First AT&T stopped selling the Galaxy Note 7. Then Verizon and T-Mobile followed suit. Now Sprint, too, has halted sales of the smartphone. The device is no longer being offered as a replacement smartphone for units affected by the initial Galaxy Note 7 recall, or sold as new.
U.S. carriers had to take matters into their own hands. Last week, a phone caught fire on a Southwest Airlines flight. Samsung said it was investigating but, meanwhile, fires continued to take place, with as many as five counted before the week was over. Samsung has yet to announce a second recall for the smartphone, which means dangerous devices are out in the hands of users.
“We recognize that carrier partners have stopped sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note 7 in response to reports of heat damage issues, and we respect their decision,” Samsung told Business Insider.
As of Friday, Samsung was still investigating.
“Samsung understands the concern our carriers and consumers must be feeling after recent reports have raised questions about our newly released replacement Note 7 devices,” a spokesperson said. “We continue to move quickly to investigate the reported case to determine the cause and will share findings as soon as possible. We remain in close contact with the CPSC throughout this process. If we conclude a safety issue exists, we will work with the CPSC to take immediate steps to address the situation. We want to reassure our customers that we take every report seriously and we appreciate their patience as we work diligently through this process.”
Why this matters:
Carriers are normally kind of the bottleneck in getting anything done quickly; but, for maybe the first time ever, they’re the ones doing what’s right. While Samsung continues to”investigate” while failing to admit any danger in the products, carriers are making sure that their own customers are safe.
This whole fiasco is also unprecedented. Samsung and the U.S. CPSC clearly didn’t spend enough time making sure the Galaxy Note 7 replacement units were safe or that the problem was fixed. If it was the battery, how is this still ongoing? Clearly something else is at fault. Perhaps that explains why Samsung temporarily stopped production of the Galaxy Note 7.
We’re waiting to find out more about what’s going on and why this was allowed to happen. It’s my guess we’ll hear about another recall soon — I’ve demanded one, after all — but it may be many months until we find out how this all went so wrong.
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