Samsung reportedly refusing to meet full costs of fire damage in multiple Note 7 cases

The Guardian reports multiple cases of Samsung refusing to meet the full costs of damage caused by Note 7 fires. It recounts the stories of three owners whose homes suffered severe damage after their Note 7 devices caught fire.

John Barwick from Marion, Illinois, was in bed on 8 September when his wife Joni’s device exploded on the nightstand […] 

“They told me they weren’t going to pay replacement costs of any damaged items. We were asking to have our carpet replaced, and to have the goods that were sprayed on replaced. We sent them photos,” he said. Instead, Samsung offer to pay a depreciated value of the items.

While some low-end insurance policies do only pay out for the used value of damaged goods, you’d expect a company of Samsung’s size to have better insurance in place. Samsung is also refusing to pay for hotel costs for someone forced to move out of their home due to the severity of the damage …

Wesley Hartzog from South Carolina believes that his Note 7 is to blame for a fire that left his house uninhabitable […]

An employee initially promised to move him into a hotel and pay for his meals. “But the next day Samsung Fire & Marine insurance called me and said it wasn’t going to happen. I feel that was really unprofessional.”

A month after the fire, Hartzog is still negotiating with Samsung, who are now paying for a temporary condo for the family. But despite ongoing negotiations with Samsung, the insurance company and investigators, he still has little clarity on when he’ll be able to move his family back to their home.

In a third case, Samsung reportedly ceased all communication with a Note 7 owner after he refused to send them the phone, offering instead to allow them to inspect it.

He told the Guardian that the company has repeatedly promised to come and inspect the device – then failed to show up or follow up. He showed screen grabs of text messages to support this claim.

“They were only interested in retrieving the phone,” he said. “Once I told them I was giving the phone to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), they went dark.”

The paper quotes a crisis management consultant as saying that Samsung is further risking its reputation by failing to properly compensate owners.

Sticking to the letter of insurance cover and doing what’s right are two different things. They need to do what’s right.

The company has started to roll out exchange/refund booths at international airports after the FAA and many airlines worldwide imposed a total ban on taking the Note 7 on board aircraft. The company now appears set to drop the Note device altogether next year rather than just changing the branding,

Via The Verge