Wow this is an interesting read! And a situation I'm faced with everyday!
I am the messenger in this situation, though for Telstra.
I'm interested fmc351 where you got the information that it's illegal to sell a handset on a 24mth contract and only offer 12mths warranty? I've looked through my Telstra resources which changed due to the new laws and it does mention about a statutory warranty that applies after the voluntary manufacturers for devices that are marketed as a premium product and therefor should be of better quality than the cheaper handsets (I think this is what you were explaining with your toaster reference). Curious as we still only offer 12mth warranties on Apple, Sony, Nokia & Samsung because its the manufacturers that stipulate the warranty. HTC, ZTE, BlackBerry, Motorola & LG now offer 24mth warranties....I'm actually genuinely interested.
Swanny,
I don't know you're chances in getting the handset repaired if they have found water damage in the handset. It's a tough one but water damage as you know automatically voids your warranty as they cannot guarantee the future reliability of any repairs they carry out because they offer a warranty on their repairs and water damage corrosion is like cancer to a phone and spreads in a way until the phone is useless...and this still applies when doing repairs out of warranty as they have to provide the repair warranty
But if it is like you say on opposite ends of the phone (the USB port and the camera) then I'd like to see manufacturers kind of go -
"Ok so yes your charging port is broken, however you have water damage over here. We can see that its unrelated so we'll fix this but know that we guarantee the repair to the USB port only"
I can't see it ever happening....
BTW if its out of warranty - I'm not sure what 3 are able to do for you if you go into the shop? They may let you upgrade early if you don't tell them about the water damage I guess?
Wow long post....sorry!