14 DAY TRIAL // About a month ago, a happy Samsung Galaxy S4 owner suddenly became unhappy, but not without reason. His smartphone caught fire while charging and now it’s unusable.
This happened while Reddit user TweektheGeek was sleeping, so by the time he was able to unplug the smartphone, the Galaxy S4 was completely ruined.
Fortunately, the smartphone burned without flames, otherwise it could have been a lot worse. Anyway, after unplugging the Galaxy S4, it took about 30 minutes for the smartphone to cool off.
As soon as he could touch the phone without fear of burning his hand, TweektheGeek tried to assess the damages by pulling out the microUSB cable from the Galaxy S4.
Unfortunately, the cable had melted into the phone and it broke very easily when the owner tried to pull it out. The smaller parts needed to be removed using pliers.
According to TweektheGeek, his phone suffered damages only in the charging port area, but it was no longer functional. Keep in mind that the Galaxy S4 owner was using an original Samsung cable and charger, so we can rule out this as reason for overheating.
Soon after posting some pictures, TweektheGeek got in touch with Samsung about the whole situation and the South Korean company promised him a replacement phone, as well as a box which would be used to send the damaged phone back to Samsung.
Unfortunately, aside from the promised box, the Galaxy S4 owner did not receive anything else through mail. Here is his statement regarding the situation: “Not once has any of them said that Samsung was waiting on me to send in my phone. If that were the issue, then I am certain that they would have let me know, as I am sure they would like to get their hands on my phone to try to find out what went wrong.
Also, Samsung told me that they would ship a replacement phone out with the box for me to send my phone back in. The purpose of my calls to Samsung, when the replacement phone never arrived, was to find out why it didn't arrive. During these calls, again, Samsung never stated that they were waiting to receive my phone before they sent a replacement.
The fact that they told me that they were going to send a replacement phone out and then did not, combined with the lack of help that I have received in my attempts to communicate with them, have degraded my trust in Samsung.”
The good news is one of HTC Product Manager noticed the thread on Reddit and decided to offer TweektheGeek a One M8 as replacement for its damaged Samsung Galaxy S4.
According to HTC’s official, if Samsung eventually does send a replacement for the damaged Galaxy S4 after TweektheGeek receives the One M8, he must auction the Samsung smartphone and donate the money to a reputable charity organization.
That being said, thumbs up for HTC, which seems to be one step ahead of Samsung when it comes to support and customer relations.
