527 South Korean smartphone buyers are demanding phone maker giant Samsung Electronics Co. pay each plaintiff $440 for inconvenience experienced after the cancellation of its Galaxy Note 7 flagship, giving the fact that the discontinuation might infringe on the costumers' rights, according to the attorney for the Seoul-based Harvest Law Peter Ko Young-yeel, who also explained they were going to file a lawsuit every month.
Plaintiffs´ Demands
The plaintiffs want the company to compensate them specifically for the psychological harm from using a dangerous product as the Galaxy Note 7, for the time they had to wait while transferring data, and for the cost to visit shops to exchange their phones. According to ABC News, his clients include a person who drove eight hours round-trip to return the phone, and another who lost thousands of family pictures.
"We are filing a lawsuit not to ask for hundreds of millions of won in punitive damages like in the United States. We are demanding fair compensation for the simple damage that consumers have suffered," Ko told reporters outside the Seoul Central District Court, adding that many customers had to return to the store to get their Galaxy Note 7 batteries checked before they had to download a program that only allowed 60 percent of battery capacity.
Samsung´s Compensation To Galaxy Note 7 Users
This class-action lawsuit comes less than a week after the first Galaxy Note 7-related suit against Samsung was filed in the U.S. According to Bloomberg, the company announced on Thursday that it would give discounts on the next new Note 8 or S8 phones expected next year, to those who exchange their phones with a Galaxy S7 or S7 Edge.
Although it is unknown which will be the overcome of this lawsuit, this situation represent another hit for the biggest phone maker in the world, after it Galaxy Note 7 ended up being one of the most incredible failures in smartphone history, to the point where it collateral damage not only affected the company, but also the South Korean economy.
