Nine month old Desire XC started heating up and complete battery discharge in about 2 hours.
When shown to the service centre, they claimed it was moisture damage. Complete phone was stripped open and the only’so called’ water damage was a slight discolouration at the charging micro USB port.
The technician opined that since this was part of the mother board, the whole mother board had to be replaced.
I pointed out that the problem was of heating of the chip and that was not related to the charging slot discoloration. The charging port is exposed to the atmosphere in every phone and will have a certain degree of discoloration or oxidation, but though this might affect the contacts while charging, it can in no way affect the motherboard.
Their reply was that if they sent the phone to their higher service center, it would be rejected on that ground. When this was taken up with HTC they claimed that, “liquid damage can occur on any device by several ways, such as changes in temperature whether room or climatic(moisture), body perspiration which can cause the main circuit board to rust, being dropped in water or on a wet car floor, spilling liquid on the phone, rain fog or mist droplets, leaving the phone on moist surfaces like counter tops, leaving the phone in a vehicle overnight.” There however was no such evidence of damage.
The Service Center technicians use the ‘corrosion/water damage’ clause to avoid honoring their warranty for what is clearly a defective piece.