Update 7/26/2014:
In June 2014 a user on Reddit has posted his story and pictures about his Galaxy S4 catching on fire and that Samsung has been ignoring his claim for over a month now. The user /u/TweektheGeek originally posted here about waking up to the smell of his charging S4 burning as well as having his hand burnt when he touched it. TweektheGeek had this to say about the experience:
“I could smell it burning, but it didn’t yet have flames. It was just smoldering. I unplugged it and tried to move it off of my bed, but it was too hot for me to handle barehanded, so I wrapped my hand in a shirt and moved my phone to a window sill so it could cool off.”
After he managed to get his phone unplugged and cooled off on the window sill, he took pictures of the resulting damage to the phone and charging cable which you can see below:
TweektheGeek has said that he was using the original charging cable that came with the phone itself, and that it was not covered by any blankets or anything while charging, thus indicating he was charging the device correctly, which would not violate any of the warranty terms.
Unlike the previous story below where we saw YouTube user GhostlyRich receive a cease and desist letter from the Samsung lawyers, TweektheGeek has reported in his original post that Samsung’s customer service has been cooperative and told him that they’d replace his phone. Of course this was about a month ago in June 2014.
In TweektheGeek’s latest Reddit post on July 27th, 2014 about the incident, he states that he has been completely ignored by Samsung since being told his phone would be replaced and has yet to receive anything from them.
I have tried multiple times since then to contact Samsung via phone, and through their Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter accounts and have been completely ignored. When I call them, I generally am able to speak to a representative for a total of 5 minutes, and then I am placed on hold for about 30-50 minutes before either my call is disconnected, or I am transferred to a voicemail where I have left multiple messages.
Yikes! It appears that Samsung has dropped the ball yet again on this disastrous PR handling. You’d think that they’d learn their lesson by now and do everything in their power to make those with defective Galaxy S4s happy. Of course it’d be even better if they didn’t make phones that could potentially burn your house down too.
Fortunately for TweektheGeek it appears that HTC has taken advantage of this opportunity by offering him a free brand new HTC One M8 phone under the condition that if Samsung eventually gets off its ass to send him a replacement that he donate that one to charity.
Update 7/24/2014:
The latest Samsung Galaxy fire story involves another S4 catching fire while under the pillow of a sleeping 13 year old girl as reported by FOX 4 news. You can see the newscast about the incident in the below video:
Here’s a picture of the aftermath of the burnt phone and pillow:
In this incident, the girl has admitted to not charging the phone correctly which was on the bed and had slipped under the pillow, causing the device to overheat. In addition, this particular S4 was using a generic replacement battery and not an official Samsung battery which is not endorsed by them.
Original Story Posted 12/09/2013:
In my search to switch to a cheaper cell phone plan, I have also been looking at different types of smart phones to switch to. I had been looking at going with a Samsung Galaxy but there has been recent news of their Galaxy S4 phones catching fire that are making me rethink that purchase.
Not only have there been reports of the phone causing fires but they have also been attempting to silence those affected by the faulty phones, sending them legal documents to sign which would waive their rights if they chose to receive a replacement.
The YouTube user Ghostlyrich has posted two videos regarding his Galaxy S4 catching fire when Samsung asked him for video proof.
As Ghostlyrich explains, he woke up to the phone smoking and melting from the charging port of his phone which did some damage to that end of the phone, cracking and melting the case on that end. He also mentioned another thing that I wasn’t aware of concerning the batteries, explaining that if it had caught fire could have caused an even worse incident since the batteries could “pop” causing flames to spread with molten lava and doom… he sure has a way with words.
Interestingly, after he sent Samsung that video proof, they then sent him all kinds of legal documents to sign in an effort to shut him up which you can see him explain in the next video.
Yikes! Well I have to say that in this day and age, the only thing that’ll give you worse PR than a faulty product is when you put your company’s lawyers on the case.
Actually I’m glad I saw this story, since it does raise an issue of faulty phones like the Galaxy S4, which isn’t the only brand of phone to have fire safety issues, but it does raise enough concerns to make me want to pass on this product.
While this article is a bit off topic in regards to finding a cheap cell phone plan, I wanted to publish it because I think part of being frugal is buying quality products that don’t burn your apartment down.
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