Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by givinguflac 3543 days ago
"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.

1 comments

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.

Recalling and replacing a product that can spontaneously catch fire is not going "above and beyond". It is the bare minimum.
What would you have liked to see beyond replacement?
Transparency around what the problem was, why it happened, and how it was fixed.
Receiving a non-defective replacement. The phone that caught fire in the article was a replacement.
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.
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?
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.
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.