SINGAPORE: A woman took to social media to complain after the screen on her mobile phone, which she had replaced in January, developed a pink vertical line. What made matters worse for her was the response she received from Samsung, Jia Hui wrote in a post published on the Complaint Singapore Facebook page on Monday (March 31).
Ms Jia wrote that she is “extremely disappointed with Samsung Singapore and the recovery team.”
On Jan 6, after her phone screen showed a crack, she had the screen and motherboard replaced by Samsung, which she said cost her more than $433. She told herself to be careful and considered the matter a “painful lesson” to learn.
However, on March 20, the pink line suddenly showed up again, just two months after the screen was repaired. Ms Jia explained that she had not dropped her phone and that nothing untoward had happened to it. However, when she called Samsung’s service recovery hotline, she was told that her phone was more than one month out of warranty and that she needed to pay again for a phone screen replacement.
“Seriously, I paid $400+, and probably, they replaced old parts for me. Thus, within two months, a pink line appears out of nowhere. So zhun just out of warranty, the problem reappears. The service staff were not even apologetic and didn’t offer any solution but asked me to replace the phone (screen) again,” Ms Jia wrote, adding that she had paid over $400, not $40.
“Seriously, shame on you, Samsung, for such lousy parts and service!” she also wrote.
While commenters on her post were sympathetic, they wrote that they’ve encountered the same problem, with the number of lines sometimes going from one to several in a short time.
Others said the problem is so common that they’ve switched to Oppo, Xiaomi, or Apple despite the latter’s high prices.
The Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE) said in November that out of 49 complaints about lines appearing on phone screens in the last three years, all but one involved Samsung phones.
Netizens in Singapore began highlighting this issue some time ago, growing alarmed over lines suddenly appearing on their Samsung phones. The lines ran from the top to the bottom of their phone screens and were mostly green. They usually occur after a software update.
Some reported that Samsung would assist them with free or inexpensive repairs, but many others said that the company quoted more than S$300 to fix the issue, and rather than shell out this amount, they learned to live with it. In severe cases, some phone screens had multiple and multicoloured lines on them.
According to a report in CNA, CASE received four complaints regarding the issue in 2022, 14 in 2023, and 31 in 2024. Forty-eight involved Samsung phones, and one involved a phone from OnePlus. Six consumers have asked CASE for assistance with negotiating on their behalf for the issue to be resolved. /TISG
