Samsung Electronics
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Shameful business practices by Samsung support.
I have been a longtime user of Samsung devices and home products for many years at this stage, always praised them for providing professional support and making quality products. After a recent purchase from their website (S25 Ultra) which I was a little on the fence about as their flagships have seen incremental improvements each generation and my S22 had been working just fine. I ordered the phone which arrived on Saturday and as many other users would do - decided to have a look and see what improvements there were, in the performance generally and camera from the previous generation. Short answer; not much. So as of today I contacted Samsung support to arrange the return of the item, as I have done before with competitors Apple and Google with no issue. However, with Samsung they sneakily add in that if the item is even so much as removed from the box that they will charge 20% of the device's value to even return it. That's on top of £5.99 return postage. Are Samsung that destitute that they need to nickle and dime the customer to recoup costs for distance selling? Under consumer rights law it should be expected that the recipient of a product be able to reasonably use an item with no damage incurred for a full refund. Apparently not in Samsung's case and I wonder if when this policy was enacted if they'd bothered to review how consumer law works in the UK. Currently I am looking at either 20% of the overall product value, or 20% of the amount I have paid to date (£110), the live chat agent 'Steven' who speaks in broken English and using terms like 'Trust me' when I request for an escalation for the 4th time to a manager has not yet been able to clarify. This is exactly what you get from outsourcing support roles to non-English speaking regions with ZERO experience in customer support. The live chat is still ongoing, started at 1:12PM, and it is currently 2:44PM - still no closer to an answer or to speak with another agent/manager. Bottom line - avoid Samsung UK directly like the plague, use a 3rd party business to buy your products if you continue to be a user so you do not have to deal with their bogus policies. As for me, I'm now rethinking my whole approach when considering Samsung as a consumer in the future. I doubt very much a representative will respond to this review and will be as unhelpful as the agents that they outsource their services to for customers.