Stepping in It ⇥ nytimes.com

Su-Hyun Lee and Paul Mozur, New York Times:

The constant reminders of potential combustibility have further dented Samsung’s reputation and shaved as much as $14 billion off its market value, just when it looked to be gaining ground on Apple, its longtime rival, with its new line of sleek Galaxy smartphones. They also raise questions about whether Samsung’s rush to take back the phones created more problems.

Experts say it led to a ham-handed effort that confused customers, frustrated regulators and continued to generate headlines both in the United States and at home. Data from the mobile analytics firm Apteligent showed that while Samsung’s recall appeared to have stopped new sales of the phone, a majority of people who had the affected phones were continuing to use them.

As I said earlier this week, Samsung’s recall started off strong and prompt. That was encouraging: an acknowledgement of the problem, and a promise to fix it. The story since then, however, has been a disaster: the CPSC recall program was only announced today, a full two weeks after Samsung announced that they’d be recalling all Galaxy Note 7s sold so far.

But this isn’t the first time Samsung has had a problem with dealing with consumer complaints about fire hazards. Back in May 2015, Brian X. Chen’s Samsung oven melted the side of his kitchen cabinets and had a woeful time trying to get the company to acknowledge the problem and issue a refund.

Update: Via Yorrike on Twitter, washing machines made by Samsung and used primarily in Australia and New Zealand have been catching on fire for three years:

Fairfax Media can reveal Samsung made a potentially fatal error in its mammoth recall of 144,500 washing machines with a waterproofing fault that has burnt down homes.

In response to an email from Ms Teitzel in May 2015, a product safety officer assured her that, based on the serial number, her unit was manufactured after February 28, 2013, and therefore had been “modified”.

This assessment was incorrect. The machine was manufactured in January 2013 and the fault had never been repaired.