7mo ago

Samsung forces repair stores to destroy customer smartphones, iFixit ends cooperation

www.notebookcheck.net Samsung forces repair stores to destroy customer smartphones, iFixit ends cooperation

Those who take their Samsung Galaxy device to a repair store may get it back in pieces, since Samsung forces service providers under certain conditions to disassemble devices instead of repairing them, and to send the customer's personal data to the company. iFixit is therefore ending its cooperatio...

Samsung @lemdro.id

www.notebookcheck.net /Samsung-forces-repair-stores-to-destroy-customer-smartphones-iFixit-ends-cooperation.840955.0.html

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Even more dramatic is that if a repair service provider discovers a third-party spare part that was installed in a Galaxy device as part of a previous repair, they must immediately disassemble the smartphone, tablet or notebook into its individual parts and inform Samsung of the details of the respective incident.
Well this feels illegal (or certainly should be). Imagine taking your car in for a repair only to find out the shop functionally scrapped it and told on you to Ford, all because they noticed you had changed a tire.
- Funny you mentioned that. I was out with my daughter a couple days ago and she got a flat that had to be replaced. She was legitimately worried that Toyota would void her warranty for not buying a tire from the dealership. Nevermind that we were out in rural nothingness with no Toyota dealership to be found.
  
  Honestly, that's pretty close to what could've been if the Right to Repair act for cars didn't pass back when it did.
- “You used a non-Ford approved part. For your safety, we have disassembled your vehicle and reported you to the consumer protection police. You have lost your license and the full balance of your loan/lease is due in 24 hours.”
  
  Ford: "Please only use certified Firestone Tires with your Explore. We'd hate for your SVU to unpredictably roll over. Better for it to predictably roll over."
- Ferrari be like "That's not normal?"

God bless iFixit, and God damn Samsung.
- Feels great to have settled for a phone with the features I mostly wanted(where 3.5mm), it ending up a Samsung and then hearing all this.

The use of aftermarket parts in repair is relatively common. This provision requires independent repair shops to destroy the devices of their own customers, and then to snitch on them to Samsung.
That's just pure evil and bully. If you have aftermarket parts they will destroy the device and force you to pay for it. This is the reason we need right to repair. Every consumer should support it.

It's honestly impressive to find out that someone is WORSE than Apple when it comes to repairing and customer rights.
- Is this worse? It sounds pretty similar.
  
  Apple will tie themselves in knots to make it impossible to repair your tech 3rd party, and maybe even refusing to fix it if it WAS repaired 3rd party before, but I've never heard of them also requiring that it be destroyed and your personal information given over.
- If you knew Samsung for real, you'd know it only care for its owners and ready to send anyone else to damnation.

"...prohibits repair stores from repairing components on the mainboard. Instead, the entire component must be replaced..."
A flagrant disregard for the costs of e-waste on the environment. What a surprise.
- Not to mention data recovery

I think the part that bothers me the most is that, the customer is likely completely oblivious to the fact that a repair person used a third party part in their device.
I don't think most cellphone users are discerning enough to start checking if the repair place is actually licensed by Samsung to perform repairs or not. They just see the Samsung logo under the banner of "we fix these brands" and go in. As long as it's fully working when they walk out, they couldn't possibly give fewer shits whether genuine Samsung parts were used to fix the device.
This is essentially victim blaming. Anyone who can fix the phone themselves with non-Samsung parts is going to do it themselves and never get "caught" doing it. So instead of "catching" the "bad actors" putting non Samsung parts into phones, they're putting that responsibility on customers? That's a PR nightmare. What the fuck are they thinking?
- They are thinking the got the customer by the balls because they're a state sanctioned monopoly. They're so big the CEO of Samsung has essentially the same power as the SK president.
  Every major corp out of SK is a state sanctioned monopoly. The government tells Samsung "make washing machines now" and Samsung does.
  I know it's been widely overlooked to allow South Korea to economically develop after the armistice, cold war and all, but at some point the rest of the free trading world is going to have to hit them with tariffs to protect native, or critical industries.
  Frankly I'm really tired of looking the other way for any reason. Every other day it's a headline about how some government or multinational led the public on a 20 year gaslighting campaign. If I were to say, "hey did you hear that story about XXXY(any well known mega corp)?" Do you think I'd have a positive wholesome story to share? No. Because there never is. The structure of a corporation is set up to protect financiers from liability from the crimes theyre guaranteed to commit thru abusive, shortsighted, toxic business. It's literally the fucking point. But we don't have to accept that, and we don't have to choke back and somehow keep down our sense of justice, or be passively complicit, which is to nueter your morality, your sense of self
  Our individual actions do matter in this case. Like don't buy shit off Temu, theyre using slave labor. Don't endorse that. Don't buy anything out of Dubai or Saudi Arabia, they, also, keep slaves. Don't support slavery. Including wage slavery. Don't do business with Israel until an non Zionist coalition is back in charge. Don't buy anything Russian. Genocide is not an acceptable modern practice. It CAN'T be. Boycott Mississippi and Louisiana as well, since they like to let their prisoners die of treatable conditions and bury them in unmarked graves. That is ALSO a genocide. Don't fucking fund crimes against humanity. This is kindergarten levels of sophistication.
  And hopefully enough people will actually live their morals and gain seats of power, because we have to. Otherwise waves hands THIS.
  
