Samsung faced criticism from Consumer Reports and others for not informing us regulators when the first fires were reported in late August, and for failing to initiate a formal recall process.
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Samsung pledged Thursday to expedite the recall. The company also did not immediately co-ordinate its recall with the USA consumer safety agency.
“That is a choice of the customer and customer’s choice alone”, Kaye said.
Thus far, Samsung appears to have weathered the negative effects of what will surely be a costly recall of the Note 7.
Efforts to get consumers to turn in their new phones for temporary replacements have been slow, prompting Samsung to issue a temporary fix that will allow the batteries to charge only to the 60 percent level.
Some analysts say the recall may cost Samsung up to $5 billion in revenue this year and will damage the company’s reputation. Samsung told the Sun: “There are no known safety issues with Galaxy S7 devices”. CPSC officials have not said when they were first contacted by the company.
Our friends at the All Tech Considered blog reported that some customers were having problems taking their phones back.
“I love my Note 7, but this is a freakin’ headache”, Mendez said.
“I think I would”, said Robert Lerner, a 64-year-old financial consultant who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Brooklyn office worker Joe Franco said he was frustrated, especially after getting conflicting information from his cellphone carrier, Sprint, about how to get a replacement. The 23-year-old said he’s now using an old phone borrowed from a friend, which he said was “really impractical”. 800,000 of those phones were sold in the U.S.so what do you do if you own one?
Earlier this month, Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees offered to replace devices they had sold and pulled the phone from their shelves.
Customers from the U.S. have the option to replace their existing Galaxy Note 7 units for a new one, exchange them for a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 edge and get a refund of the price difference.
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The agency is advising affected consumers to power down their phones and return them to wherever they bought them.
