Samsung's no-care attitude

I bought my phone at Truworths Hazyview in February 2024 after my previous phone was ******. Because I am self employed and rely heavily on my phone for my daily income and did not at the time consist of the budget to buy a new phone cash, I had no choice but to go and buy a phone on my Truworths account.

Because I had been a loyal supporter of theirs for many years and despite having had some issues before with a television of theirs, my obvious choice was still Samsung due to the good service I have previously experienced with their products and backup services. Little did I know what was waiting for me...

Within two weeks, I discovered several problems with my 'brand new' phone: 1. It had (and still has) a tendency to just 'freeze', when you can do absolutely NOTHING with the phone for several minutes! Not even holding the power button for a long time does anything! You simply have to wait for it to 'wake up' again. I took it back to Truworths and first was told that I should've brought it back within 7 days for a replacement. However, she performed some tests on the phone using special codes and reported that there was nothing wrong with it and that I should return when it defaults again. I was not quite satisfied, but accepted the resolve and left. Needless to say it happened again and as mentioned before I'm self employed and can't just run to Truworths every time my phone would misbehave, so I resorted to some online advice and reset the phone to its factory settings. This cost me unnecessary money because I had to buy extra data to download all the apps again and set the phone up all over again. Sadly, the problem simply reappeared erratically but consistently.

2. Having put up with the freezing for some time, I started encountering a new problem: the touch screen started behaving erratic and touches would all of a sudden manifest all over the screen where my finger has not even been, causing all kinds of reactions from apps I was using. It also 'skipped' sections when performing drag operations on the screen - once again causing strange and unwanted behaviour within my apps. Before long, the touch screen simply stopped responding to touches while displaying perfectly fine. So the phone was useless like that and I was forced to go back to Truworths again.

Now while the staff member at Truworths was very kind and tried to help, I was also told that the phone would have to be sent away for a period of minimum 14 days that may be prolonged for up to 28 days and they had no way of providing me with a courtesy or loan phone during that time. I could not accept that and after having spent considerable unproductive time at the store with the assistant making all kinds of calls to Samsung, MTN and Truworths H/O that all led to dead ends even when I offered to pay for a rental phone, I decided to take the phone to a 3rd party repair shop where they replaced the LCD screen immediately while I waited, which - I later discovered - voided my warranty despite the fact that I was told by the repair guy that they use original parts and are registered Samsung repair agents. This was obviously a lie, but I fell for it.

3. Right from the first full charge, the battery did not last a full day and very quickly depletes. This is one problem that seems to have been improved, but still not corrected.

4. Shortly after the replacement of the LCD SCREEN, charging stopped working (nothing happened when plugging in the charger) and I had to return to Truworths once again, where I was informed that those 3rd party repair guys were not Samsung or MTN approved and that I would have to pay for the repairs, and - once again - the 14 to 28 days delay app****.

Again, I could not afford the absence of my phone for 14-28 days and had to go to other 3rd party repair guys where they once again repaired the phone at a fraction of the cost and within an hour.

To try and shorten this review; the screen started doing the same thing as before and has since been replaced 3 more times during the year that I've had the phone.

In the interim, I have sent a legion of emails, messages on social media and phone calls to MTN, Samsung and Truworths all in vain. Most of my correspondence was ignored and not responded to (especially by Samsung) and when I finally started getting response from them, they were rude, sarcastic and suggested that I had been abusing the phone, which is absolute nonsense. Within the year that I've had the phone, last weekend (Sunday, 20 April 2025) the phone was dropped by me for the first time and now my FOURTH screen is cracked!! Then they (Samsung) sent me a careless document basically showing me that they don't care what I've been through and that I'll just have to pay.

To me, as a consumer who has had washing machines, fridge, microwaves, hifi, many phones all from Samsung and having given me great service, I believe this phone was a dud right from the beginning and should've been replaced despite the ridiculous 7-day policy then all of this could have been avoided!

Some details have been removed to try and shorten this review, but I'm very unhappy with Samsung and even Truworths for their conduct and unwillingness to assist and have therefore resorted to publishing this info as far and wide as I possibly can so the world can know not to buy Samsung phones anymore.