14 DAY TRIAL // Before the second recall was announced, multiple reports of replacement Galaxy Note 7 smartphones catching fire had surfaced online, while Samsung stayed relatively quiet on the matter and didn’t issue detailed statements.
Now, the Note 7 production has been discontinued and owners of original or replacement units were advised to power down their phones and return them to the place of purchase. A new report surfaced, saying that Samsung had allegedly tried to cover up an incident involving the Galaxy Note 7 in China, during the first recall.
Boston Globe reported that Zhang Sitong was using his Note 7 to save a friend’s phone number when the device started to vibrate and smoke. He threw the device on the ground and his friend started filming the incident.
Samsung offered compensation for keeping the video private
After the fire was extinguished, Sitong contacted Samsung to complain about the situation. Two Samsung employees arrived at his house on the same day, offering Sitong a new Galaxy Note 7 and about $900 in compensation with the condition that the video was kept private.
The customer refused and said that the reason he bought the Note 7 was because Samsung had claimed that there were no problems with the units sold in China. Indeed, original Galaxy Note 7 smartphones had a different battery supplier compared to recalled ones.
But consumers in China have been displeased with the way Samsung handled the first recall in the country, with the state-run broadcaster CCTV even saying that Samsung has violated the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers.
The report should be taken with a pitch of salt, considering that there’s little evidence to back the claim made by the consumer. Nonetheless, it would have been in Samsung’s interest to keep Note 7 incidents in China from reaching the media, since the company has been losing market share in the country for a couple of years now.
Samsung is also facing class-action lawsuits in the US and Korea over Galaxy Note 7 smartphones. Customers sued Samsung for inconvenience and asked for reimbursement for alleged mistreatment.