“Sonja Callahan was getting her 3-year-old son Zander ready for bed. She plugged in her cellphone, like she usually does, set it on her bed and continued her nightly routine. When she was ready to call it a night, she went in her room and picked up her phone,” Nicole Vowell reports for KSL-TV. “‘I felt the back of my phone was just hot enough that it was just too hot,’ Callahan said. She popped the battery out of her phone immediately. ‘It exploded and it was hissing and spewing out fumes and chemicals.’ The swollen and seared Samsung battery put a hole in her mattress and charred her bed sheets, Callahan said.”
A “Samsung [representative] told Callahan someone from their company would be in touch with her,” Vowell reports. “‘He said a dedicated team will contact you within 24 to 48 hours,’ Callahan said. ‘It’s now three days later, and I have not been able to get a hold of the dedicated team.’ …KSL attempted to contact Samsung independently for a statement numerous times, but there has been no response.”
MacDailyNews Take: Ah, the vaunted Samsung customer service.
Don’t settle for cheap iPhone knockoffs. Get the real thing. Save yourself the frustration – and your mattress! Plus, in the rare case that you have an issue, Apple actually responds, cares, and helps their valued customers.
[protected-iframe id=”3234b11778b0ac8d0a22a45dfb79e665-17146794-18685410″ info=”http://www.ksl.com/api/jwplayer/player.php?file=http://media.ksl.com/1426652354-1614060525.mp4&image=//media.ksl.com/1426652354-1614060525.jpg&width=590&height=331″ width=”590″ height=”331″ frameborder=”0″]
Vowell reports, “‘Right now I’m terrified of Samsung, I definitely won’t have a Samsung again,’ Callahan said. ‘It might be time for me to get an iPhone.’
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “It might be time for me to get an iPhone.” Gee, ya think? (You should’ve got one in the first place.)
Dear world,
Stop settling for cheap crap. It costs you much more in the long run.
Sincerely,
MacDailyNews
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “SMan” for the heads up.]
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Apple’s iPhone crushes Samsung in South Korean customer satisfaction survey – May 10, 2014
Apple iPhone tops J.D. Power 2014 U.S. Wireless Smartphone Satisfaction Study – April 24, 2014
Apple iPhone No. 1 in customer satisfaction in South Korea – July 2, 2013
J.D. Power: Apple ranks highest in smartphone customer satisfaction for 9th consecutive time – March 21, 2013
Got to love that monkey sign!
Now we know why Samsung designs for removable batteries. The batteries are designed to be tossed like grenades.
If ShamSkunk was smart, they should help this lady BEFORE she decides to hire a lawyer and sue SameShame. 😀
Deciding to buy another brand of phone is not an upgrade.
Okay maybe if put into the context that the iPhone is a more expensive phone with better quality and should never burn your bed. LOL
Now, the Fandroids will quickly point out that this is not the first report of a smart phone catching fire, and that it surely isn’t limited to Samsung. However, what they’ll be missing is that if they were to call Apple or stop by an Apple Store, their phone would be replaced immediately and they’d probably be compensated for the damage as well. When you buy a premium product instead of a knock-off, this is part of what you’re paying for.
“He said a dedicated team will contact you within 24 to 48 hours,” Callahan said. “It’s now three days later, and I have not been able to get ahold of the dedicated team.”
They don’t seem very dedicated to helping this woman. The ShameSkunk lawyers are probably more dedicated to covering their butts. Not responding in a responsible manner will cause more BAD publicity and cost them customers. SameScame customers are abandoning ship at an ever increasing rate as it is. Their actions show go little they actually care about their customers! 😀
Can Samsung be sued for assault with battery?
Flamscam phones may need to be reclassified as WBD – Weapons of Bed Destruction.
She might get slightly better service if she said her name was “Kim” or “Koh”
“set it on her bed”
Enough said. Beds are covered in thermally insulated material! Duh. Even an iPhone won’t save that stupidity.
I read all the time at bed time, and I’ve fallen asleep a number of times, only to awaken to a warm iPhone 4 or 5 trapped between my arm and the bed. No fire, no flames. Probably not good for the battery or even the phone, but there was no catastrophic failure.
Unless something is wrong with the phone charging circuit or the battery, the user should able to make a mistake like falling asleep on the phone or trapping it on a book or something without a catastrophe.
Not to defend Samsung, but iPhones have been known to detonate on rare occasions. Phones use Li-Ion cells and Li-Ion cells are temperamental. The use of cheap chargers can cause problems and phones with user replaceable batteries will always have “inexpensive” alternatives available that don’t enjoy the same quality of manufacture or overall QC that name brands do and sell like hotcakes.
I am however disappointed that MDN missed this great opportunity to use their favorite Samsung Mushroom Cloud in this post.
True, but the video said she was using all original Samsung accessories.
Worse though was that it’s been 3 days and she can’t get any support at all from Samsung, not even with a news reporter calling in with her.
And it’s not just “my phone is acting up”, it’s “my phone exploded”. That’s pretty bad.
Oh, I agree that Samsung is in the wrong here and the bad PR will hurt them, but it’s important to remember that Li-Ion technology is hazardous but oh-so-convenient. In other areas where bare Li-Ion cells are used, the wise, though rarely followed, advice is that if a battery is dropped onto a hard surface it should be discarded.
Phones are rarely well sealed so a buildup of gasses won’t cause an explosion, but I’ve heard tales and seen pictures of Li-Ion powered flashlights going off like grenades due to their sealed nature. Cheaply built cells are _usually_ the culprit but not always.
Burn phone?
I thought Samsung was telling victims not to communicate with the media or the public about their exploding phones. They were trying to keep this issue “under wraps”. Maybe there are so many Samsung phones catching on fire now that they simply don’t have enough employees to promptly handle the issues.
If that is true, what does that say about their design and quality control!? 😀
A “Samsung [representative] told Callahan someone from their company would be in touch with her… … …
I seem to recall the last time one of the Samsung POS knockoff phones blew its battery, the company attempted to impose both bribery and an NDA (non-disclosure agreement, aka ‘shut up’ contract) on the victim.
Samsung = ScumScam
If this happened to an iPhone, Apple would be f***ing CRUCIFIED. This happens repeatedly to Samsung products and hardly anyone cares!