Samsung Imposes Questionable Rules on Independent Repair Shops

KleinesSinchen · May 24, 2024

Anybody surprised when big tech companies prove they are evil? No? Well, every now and then some news go beyond the usual evilness – reaching the level of cartoon super-villains.
It seem 404 Media got their hands on a contract, which forces independent repair shops to comply with highly questionable, one-sided rules when they want to obtain OEM parts. That does not even make them authorized repair shops.

404media.co said:
In exchange for selling them repair parts, Samsung requires independent repair shops to give Samsung the name, contact information, phone identifier, and customer complaint details of everyone who gets their phone repaired at these shops, according to a contract obtained by 404 Media. Stunningly, it also requires these nominally independent shops to “immediately disassemble” any phones that customers have brought them that have been previously repaired with aftermarket or third-party parts and to “immediately notify” Samsung that the customer has used third-party parts.

It is nothing new that companies dislike third-party repair and third-party spare parts. Independent repairs bring no money for the manufacturer and might make devices stay in use for longer time hurting sales. The legality of this method is highly questionable. Sharing customer data (repair shop customer!) with the manufacturer for no good reason and disassembling a device instead of repairing it will be hard to justify; even with a lot of legal TOS the repair shop might present a customer to sign.

Hopefully Right-to-Repair laws will put an end to such practices as well as unobtainable spare parts, inflated prices to discourage repairs, hardware DRM preventing repair.

Source It is worth reading the whole thing!

Side note: Ifixit ends collaboration with Samsung.

koffieleut · May 24, 2024

It's legal of you're bribing enough.

Bladexdsl · May 24, 2024

oh noz all those Chinese booths selling cheap crap in the middle of the mall are gonna go out of business

JuanMena · May 24, 2024

It's illegal if you get caught.

Since when Independent means having a contract with SAMSUNG?

Latiodile · May 24, 2024

Bladexdsl said:
oh noz all those Chinese booths selling cheap crap in the middle of the mall are gonna go out of business

they all went out of business in my local malls at least 4 years ago, maybe even longer lol

tech3475 · May 24, 2024

It's a shame, because Samsung were otherwise given my experiences over the last few years one of the better Android vendors e.g. longer support and offline backup software (especially with ADB backup being deprecated).

it also requires these nominally independent shops to “immediately disassemble” any phones that customers have brought them

This just sounds like a legal nightmare, especially now that this has been made public.

KleinesSinchen · May 24, 2024

JuanMena said:
Since when Independent means having a contract with SAMSUNG?

Samsung won't sell parts to independent repair shops unless they accept the conditions. Currently independent shops are at the manufacturer's mercy.
That is why right-to-repair laws must take effect ASAP. So that manufacturers have to sell (reasonably priced!) spare parts to all repair shops and private people.

tech3475 · May 24, 2024

KleinesSinchen said:
So that manufacturers have to sell (reasonably priced!) spare parts to all repair shops and private people.

Funny thing is that their reluctance to do so may also be costing them indirectly, a few years back I accidentally fried the processor board of my then relatively old Samsung TV. Had they sold the part directly for say £80-100 I probably would have just bought that.

Instead I bought a replacement part elsewhere online for about £60.

JuanMena · May 24, 2024

KleinesSinchen said:
Samsung won't sell parts to independent repair shops unless they accept the conditions. Currently independent shops are at the manufacturer's mercy.
That is why right-to-repair laws must take effect ASAP. So that manufacturers have to sell (reasonably priced!) spare parts to all repair shops and private people.

Oh, so independent stores do get spares from Samsung? Didn't knew that.
Thought everywhere was like here, you simply go somewhere to get spare pieces or buy them online.

Maximumbeans · May 24, 2024

From my experiences with Samsung back when I worked customer service for a big retailer in the UK, this absolutely checks out. They're a greedy bunch of bastards and they'll duck and weave as much as they possibly can when it comes to blame or taking fault. Of all the manufacturers I had to phone, they were on my Top 3 Twats list.

