My Galaxy S3 sudden death and the Samsung Experience

On 11 of December 2012 around 4 p.m., while I was sitting at my desk something strange happened with my 6 months old Samsung Galaxy SIII. While I was working on my laptop I noticed the smartphone had just restarted by itself; I was not directly looking at it but I could see trough the corner of my eye that something was different. After I finished whatever I was doing and I finally looked at it I couldn’t help noticing — besides the weird sudden reboot that just happened by no apparent reason — Samsung’s “best world phone” was actually frozen in the “Samsung Galaxy SIII” startup screen; and it wouldn’t go ahead from there. Thinking that it could be a “temporary software bug” I picked up the phone and tried to turn the power off… After a few seconds, and to my surprise the phone didn’t go off and restarted instead; just to come to a halt again at the same point it had stopped a few minutes ago. At this point I was starting to get worried; the only way I found to turn the phone off was to remove the battery since the power button wouldn’t do its job.

I decided to let the phone alone for a couple of hours without the battery, then I tried again to power on the smartphone… No luck, the black screen with a bright white “Samsung Galaxy SIII GT-I9300″ logo wasn’t willing to move on… “OK, maybe I have to do a hard reset” I thought to myself while I removed the battery for the 3rd or 4th time in order to power off the phone, but to my surprise the key combination [power+home+volume-up] to access the ROM options wouldn’t do anything, I was only able to access the “Odin/Download Mode” with [power+home+volume-down]… Well that was getting weirder, plus there were no signs on the internet of similar cases.

At this point I turned to Google; after several searches around [galaxy s3 {stuck|frozen} on boot] I only found issues where people had flashed their phones with custom ROMs, my phone doesn’t have (and never had) a custom ROM since I never flashed it, at the time of the issue I was running Samsung’s version of Android 4.1.1 and the only similar issue I found was from the user “Okieboy” on Android Central forum but even in his case he was able to access the ROM menu and do a hard-reset.

Well, yes… I was effe’d, my phone had just decided to brick itself out of the blue… An awesome Samsung Christmas present! But the good part was yet to come.

I bought my Samsung Galaxy S3 online from Amazon.de on the 7th of June 2012, the phone arrived within 2 or 3 business days to Hungary where I was staying with my wife’s family. Since I bought the phone from Amazon the only proof I have is the receipt and order number they send you by email, which you can also access in the list of purchases in your account.

Back to the story… It was now the 12nd of December (I flew in to Hungary from Brazil on the 6th of December to spend Christmas with my family) and my phone doesn’t give signs of coming back to life, so I decided it’s time to quit fooling around and went to a Samsung authorized repair center, I found one via the Samsung site in the city where I’m staying (Debrecen) so I went there. The name is Szigi Vill, Bt. and if they’re listed on Samsung’s site I was confident they could help me out.

While I was on my way to this authorized Samsung assistance center I realized I hadn’t printed and taken with me the receipt from when I purchased my phone from Amazon, but then again, the phone doesn’t have 12 months since Samsung launched it so I assumed it wouldn’t be hard to get it repaired under warranty and I didn’t come back for the Amazon purchase receipt. At the shop they looked at the phone and they said it would be just 20 minutes to fix it since it was a “software issue”. When they asked me where I had purchased the phone I explained that it was bought from Amazon and it’s well within the 12 months of warranty provided by Samsung, they said something about a stamped warranty paper and I explained to them the phone was bought online from Amazon.de so I had the receipt and I only had to print it out… And as far as I know Amazon doesn’t stamp warranty papers, the phone came sealed in the box. By this time the 20 minutes had passed and they said the phone had a different and more severe issue and would have to be sent to Budapest to be repaired in the main Samsung assistance center in the capital… Some “issue with the motherboard” was all what was mentioned to me — since my phone is essential in my day-to-day life and business I had to get it fixed ASAP –, so I agreed and paid them a deposit of about 4.000 HUF (about 14 EUR) so they can send it to Samsung in Budapest and get it repaired.

The phone supposedly would take approximately one week to get fixed, and obviously I didn’t see it before Christmas. During the week that passed I decided I would print out the receipt from Amazon and get back to the repair center, just in case.

Meanwhile while on the 21st of December I read on BGR that Samsung Galaxy SIII phones are diying for “no reason”, and there are also other threads on Reddit and on XDA Developers Forum from other users mentioning something that unfortunately sounds familiar to me; also a few days later more news over Samsung quietly replacing faulty Galaxy S3 phones. At this point I start to think this is something that is getting widespread and Samsung for sure will acknowledge the issue and will start acting on it.

Unfortunately I need my wife to help me a bit with the Hungarian language as I don’t speak in a fluent way, so between her working schedule and Christmas chores (and because shops also close during the holiday season) I only managed to go back to the repair center on the 27th of December after lunch. At this time I was more determined than ever to prove my phone was under warranty and, since it’s a manufacture defect, this was an issue Samsung must deal with. When I arrived to the repair center, to my surprise, my phone had also arrived from Budapest already repaired and I would have to pay 48.000 HUF (around 165 EUR) for the repair service. At this point I shown them the receipts of purchase from Amazon and tell them the phone is under warranty — and heck… They know the phone is not 12 moths old… They know when they launched it. The guy at the repair center tell me I need to have the warranty paper stamped by the shop who sold the phone, and I tell him I bought the phone online from Amazon.de so there’s no way Amazon is stamping warranty papers, but they provide the proof of purchase I printed and handed to him. To my disbelief he says the receipt is not enough, it can be fake and he doesn’t know Amazon — Yes he said he doesn’t know Amazon! – plus the according to him the Galaxy S3 “is a very trustworthy phone” and he never heard of similar issues with it… So hes doesn’t really believe it’s a Samsung issues and I will have to pay for the service to get my phone back.

After a good forth and back talk I decide it’s best maybe to speak with Samsung in Budapest, believing that by talking with the main headquarters in the country they would be more aware of what to do and how to proceed when you have a phone you bought online and no stamped warranty papers… Plus they surely would know that the phone no matter what is within the warranty period, since they launched it not even 12 months ago. Once again the Samsung rep talking on the other side of the line insists that I need to have a stamped warranty paper, to which I answer once again I bought the phone online, from Amazon and they don’t stamp warranty papers. So they tell me from Samsung I should have bought my phone in an offline store so I could have a stamped warranty paper and there’s nothing else they can do!

Well, in case you don’t know Samsung, this is discrimination between offline and online customers! Why in the world a customer that buys your faulty product online gets a different customer support? Aren’t we giving our money to you?

So summing up:

1. Samsung is completely disconnected in what concerns to assisting customers who buy their products online (forget it even if it’s a trutworthy shop like Amazon);
2. Samsung representatives don’t know Amazon or don’t acknowledge it as a legitimate shopping store;
3. Forget we are entering in an Internet world, Samsung will want you to have your warranty paper stamped… Maybe they also write their TOS in prehistoric cave walls;
4. Always count on Samsung running from their responsibilities as much as they can;
5. This will be the last Samsung phone I buy. Maybe next I’ll give LG, Motorola or HTC a try;

I guess I got Samsung’d!