Leaked Contract Shows Samsung Forces Repair Shop To Snitch On Customers

Speaking of Samsung, samleecole shares a report about the contract the South Korean firm requires repair shops to sign: 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.

"Company shall immediately disassemble all products that are created or assembled out of, comprised of, or that contain any Service Parts not purchased from Samsung," a section of the agreement reads. "And shall immediately notify Samsung in writing of the details and circumstances of any unauthorized use or misappropriation of any Service Part for any purpose other than pursuant to this Agreement. Samsung may terminate this Agreement if these terms are violated."

Snitches get stitches

[Local ID10T]

Or in this case, they may get lawsuits.

-Performing un-authorized disassembly of customer property (which the customer can allege resulted in increased repair charges or damage to customer property) is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
-Violation of customer privacy by reporting to an unaffiliated third party is a lawsuit waiting to happen (unlikely to succeed unless class action or as an attorney general action).

Even if unsuccessful, lawsuits can be expensive to defend against.

Sounds like a bad idea.

Milton would burn down the building.

[Seven Spirals]

Back in my hometown when I was in high school in the early 1990s, there was this string of arson on businesses, mostly restaurants. This guy would climb up on the roof, drill a hole, then pour a @2 gallon gas can down the hole. He then left some kind of delayed igniter that allowed him to escape. I remember seeing security footage of the guy pulling this arson. Then months later they caught him. IIRC, he burned @20 buildings down over a 3 month period. The dude said he'd done it because he'd been in all the

Re:

[penguinoid]

Our society would totally collapse if there were more than a handful of guys like that.

Re:

[Opportunist]

I still catch myself thinking that we should try it.

Re:Milton would burn down the building.

[penguinoid]

Don't, it would make you an opportunist.

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[viperidaenz]

Don't worry, they'll put all this in the agreement you sign before handing over your phone.

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[DontSweatTheDetails]

In Europe this is almost certainly a GDPR violation to pass on personal details, and dissembling my phone to do anything other than fix the fault they're contracted to fix is all sorts of illegal too

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[flyingfsck]

Prolly illegal in terms of European right to repair laws.

Re: SNITCH ON?

[pacohope]

Seems a perfectly valid use of the word. Remember that from Samsungâ(TM)s perspective, using unauthorised parts IS wrong. Samsung is trying to prevent people from repairing a device that belongs to the PERSON with parts that the person chooses. In the same way that I am allowed to put any case on my Samsung phone, I am allowed to solder any part or attach anything I want to a device I own. It is NOT wrong for me to do this. But Samsung wants it to be wrong and wants repair shops to snitch on it as if i

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Remember that from SamsungÃ(TM)s perspective, using unauthorised parts IS wrong.

Remember from a consumer's point of view, that is a lot of bullshit. The headline fellates Samsung and disrespects the user.

The word snitch is completely accurate from SamsungÃ(TM)s point of view.

Yeah, what we need is more articles written from the point of view of corporations! There aren't enough of those!

Cuck.

Re: SNITCH ON?

[drinkypoo]

In my fantasies, people stop worshipping corporations.

This answers the question

[Unpopular Opinions]

iFixIt left lingering when they announced earlier today they would discontinue their partnership with Samsung [ifixit.com]. And now we know why.

Violation of Privacy opens Samsung to Class-Action

[kalieaire]

Litigation.

Samsung is asking to be slapped.

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[davecb]

Or, in Canada, criminal charges for malicious destruction of property

430(1) Every one commits mischief who wilfully (a) destroys or damages property; (b) renders property dangerous, useless, inoperative or ineffective; (c) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property; or (d) obstructs, interrupts or interferes with any person in the lawful use, enjoyment or operation of property.

https://www.criminal-code.ca/criminal-code-of-canada-section-430-1-mischief/index.

Not so much really

[rsilvergun]

The supreme Court has basically ruled that class action lawsuits aren't allowed. Congress passed a law effectively banning them and the supreme Court held it up. Even the more liberal justices sided with the law because they didn't want to strike down the law Congress passed that appeared to be constitutional.

This happened years ago but you do still see class action lawsuits because the law doesn't apply to anything that happened before the law was passed and there's plenty of that floating around and t

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[Chris Mattern]

Frankly, I don't believe this. You are going to have to point at the specific Federal law and Supreme Court ruling that established all this, because you haven't provided any particulars.

Many questions

[bill_mcgonigle]

This seems reasonable for warranty work. Are we seeing the right interpretation?

Has any shop actually done the destruction part? Great way to get your local reputation reked and go out of business.

Isn't the broad interpretation wildly illegal in the EU?

I guess that the overall intent is to discourage any repair so people to buy a new phone.

I haven't had one since their bootloaders were cryptolocked. Many better options.

Re:Many questions

[ewibble]

Even if it was about warranty work its not reasonable, would would be reasonable is to say its not covered by the warranty not disassemble the phone.
 

Unbelievable!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I just can't imagine where South Korea's most powerful chaebol would have acquired such unhealthy ideas about the prerogatives of a hegemonic supplier in an allegedly free market. Complete shock.

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[gtall]

Being a monopoly in Korea, it is clear that they must have gotten this monopolistic idea from elsewhere.

Over-reaction?

[Hank21]

Translation problem perhaps? I can see why, from a manufacturers perspective why Samsung might want the repair information, any third party parts etc. to help them identify design errors or improve their own replacement parts(especially if 3rd party parts are doing it better). Ok, so their told to disassemble the phones, I hope they reassemble them!

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[Z00L00K]

How about "No"?

Related to this - a car dealer/manufacturer shall not care about if I install aftermarket equipment that's not of their brand on my car - or replace the windscreen with a cheaper one because the original was damaged. This is the analogy.

If it's a warranty issue then it's another matter, but then any aftermarket equipment has to be proven that it has interfered.

uh yea

[Osgeld]

I love the notion that little innocent jenny happened to drop her phone and what not, but I have worked in the repair world before and there's only so many times the same damn thing comes in with the same damn problem with different parts installed.

I learned this in high school working a summer job at a ma-pa computer shop. Some lady bought a reasonably powerful machine to run like 3d landscape architect or something. Came back a few days later "video card is not working" all irate and shit. It should have been like a Ge-Force 256 and would come back with a SIS pci card, her son said we were screwing her over!

After the 3rd fucking time I soldered that damn thing to the case and used a tamer resistant screw, never saw her again ... her son was probably stealing the cards for his buddies or to pay for drugs... you better believe we had a record of her

Good to know

[gweihir]

Now I will never buy a phone from Samsung. Not that I am tempted. I currently use a Fairphone and that means I can repair myself whatever I like and I can get a build-image for the Android on it.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

You shouldn't have been tempted anyway. What Samsung does to Android is make it harder to use and less reliable. They are basically trying to make it into iOS. Vanilla Android is twice as good as either. I was afraid Lenovo would fuck up Moto but as it turns out they have been faithful, you get a phone with nothing unusual on it except for Moto Actions, which is great. Samsung is best thought of as a company which manufactures incendiaries.

Re:

[gweihir]

Good to know. Thanks.

And this is why.

[Pig Hogger]

And this is why, boys and girls, that you shall never let the bourgeois run loose. You need to keep them in check with stringently enforced regulations, because they have always been proven untrustworthy.

Got that, Louis?

[Residentcur]

I sense a Rossmann screed in the offing. Get on 'em, Louis!

In which territories?

[jay age]

Article from a quick skim talks about USA only.

I wonder if theyâ(TM)re attempting something like this in the EU, but it would be stupid, because GDPR would bite them badly.