  Samsung is a chaebol. It brings in about 20% of South Koreas total income. It has university programs that train kids from high school to uni to go work for them. They are so big that they essentially control SK and its government. I guess when you have that much power, delusion creeps in pretty quick.
  Here's a really solid documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFZge6V_is
- $The$same$company$that$bundles$ bloat/mal/spyware$on$new$devices$
  $$$Whatever$$$could$$$they$$$be$$$thinking$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
  
  It’s insane how their smartphones ever became so popular to begin with!
  
  Fair point.
- I mean even before that, what VP thought this was a good move?!?! Like who is going to buy your brand again? It’s more amazing Samsung is so out of touch with reality.
  Companies are getting away with way too much these days.
  
  Well, I definitely agree that corpos are getting away with too much.
  The walled gardens of cellphones and whatnot creeping into vehicles, from farm equipment to consumer cars, this is just kind of ridiculous. Everyone wants to be the one-and-only that can do anything to the things you've purchased. We desperately need the right to repair for all things... Not just cars, phones, etc (even operating systems are trying to get into a walled garden situation).
  They've tribalised the very concept of owning something.
  
  Eh most people will never hear of this and if they do probably won't care
- I'm guessing that samsung probably has a link on their website for people looking to repair their phones and on order to get your shop listed there you have to agree to use samsung certified parts

Interesting timing, these practices are about to be super illegal under Oregon’s SB1596 right to repair bill that just passed

Apple: bricks phone with unapproved part. Samsung: “hold my beer”
- Apple: "You've just gotta brick their phone if they use 3rd party parts!"
  Samsung: "Brick it, you say?"
- Samsung is doing the same now with their latest one ui 6.1 update. It makes 3rd party screens unresponsive. There are reports that even rolling back to a previous version doesn't fix the problem.

There are some things I don't really understand after reading this article:
Why exactly does Samsung want the customer data? Are they wanting to ban their Samsung account or something?
How exactly does Samsung police this? Surely the repair shop could just... not tattle?
What the hell does the repair shop tell the customer when they return their phone in literal fucking pieces?
- Data sells
  Legal TOS
  See Samsucks TOS
  
  A TOS doesn't give you the legal right to destroy someone's property... At worst they could deny service
  
  Something tells me this isn't going to fly in Australia, unless they're willing to be giving out refunds for bricked phones.
- How exactly does Samsung police this? Surely the repair shop could just… not tattle?
  Well there is a contract in place and there would be consequences for not upholding the agreement. Sure, they could probably get away with it for quite a while. But it likely isn't worth the risk, they would rather just out Samsung as being a piece of shit and go on their merry way.
  It would be pretty easy to catch this as well. Samsung can just occasionally submit a phone with a known third party part for repair and see if the expected report comes in.
  
  Haha like the kids cops send into shops to buy beer.
- To your first point, I just automatically assumed that it was to feed into Samsung AI. I'm not a values customer, but my data sure is 🤡

Fuck Samsung

Wow, I didn't know Samsung could really get much less appealing but they absolutely managed to up the ante by a lot. Samsung and Apple will never get another dime from me

Who actually makes a decent phone anymore?
- Fairphone
  
  It would be cool if they sold the thing in (or were willing to ship to) my country...
- Fairphone
- OnePlus, I think

It is the many stories like this... That have kept and will continue to keep me from ever buying a Samsung product
- Same with Apple. Saying they'll prevent independent repair from stealing our deleted photos by stealing it themselves.

Almost makes me want to dig my old lg out of mothballs
- I miss using my old lg phones, I had the v30, v40, and v50 and they were basically perfect. Now when I shop for phones it's like looking for the least bad option
  
  Yep.
- I was an LG customer for years but let's not pretend they wouldn't be like this or worse if they were still in the game.

So I guess this is what the consumers want because that is all these conglomerates offer, right? Right?

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