reports coming in today that people have thrown away their Note 7 at airport

[codeda]

when you hit "Like" to my post 21 and 23, are you agreeing that I'm a bad person?

Aww. I liked that you admitted to a genuine response.

 

[Morty2264]

I feel really bad for that father who had to throw his phone away. Seems like a sad thing to have happen, despite the obvious security issues that could have arisen from shopping it/bringing it along on the plane. But still.

 

[Kalious]

If you're not aware of the ban on planes, you must've been living under a rock the whole time.

I don't keep up with the news, ESPECIALLY on vacation. IMHO, the news only supplies 10 percent actual news, the rest is just bull ****. Hard to find a good unbiased 'news' source these days.

 

[jlczl]

I don't understand why people don't just ship them home with ground service in fireproof packaging (they're not even expensive). It's typically the cheapest option even from halfway around the world. Half the cheap stuff bought in eBay comes by ship and takes 2-4 weeks to arrive.

 

[ogio]

some people just dont think. the guy could have asked someone to ship it home for him.

 

[Jaycemiskel]

some people just dont think. the guy could have asked someone to ship it home for him.

Can't really ship them without the fire proof box and all that. He also didn't know before he got to the airport.

 

[grob9642]

Sounds possible but also much like every other urban legend ever propagated. It's only a phone. If you have a job and especially a family and you back up your devices regularly discarding the phone to make a flight is only a monetary problem. Not a very huge one at that. So if I had to chuck my phone to make an important flight I most certainly would.

 

[maclancer]

Glad I no longer fly. But no way would I throw away $879 for no reason.

The husband can claim that his note 7 was stolen and will receive a free one from the phone carrier if he is under contract. If he is not and paid in full... Then that sucks.

 

[chyeo1979]

Many people are not going to use Samsung ever again

 

[Brian Savoir]

I talked to tmobile and they are all good to give me a refund. I had to give up my phone in Japan or I wouldn't be able to board the flight back to LAX yesterday. I talked to customer support. I really hope what they say will be the same when I go to the store.

 

[chriskwarren]

I just gotta wonder how anyone would get caught flying with a Note 7. My wife flew on Saturday and tells me that, although they made an announcement about the ban, nobody was searched for contraband Note 7s. Basically the only way they could tell you have one is if you volunteer the information. If you keep it turned of fin your pocket or in your bag nobody will ever know. I'm not advocating that anybody do that, but I'm sure thousands will.

I dare say that authorities will be lenient with anyone caught with a Note 7 early on in the process; while the FAA might try to levy a fine, a person in court could plead the case that they did not know about the ban, and that they had circumstances that would have prevented them from knowing, etc.

While risky for sure, if you give up the N7 when asked without a fuss and act all polite and maintain innocence and an honest mistake I doubt that you would face a $180k fine. If its proven that you ignored the warnings (ie. the flight attendant warning you mentioned), and/or are a **** to authorities in the process, then I would say your odds of getting in trouble increase.

 

[cactuspete23]

Wow I'll bet the TSA did not think that people would have to throw out their phones..... I would be totally upset about having to do this.

 

[mvsmith]

(I know this is another of the dozens of threads, but I want to address a very specific issue about how this passenger had no choice but to THROW AWAY his Note 7 )

I was watching the local noon news on TV just now...

Being a vacation destination, the local airport has lots of tourist with children who are usually here for 2 weeks or more.

A couple with twin boys got stopped at the airport counter. The local TV reporter just looked on while the cameraman recorded their reaction with the check-in agent. The husband admitted that they knew about the Note 7 recall. However, they were not aware of the total ban on airplanes. Not surprising... since who checks the news every day when on a 3-week vacation?

The agent was sympathetic but firm: no check-in if the husband brings the Note 7. The wife was very upset. With just an hour and half before the flight boarded, the husband was more sensible. He told the agent to take his Note 7 and throw it in trash. The agent said she couldn't do that.... so the husband walked over to recycling bin and tossed it in the one marked for soda cans and bottles and threw it inside. Not sure how safe that would have been? The check-in agent processed them and checked their bags without any issues. In the backgound the twin boys could be heard saying "dad, why did you throw away your new phone?"(as if they wanted to know how they were going play games while on the plane)

It got me thinking.... with millions of Note 7 phones recalled, there must be hundreds of owners who have not been up to date about the new total ban.... they must be faced with the same dilemma at airports right now.... throw away the phone or face denied boarding(which in many cases can cause them more in rebooking fees or hotel expenses)

Is it just me or does that seem wrong? I assume there's nothing they can do, unless airports have post offices... or they have relatives/friends who took them to the airport?



Edit: am I a bad person for wanting to head out to the airport right now so I can ask those people to give me the Note 7 they have to throw away? It's a busy airport and I'm sure there are more in the coming days. Yay! Free Note 7! Or should I be a good person and offer to take the phones from them and shipping it to them later?(using an approved method, of course)

Does anyone have a link to the official article? I was looking for it and even googled it and found nothing. Or was it just something on local news? Surprised if there isn't an article on it.

