Even as Samsung Electronics is working desperately hard to avoid potentially expensive class action lawsuits because of its fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 devices, its exchange program in the U.S. seems to have hit a bit of a speed bump. The South Korean consumer electronics giant is reported to have sold over a million Galaxy Note 7 smartphones in the country before issuing an unprecedented global recall for its latest flagship smartphone following multiple reports of fires and explosions that the company has since blamed on faulty batteries supplied by Samsung SDI. The aviation safety authorities in many countries, including the U.S., Japan and India have already issued advisories against using the phablets in-flight and at least three airlines in Australia have already banned the devices from their flights.
While carriers and major retailers in the U.S. are apparently going about their replacement programs for the hazardous Galaxy Note 7 handsets in a fairly efficient manner, new reports now seem to suggest that the company itself is finding it difficult to go through with the exchange process for the devices bought from its own official website. That’s because its shipping partners, FedEx and UPS, are apparently refusing to handle the older Galaxy Note 7 units with the faulty batteries because of obvious safety concerns. This was reportedly confirmed by Samsung in a mail to one of its customers who tried to get their Galaxy Note 7 replaced as part of Samsung’s exchange program.
According to a submission from Redditor ‘yeahbuddy’, the company apparently expressed its inability to exchange Galaxy Note 7 units brought from its website “due to FedEx and UPS refusing to transport the packages”. Meanwhile, Samsung itself is refusing to process an exchange unless it receives the older unit first, all of which means that people who got their Galaxy Note 7 smartphones from samsung.com are currently stuck with their old devices that continue to remain potential fire hazards and need to be replaced as soon as possible. Thankfully, though, Samsung is apparently working with an undisclosed courier delivery service that may be willing to ship the faulty Galaxy Note 7 units back to Samsung, so with a little bit of luck, the South Korean tech giant should be able to get things rolling sooner rather than later.