Spark, Vodafone offer $100 'stress' payments to Note 7 customers
Spark has the slightly tastier offer. UPDATE: Samsung offers another $100 on top.
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Hawke’s Bay
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 customers on Spark or Vodafone will receive a $100 'stress' payment.
Yesterday, after a botched recall and replacement programme, Samsung axed the Note 7 altogether.
Spark is issuing Note 7 customers with a $100 gift card that can be spent on anything, anywhere MasterCard is accepted. They do have to return their Note 7 to claim the reward but they get to keep its 128GB SD Card.
Customers who have already returned their Note 7 will get a $100 gift card in the post over the next week, says chief executive home, mobile and business Jason Paris.
Vodafone customers are in for a $100 account credit. To claim it, they have to return their Note 7.
Beyond the above offers, Spark, Vodafone and 2degrees, supported by Samsung, are all offering a full refund for the Note 7 or a replacement from Samsung's S7 series.
The $100 payments will earn some brownie points for Spark and Vodafone, who have been upfront about events out of their control.
But for Samsung, it's a much longer road back.
Consumer NZ chief executive Sue Chetwin says a key step toward restoring trust, and limiting the brand damage spread to other Samsung products, will be to explain in detail what went wrong with the original Note 7, why some of the replacements also burst into flames, and the steps being taken to prevent it happening again.
One possible problem is overcharging (read about it here), but Samsung has yet to detail the cause of the fires that afflicted about 100 of the original Note 7s, or what went wrong with the replacements that were issued.
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Spark, Vodafone offer $100 'stress' payments to Note 7 customers
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