 

[jgraves1107]

I wouldn't trust that the carrier is going to refund anything just because the FAA band them.

 

[Mooncatt]

The husband can claim that his note 7 was stolen and will receive a free one from the phone carrier if he is under contract. If he is not and paid in full... Then that sucks.

Unless he had insurance, this isn't the case. If he had insurance and tried that, he would be committing insurance fraud and risking serious legal consequences.

 

[natehoy]

I don't understand why people don't just ship them home with ground service in fireproof packaging (they're not even expensive). It's typically the cheapest option even from halfway around the world. Half the cheap stuff bought in eBay comes by ship and takes 2-4 weeks to arrive.

Agreed - had he known about it the day before, that would have been an eminently logical choice. I don't keep up with the news when I'm on vacation, either, though.

With an hour and a half to boarding and kids with you, you've basically got two choices:

1. Go back somewhere outside of check-in and try to find someone who has safe packaging and is willing to ship the phone back to you via ground service, then go back through the check-in line and hope you make the flight that probably cost you more than the phone. If there's no line at all at check-in or security, this might be a matter of a few minutes and would be worth it. If they had been sitting in line for an hour at check-in and had no idea how long the security line might be, that's a very different scenario.

2. Ditch the phone, be assured of making your flight, and ask your carrier if they can do something to help out when you get home. With the current circumstances surrounding the Note 7, the carrier would probably work something reasonable out and your losses would be a lot less than $900. It may even have been a corporate phone or one purchased through a corporate discount plan (like the one I have through my employer) that eases negotiations considerably when your company insists that you carry a smartphone.

Other than the improper disposal, I would likely have done the same thing. And I'm sitting here at a desk academically applying hindsight - the recycling bin might seem logical when you have a bunch of impatient people behind you and you are trying to weigh options 1 and 2.

 

[jerrykur]

The people saying the FAA should have fireproof bags don't understand how it works. The FAA bans the phone it becomes just like not taking too much liquid, or guns on the plane, putting it in a fireproof bag or a gun in a gun safe does not override that. Second, the captain of the plane can overrule someone trying to get on with their phone in a fireproof bag. They are responsible for the safety of the flight. And if they deem the phone a risk can have them removed, regardless of what the FAA says.

 

[natehoy]

The people saying the FAA should have fireproof bags don't understand how it works. The FAA bans the phone it becomes just like not taking too much liquid, or guns on the plane, putting it in a fireproof bag or a gun in a gun safe does not override that. Second, the captain of the plane can overrule someone trying to get on with their phone in a fireproof bag. They are responsible for the safety of the flight. And if they deem the phone a risk can have them removed, regardless of what the FAA says.

I think the point of the fireproof bag was more about allowing them to be shipped home. However, this is something the airlines and TSA are simply not equipped to do, never have been, and never will be. The only thing they could potentially have is a fireproof sealed container for people to throw away the phones into.

More importantly, of course, this was reported to happen at airline checkin, not TSA. TSA has not instituted a ban - the DOT has - so the airlines and not TSA are on the hook for this one. It's a weird situation, and largely unprecedented.

Airline checkin employees have never been asked to confiscate anything - they don't have the facilities for disposal of anything but bad boarding passes. Yet the airline employees are charged with making sure no Note 7 they happen to notice makes it past them. It's an impossible situation for the checkin people. And any customers who don't know about the problem and get caught short at checkin.

Hopefully the TSA also institutes a ban, which would take the inspection/refusal responsibility off a workflow that is designed to take people's luggage and give them boarding passes and not deny boarding based on what someone is carrying - and put it in the hands of the people who have the scanners, security personnel, and disposal facilities to handle item confiscation.

 

[LeoRex]

More importantly, of course, this was reported to happen at airline checkin, not TSA. TSA has not instituted a ban - the DOT has - so the airlines and not TSA are on the hook for this one. It's a weird situation, and largely unprecedented.

That's the heart of the matter here... No one... the DOT, Samsung, the carriers, the TSA or the airlines... they all are pretty much clueless on how to properly handle this. There doesn't appear to be any sort of protocol here for the situation, so it gets a little Three Stooges while things get ironed out.

 

[natehoy]

That's the heart of the matter here... No one... the DOT, Samsung, the carriers, the TSA or the airlines... they all are pretty much clueless on how to properly handle this. There doesn't appear to be any sort of protocol here for the situation, so it gets a little Three Stooges while things get ironed out.

It's a shame that the TSA can't simply say that the Note 7 may present more of a flying safety hazard than 3.000000001 ounces of shampoo, or 2.9 ounces of shampoo not "safely" contained within a clear plastic bag. (yes, I understand the rules and reasons for them, sarcasm intended).

Banning them at security, while inconvenient and probably inconsistently enforced (the rules are already complex), is probably the path of "least Three-Stoogification" of the process. At least TSA has the tools to find them, clear policies for confiscating/refusing banned items, and safe disposal containers to put them in. This just isn't part of checkin or boarding workflow at all, nor should it be.