Bladexdsl · May 24, 2024

Latiodile said:
they all went out of business in my local malls at least 4 years ago, maybe even longer lol

well they are fucking everywhere here

Lostbhoy · May 24, 2024

I would say Samsung can ask for that info but the scrutiny here should be on the vendors who just hand it over without asking your permission first or even stating that in order to get your phone fixed we need to do this.... The choice is then yours however limited it may be.

They can ask, they should not get!

tech3475 · May 24, 2024

Maximumbeans said:
From my experiences with Samsung back when I worked customer service for a big retailer in the UK, this absolutely checks out. They're a greedy bunch of bastards and they'll duck and weave as much as they possibly can when it comes to blame or taking fault. Of all the manufacturers I had to phone, they were on my Top 3 Twats list.

Whose the number one? Apple?

I say that because they are the bigger PITA from my experience due to the 'icloud must be disabled' policy when we get returns/send stuff away, made more annoying if the customer is also a PITA who refuses to accept that we have to abide by this policy before shipping stuff.

Maximumbeans · May 24, 2024

tech3475 said:
Whose the number one? Apple?

I say that because they are the bigger PITA from my experience due to the 'icloud must be disabled' policy when we get returns/send stuff away, made more annoying if the customer is also a PITA who refuses to accept that we have to abide by this policy before shipping stuff.

Luckily I didn't have to deal with Apple, this was more household electronics so it was Samsung, Bosch, Electrolux, things like that. Now that you ask me...Samsung were probably the number one

The Real Jdbye · May 24, 2024

Does that include samsungparts.com?
Which is an official store, AFAIK, and until now you were able to easily get parts for just about any Samsung device.
One of the things that always got Samsung a thumbs up for me even if they are just as shitty as Apple in many other ways. Not surprised to see them copying Apple yet again, as they have a tendency to do, but it still sucks. Manufacturers show time and time again that they will be as absolutely anti-consumer as they can get away with, and Apple certainly aren't unique, but they're always the ones pushing the boundaries, Samsung and others only follow suit once the path is clear.

NotUsingAnAltAccount · May 24, 2024

Never had any device from Samsung and never had any plans on getting one. It's ridiculous what's going on nowadays.

KleinesSinchen · May 24, 2024

NotUsingAnAltAccount said:
Never had any device from Samsung and never had any plans on getting one.

Big tech in consumer electronics are pretty much all the same. Oversimplified:
Apple goes ahead and looks how far they can go with anti-consumer behavior… and all the other copy Apple.

I stopped having a "No-Buy"-blacklist altogether and moved on to "buy only used to not give any of them (directly) money".

Latiodile · May 24, 2024

KleinesSinchen said:
Big tech in consumer electronics are pretty much all the same. Oversimplified:
Apple goes ahead and looks how far they can go with anti-consumer behavior… and all the other copy Apple.

I stopped having a "No-Buy"-blacklist altogether and moved on to "buy only used to not give any of them (directly) money".

i remember when samsung kept the headphone jack after the iphone 7 drama to spite apple only to then remove it even on devices that absolutely have no reason to exclude it, like those stupid foldable phones that have more than enough real estate to fit one

same with the power brick, now that i think about it

NotUsingAnAltAccount · May 24, 2024

KleinesSinchen said:
Big tech in consumer electronics are pretty much all the same. Oversimplified:
Apple goes ahead and looks how far they can go with anti-consumer behavior… and all the other copy Apple.

I stopped having a "No-Buy"-blacklist altogether and moved on to "buy only used to not give any of them (directly) money".

Yes, I hate corpos so much. It seems that lately more and more of them are doing whatever they want and then just look at media or people's reaction. Will we get away with this? It's exactly how you're saying. Some things are just unthinkable for me. I always say to my friends about what chosen company does or did in the past and why it is so important to vote with their wallets.

I wish that i could do what you're doing, but I never buy used things. I'm pedantic and I can't help it. My devices after a couple of years still look and work like brand new. I hate myself for that

But then again, last time I bought something like a phone for example was almost 5 years ago and it still looks and works like brand new, even battery is around 80% of health.

Post automatically merged: May 24, 2024

Nothing more to add.

KleinesSinchen · May 27, 2024

@NotUsingAnAltAccount
Thanks for that video. Louis' rants are wonderful.

Samsung Imposes Questionable Rules on Independent Repair Shops

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