from the corporate-espionage-in-the-digital-age dept.
Samsung have accused LG employees of vandalising their washing machines ahead of an electronics show in Berlin. LG has said that the damage to two machines was inadvertent as the door had "weak hinges".
Samsung Electronics has accused the head of rival LG Electronics' home appliances business of damaging Samsung washing machines at retail stores in Germany and asked Seoul prosecutors to investigate.
Samsung, in a statement on Sunday, said it asked the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to investigate LG employees who the company says were seen deliberately destroying several of its premium washing machines on display at two stores earlier this month ahead of the IFA electronics show in Berlin.
"It is very unfortunate that Samsung had to request that a high-ranking executive be investigated by the nation's legal authorities, but this was inevitable, as we concluded that we had to get to the bottom of this incident," Samsung said.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday September 17 2014, @02:17AM
I was recently looking to buy a new washer and was offered a samsung at a very low price (sears was trying to make up for a screw-up on my last purchase). when I read the reviews for samsung, they were nearly all negative. that, and the fact that samsung washer/driers are the ONLY ones sold (by sears, which is where I was buying from) that had no manuf warranty if they were refurbs or in the outlet store. all other brands did have a warranty on the refurbs. I could not believe how badly samsung fucked that whole thing up.
plus, samsung apparently has a 'fuck you' attitude toward the consumer (in this sector) and if you need to contact them for service or fight for a repair, well, GOOD LUCK with that.
samsung makes a few good things, but the company culture is horrible and customer service is definitely a fuck-you kind of thing. I would not advise anyone to buy samsung gear unless there was no other choice. the company's ethics are questionable, at best, at the deepest levels and all thruout the various subsidies.
LG (lucky goldstar) was once known as the junk brand, but I would pick LG over samsung if those were the only 2 choices. even for washers, LG gets better reviews and has better build quality.
tl;dr: whatever samsung claims, I would not trust their word. they are not an honest company by any means.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday September 17 2014, @10:05PM
LG, the company you recommended was caught red handed probing consumers networks and reporting all played and available media.
I'll stick with Samsung. They may be assholes, but at least they aren't ass raping my privacy for advertising dollars.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @02:28AM
that two Korean electronics giants would air their dirty laundry on the world stage, but Samsung has its panties in a bunch and now LG's reputation appears to be stained. They need to put aside the spin cycle and make sure this s*** gets cleaned up.
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @02:32AM
If Samsung's washers are like their TVs.... thanks, but no thanks. TVs are cheap, but apparently designed to die early. The usual capacitor next to heat source problem. And their firmware is also very low quality.
Apart from that... hard to say much about this article. Might be true, might not be true. It's for the police or court to find out.
(Score: 2) by Kilo110 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @03:43AM
Do you have a source for the tv issues?
(Score: 1) by Tanuki64 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @08:53AM
No good source at hand at the moment. Saw it on a Norwegian documentation. They interviewed a repair shop. According to them Samsung leads the list with such a huge distance to the next brand, that it cannot be explained with the fact, that Samsung is the most often sold TV. Googling 'Samsung' and 'Capacitor' gives quite a few interesting results. Unfortunately I have found none, which shows such a statistic between different manufacturers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by TheGratefulNet on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:47PM
I've had to repair several bad samsung monitors.
it really is true: they spend actual engineering time thinking about how to JUST make things last the warranty period and not much longer than that. very anti-consumer!
google 'broken samsung lcd monitor' and you will often find capacitor kits to replace the SHIT ones they used (chinese fakes, 100% of the time) with real pany or nichicon trustable ones.
its almost a joke in the industry. buy a samsung monitor and plan to buy caps for it in a year or three, tops.
at work, I see so many samsung monitors thrown into the e-waste bin, its not even funny... (and I often fish them out, fix them and use them on my desk).
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @04:02AM
I have the same experience, but with LGs computer monitors. I had two of them and both died soon after their warranty ended.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by hamsterdan on Wednesday September 17 2014, @06:57AM
The same can be said for about any modern electronics. Last year I found a big-ass 52" Rear-Projection CRT. only had to resolder the flyback and it's worked fine since (thank you lead-free solder).
My 27' Trinitron XBR (found on the curb) only needed a new Vertical amp (SONY didn't think it was a good idea to put a heatsink on it). Total cost to fix? about 3$ (including a heatsink).
Failed caps in about *every* power supply in LCD TVs and monitors seems to be the norm nowadays (replaced the no name crap with Panasonic caps, all fine now)
Cheap caps and lead-free solder are a plague in modern stuff (that and the fact they are not designed to be easily repairable compared to the old stuff).
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday September 17 2014, @12:37PM
LCD TV's in the trash are a gold mine. My tenants threw out two el-cheapo 32 inch LCD TV's. I took them home and you guessed it, burst caps in the power supply. I changed them out and the TV's worked fine. Sold them for $100 each on craigslist.
(Score: 1) by Wierd0n3 on Wednesday September 17 2014, @07:21AM
no experience on the Washer/Dryer stuff, but i seem to have good luck on Samsung TV's. I bought a 32 inch lcd probably around '05. still works great. I upgraded to a 52 inch plasma Samsung 2-3 years ago because my eyes were getting strained trying to read the tiny subtitles game makers like to put on the newer titles. Sometime around '11, my mom bought herself a LED 56 inch Samsung, other than the SMART-TV features being a pain, it performs quite nicely.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 17 2014, @03:14AM
You mean... the LG's head of the company's home appliances division damaged two Samsung washing machines before a show... like in a "hand on approach to competition"? Really?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 17 2014, @03:34AM
To me, that makes the accusation of deliberate sabotage more believable. Those types shouldn't be handling the hardware under normal conditions - technicians and freight guys I could totally see doing something by accident. But execs shouldn't be in a position to do anything accidentally. So, if something happened, it probably happened on purpose.
Based on watching hundreds of korean movies, I'm guessing those two got drunk, came back to the display booths and their competitive spirits got the best of them.
(Score: 2) by lhsi on Wednesday September 17 2014, @07:49AM
The thing that sounded most suspicious to me was that they admitted to damaging two, as in they damaged one and then looked at another one and damaged that one too.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday September 17 2014, @07:17AM
In Korea, only old people sabotage laundry appliances. (Sorry, this is my pathetic attempt at a meme that died deservedly almost as soon as it was born. If only I could have said: "In Soviet Russia, Samsung launders you!" No, that is not helping. I think I need a Doge, "much washing, Many dries, Door openings, what are you doing, CEO?" Hey that almost works, except for the picture of a Japanese breed of dog. Ok, total fail, I concede, and throw myself on the mercy of the Soylent court, guilty of failed memes. Please don't taze me, bros and bro-ettes!)
(Score: 1) by WillR on Wednesday September 17 2014, @01:37PM