
Samsung in hot water over splashy Australian phone ads - woodgrainz
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-samsung-elec-regulator/samsung-in-hot-water-over-splashy-australian-phone-ads-idUSKCN1TZ0EJ
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outime
>The company attributed that to a manufacturing defect, affecting a small
number of phones, which it soon fixed. But customers online continued
reporting problems, forum comments show.

I wish corporations would stop using the “only affects a small number” excuse.
I understand the motivation behind that but feels really bad when you’re
affected and you can obviously see it’s not a small number.

~~~
mc32
Meaning only a small number of users actually put the phones in water (because
to them electronics and water don’t mix, despite ads).

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samcday
So here we have a large multinational corporation that has let batteries
explode on planes, sold bendy phones that don't really bend so well, and just
flat out lied about the capabilities of a phone in a multi-million dollar ad
campaign.

I'm _really_ trying not to be one of those crazy "wake up sheeple!" type crazy
folk. But surely the public will wake up soon to the dangers of letting these
giant megacorps run free without better regulatory oversight?

All we do is slap them on the wrist with a few million dollars of fines and
say "now now! Don't do that again!". Then we wonder why fining them for less
than they probably spent on the damn marketing campaign isn't deterring them
from doing it all over again.

~~~
fasterdom
> _sold bendy phones that don 't really bend_

Are you talking about Samsung Fold? Because they didn't sold not even 1 of
that.

You should be careful what you wish for. If companies were fined billions of
dollars for faulty products, in a couple of years you'll have nothing to
complain about. And not because everything will be amazing.

Just imagine if Microsoft/Apple/"Linux" was fined 1 billion for every major
flaw in their OS. There would be no OSs any more, because they would all be
bankrupt and nobody would dare selling anything remotely new.

Are you personally willing to accept $1 mil liability for any major flaw in
the software you wrote in the past?

~~~
kelnos
False dichotomy. There's certainly a middle ground between allowing corps to
get away with whatever they want with a mere slap on the wrist, and fining
them into bankruptcy.

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LoSboccacc
I remember these ads running here in Italy. it was funny to see the phone in
water and written under in not so small letters "don't do as shown it doesn't
resist running water"

[https://youtu.be/4B-fPS3W9Og](https://youtu.be/4B-fPS3W9Og)

saved them a lawsuit I guess.

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reaperducer
_It centers on more than 300 advertisements in which Samsung showed its Galaxy
phones being used at the bottom of swimming pools and in the ocean._

I know that iPhones and similar can survive being dropped in a pool but can
you actually "use" a Samsung underwater?

 _Some consumers damaged their phones when exposing them to water and Samsung
had refused to honor warranty claims_

So can it be used in water, or not? If Samsung shows a phone being used
underwater, I don't understand why it wouldn't honor a water damage claim.

~~~
pcr0
I've owned an S8 for >2 years and I think it can safely be used underwater.

I've gone swimming with it in the sea, swimming pools, washed it under tap
water regularly and even dropped it in a bowl of yogurt once. YMMV of course.

My guess as to why they won't honor their warranty probably revolves around
return fraud. It must be trivial to damage the waterproofing intentionally,
get the phone water damaged then demand an exchange. It's such a big problem
that even the Apple store where I live has much stricter return policies than
they do in the US.

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kalleboo
Working consumer protection agencies are awesome.

Earlier this year another Australian consumer won against Apple when they
dropped their iPhone in a pool and it stopped working (after Phil Schiller
said said you can drop it in the pool and it will be fine)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/aiknf4/i_fought_appl...](https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/aiknf4/i_fought_apple_and_won/)

------
option_greek
I don't know about this one but I regularly wash my Moto phone under the tap
(for hygiene reasons) and so far it has been working without problems (for 2
years or so). So I don't think its impossible for the Samsung one to act as in
the ads.

~~~
sgc
I have a friend who used his samsung with a cracked screen underwater in the
sea for years for photos/video. I'm not sure about the models in question, but
the company does have effective waterproofing.

