New Zealand’s largest telco, Spark, has stopped replacements of the Samsung Galaxy Note7 on advice from Samsung and after one of its customers reported their Note7 had overheated and subsequently caught fire.
Spark announced its decision in a media advisory late Australian time on Tuesday, urging all affected customers, via an SMS, to return their Note7 devices to a Spark store.
Spark CEO of home, mobile and business, Jason Paris, said the company became aware on Tuesday afternoon of one incident involving its customer’s Note7 device catching fire.
“The phone was brought in-store this afternoon and we immediately arranged for it to be sent to Samsung. We’ve been talking with the customer and have confirmation that he is safe, unharmed and that there has been no damage to any physical property.”
{loadposition peter}Spark says it is continuing to investigate the incident with Samsung.
And the company has put out a reminder to all customers who purchased a Note7 from Spark at launch, or who currently hold a replacement Note7 from Spark, that they are entitled to a full refund of the amount paid for their Note7, including the options of:
• Swapping the Note7 for an alternative Samsung device, with the difference refunded, or
• Receiving a full refund of anything paid for the device and any Note7 accessories purchased from Spark, which can then be used to purchase another device.
As iTWire reported, Samsung announced in a blog on Tuesday morning that it was shutting down sales and exchanges of its Galaxy Note7 smartphone globally, until it has investigated and found out what is causing the device to catch fire.
As colleague Sam Varghese wrote, Samsung issued a worldwide recall in September and offered replacements, but when the replacements were also reported to have a similar defect, the company had been forced to act.