[resolaibohp]

It seems to be that Samsung is getting a lot of extra scrutiny based on their recall and the news is exploiting this. Phone batteries have been known to overheat and explode for years now and it is in no way brand specific. I think the way Samsung handled the whole situation was above and beyond how other companies may have responded. They identified an issue, and replaced everything.

I am not saying that Samsung could not have made another mistake, but I think it is unreasonable to try and link every single battery issue and explosion under the Samsung brand as something that is a precursor to another giant issue.

This recently happened with an iphone on a plane: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/apple-faa-investigatin...

[givinguflac]

"I think the way Samsung handled the whole situation was above and beyond how other companies may have responded."

LOL, you mean like follow the proper legal process for filing a recall in the US? Yeah... they did none of that. What exactly was "above and beyond"?? Seriously, I'm not even joking, I'm genuinely curious as from my perspective they did the absolute bare minimum, and took an insane amount of time to even start addressing such a dangerous defect.

I've worked with companies that had a dangerous defect they discovered before any issues occurred, and the same day they stopped sales, contacted every potentially affected customer directly and requested they stop using the product and sent them a shipping label to get the gear back and replace it at no cost or traveling to a store for the user.

[resolaibohp]

I define above and beyond as recalling all of their defective product with no questions asked, offering a substitute while they fix the problem, and then finally replacing the phones to anyone who wants to try them again.

If this is a poor company response please let me know who has done better as I would too like to do business with them instead. Clearly my experiences with companies have been drastically different than yours.

[duskwuff]

Recalling and replacing a product that can spontaneously catch fire is not going "above and beyond". It is the bare minimum.

[resolaibohp]

What would you have liked to see beyond replacement?

[criddell]

Transparency around what the problem was, why it happened, and how it was fixed.

[rootlocus]

Receiving a non-defective replacement. The phone that caught fire in the article was a replacement.

[alexbock]

Informally issuing a recall without going through proper government channels and accepting returns for a consumer product that poses a danger to life due to a design defect is basically the bare minimum you could possibly do in a case like this. Shipping someone a replacement that still catches fire definitely isn't helping their perception with anyone who was going to give them a second chance.

[resolaibohp]

Since it seems my opinion is entirely off base I am curious how you would have liked to have seen the replacements handled? What would be above and beyond in this case?

[alexbock]

Go through the CPSC to initiate a recall properly instead of trying to do a fly-by-night recall that confuses all of phone providers. Give people actual information about why, how, and when these batteries fail instead of just nebulously blaming the batteries that came from your own factory. Don't ship people replacement phones that still spontaneously ignite.

[toast0]

Around 2001 there were all kinds of laptop battery recalls, where they would send you two new ones and a box to return the old one; that's above and beyond. Since battery replacement is not applicable and advance shipping a $$$ phone return is a big risk, Samsung could have worked with carriers to authorize replacement of carrier branded models at the carrier store, even if original purchased somewhere else. If the phones are serviceable, they could have made a replace the battery while you wait program, so people don't need to transfer data etc.

[Analemma_]

> but I think it is unreasonable to try and link every single battery issue and explosion under the Samsung brand as something that is a precursor to another giant issue.

I disagree. Given that this phone model already had battery problems, it is not at all irrational to assume the new battery problems are related to (or the same as) the old ones. That's far likelier than the new problems happening by pure coincidence, given that the base rate of phones catching fire is so small. I think what you're forgetting here is that, by far the most likely scenario is that Samsung just didn't fix the original problem correctly.

[resolaibohp]

Perhaps I have more faith in a company whose decision it was to recall all of those phones. They knew that all eyes would be on them after the fact, and to mess up again could be the beginning of the end for their brand. I would think that extra care would have been given in making sure these issues were fixed before releasing them again. Another point to keep in mind is that in perspective, the amount of issues that did occur, compared to how many phones are out there made by Samsung indicates to me that we should have some amount of trust in their products.

On the other hand if they did not realize this, perhaps they do deserve all the bad press. Regardless nobody actually knows right now, and my opinion is that I believe this is all news hype bandwagon behavior right now.

[bdcravens]

I'm sure they felt if they waited too long the opportunity they had would be lost. (there was a ton of great press before the Note 7 launched, and I'm sure there was a feeling that this was their moment to really shine against an Apple launch)

[simonh]

But Samsung didn't issue a recall until forced to by the US regulator. At first they just issued a patch to limit charging to 60%. The US regulator is furious with Samsung for the way the handled this[0]. Meanwhile in China they delayed the recall there until negative media pressure forced them to do the same. "On 2 September, Samsung issued a recall of 2.5 million phones in certain countries, leaving out China."[1]. Samsung behaved appalling in this.

[0]http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/09/16/us-regulato...

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37416914