bricked' trying to install custom roms (even though it probably is recoverable).

[ryan00davis]

yea, i guess i just assumed legality due to this site's big ban on warez and torrent links, but i definitely see the gray area involved.

i also see the logic in them not giving software support to other roms, but i dont see the logic in not giving hardware support.

i guess my big complaint is that they never state that it will void the warranty

but i will say in their defense that the manager did provide me a logical explanation (htc wont take the item back) and was nice enough to give me his personal number and tell me to give him a call and he will schedule me an appointment when im ready to fix it. i just hope they didnt note in their computer system that i had "hacked" the phone, that probably wont give me much pull with customer support in the future.

[schettj]

always reflash to a stock rom before going in... if its unflashable, hit it with a hammer.

[flyers2114]

Originally Posted by ryan00davis

yea, lesson learned, and someone just showed me a 3.35 rom on htc's website that i hadnt been able to find previously, so hopefully that solves my immediate problem.

What issues are you having? Remember when you flash back to the stock rom to enable AS and do not put the phone in bootloader....and if you have a GPS enabled radio make sure you install 3.35....just let it run it should be fine...I just walked my buddy through these steps over the phone last night....he was having isues because he was trying to load the rom without the GPS radio...all is fine with his now...