In September ZDNet claimed that some Note 7 fires were false reports

[Aquila]

No, I'm talking about the week or two after the final recall was announced.in mid October. All the daily reports of fires suddenly ended after speculation Samsung would make an announcement on Oct 9 and then they subsequently officially announced I think on the 13th. There is no way the majority of phones were returned during those 2 weeks and there were reports before November about how well more than half in the US were still not returned. I personally did not return mine until November since I was traveling. The stories of Note7 fires stopped or were diminished greatly well before the "As of November 5th" date.

Ok, I don't have the statements from Samsung you're referencing, but on November 5th they announced that more than 85% of the Note 7's had been turned in and the two numbers given for phones in the US were less than 40,000 and less than 50,000 still in the wild. Given that was 4 weeks ago, the number is probably much smaller by now.

October 9th is on or about the day that the carriers stopped selling them and was when the recall was initiated. At that time there were around 300,000 Note 7's in the wild so it's obviously not only possible, but incredibly likely that between 10/9 and 11/5 it'd be very easy to have 250,000 of them turned in during that 4 week period.

This is given that in the period between the first recall (9/2) and just 8 days after they resumed sales (9/21) in the US on 9/29, over 95% of Note 7 devices in the US from the original recall were returned, which was over 425,000 devices in 4 weeks.

 

[KupKrazy]

Ok, I don't have the statements from Samsung you're referencing, but on November 5th they announced that more than 85% of the Note 7's had been turned in and the two numbers given for phones in the US were less than 40,000 and less than 50,000 still in the wild. Given that was 4 weeks ago, the number is probably much smaller by now.

October 9th is on or about the day that the carriers stopped selling them and was when the recall was initiated. At that time there were around 300,000 Note 7's in the wild so it's obviously not only possible, but incredibly likely that between 10/9 and 11/5 it'd be very easy to have 250,000 of them turned in during that 4 week period.

This is given that in the period between the first recall (9/2) and just 8 days after they resumed sales (9/21) in the US on 9/29, over 95% of Note 7 devices in the US from the original recall were returned, which was over 425,000 devices in 4 weeks.

I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to point out. The statement from Samsung referring to their recall is still on their site - that came a few days after Oct. 9. You were here on the forums during that span, right? There were constant reports of fires the week or two leading up to Oct 9 and then after then, they all practically stopped. The Verge had no more articles all of a sudden. Exactly how much of an impact in the amount of Note7s in the wild could have possibly shifted over a weekend even before Samsung officially made their final recall statement?

I find it hard to believe that there were only 300k Note7s in the wild on Oct. 9, but regardless, it's not the point. I am not sure if you recall (no pun intended) how difficult it was during the first weeks of the official final recall to actually get information from the carriers to take the device back. The point is that right after Oct 9, when it's highly likely the number of Note7s that were in the wild right before Oct 9 was similar, the reports all but stopped and perhaps there was one other one in China and a report about a GS7e. So right on Oct. 9 or a day after, everyone who had a Note7 either returned it or turned it off, which accounts for there being no more fires reports. That part, I do not buy.

Whether they had 300k or 3million out there before Oct 9, the bottom line is that the reports practically stopped immediately.

 

[nahoku]

Not every single Note 7 will catch fire... this is already known... by the fact that not every single Note 7 has caught fire. However, Samsung saw enough potential in this happening to pull the entire line... at great expense. I can hardly wait for some regular on this board to lose their Note 7 because it caught fire... then everyone can jump on him and say it's a false report! Not wishing bad on anyone, but how much will it take to convince people to turn in the phone? Do they need their very own Note 7 to catch fire? Judging from the comments on this board, I'm going to guess the answer to that question is... Yes! Good luck, you all!

 

[Aquila]

It's even more simple. Out of hundreds of cases, 26 are alleged to be false - and of those 26, 15 or more are demonstrably not verified as being false claims. This trash reporting makes it sound like 26 people lied and the fact is that the article itself is lying about more than half of the cases it lumped into the 26.

Since we don't have a global count of reports, let's just say the number is 200 reports. That's obviously low, because over 100 happened in the US and the US accounted for merely 40% of sales globally. So we should expect at least 250 reports to have been confirmed by Samsung, but we can use 200. If 11 out of 200 are alleged to be false, then 95% of reports are assumed to be true. But the article has 26 cases, 15 of which are falsely reported as being false reports (hope I said that right) - so it has a maximum accuracy rate of around 45%.

That means that 95% of cases can be assumed to be true + nearly half of the remaining 5% due to the fictitious nature of the tech blog report. That means we're in the 97-98% of cases being true, and if there are only 200 globally, that'd mean roughly 3 in every 100 reports *might* be false, however we don't actually know.

So to give the conspiracy theorists as much ammunition as possible to continue beating the dead horse - let's go ahead and give then 10 times as many false reports. Let's say 60 reports were false out of the 200 cases. That'd mean 140, which is a low figure, because we know over 100 were in the US alone. Can you name another device that has 140 units experience spontaneously inside of a 60 day period?

Here's the thing. No matter how this gets parsed out, the simple fact is that Samsung recognized that the rate of failure was WAY higher than any other device and that it posed a safety risk to their customers and so they voluntarily accepted a $20 Billion, with a frickin' B, write down. That's $20,000,000,000 in expense + lost revenue and doesn't include the damage to their brand.

The idea that this entire thing is an elaborate hoax is just preposterous and the leaps in logic in order to continue to espouse that claim are simply logically perverse. That isn't to say that the logic behind wanting to keep the device is wrong, the risk is very low relative to many other every day tasks. But to pretend there isn't and never was an issue is just nonsensical. And thankfully this article can be used to highlight the ridiculousness when put into context alongside the actual facts that have come out regarding this situation.