Samsung causing irreparable harm. End of an era? Perhaps.

[Blairware]

In spite of my best intentions, and really attempting to remain loyal to Samsung during a decidedly rough time for the company, I am being completely abandoned by Samsung. Do they care? Not at all. Do they think the loss of one (more) customer is significant? It would appear not. That attitude is not really great, but it's understandable. If we, the consumers are in a bad way over this, and we certainly are, depending on your particular circumstances, then it's not hard to imagine how messed up thing must be for those Samsung employees that are dedicated and we rightfully proud of the N7.

It's a nightmare for all. That being said, we the living still have to work and play and go on with our lives. I sat on a fence for a week, just paralyzed - I was in denial, I realize; "this can't be... it just can. not. be...

But acceptance is one of the steps I think, and with that in mind I came up with a plan. Trading the Note 7 for an S7 or S7 Edge was not an option. I already HAVE an S7 (work phone) and an S7 Edge (personal phone that I kept when upgrading to Note 7. Besides, neither is a Note. I sold my Note 4 when I got the N7. The S7 Edge is a beautiful phone. It's just not a NOTE. Different usage case.

So I decided, with my options disappearing, that a Note 5 was the best (least worst?) option available to me, as sad as that appears. The Note 5 has the newer build methods and materials, though it's not as balanced, nor as slick as the Note 7 was/is (or as slippery) and I sure don't have to list why it's a weak substitute in this space, but it IS the closest thing to a N7 in a Note Series phone. So I decide to bite the bullet and live with half the internal memory, no water resistance, a smaller battery (but not prone to meltdown at least) etc.

Guess what? No Note 5 to be had. There's obviously SOME around since a guy posted that Verizon got him one for about $375 or so - but AT&T? Nope. Nada. They must have divested themselves of them knowing that NOBODY would want one with the N& selling alongside it. Whoopsie. Bad call. Note 5 would be more popular today than when it was new on the market.

So I tried Samsung. Thinking I would give them a really hard time and hopefully get them to GIVE me one until a new model - ANY new model phone comes out. I have gotten stuff in the past when a company is trying really hard to keep customers.

Guess what? No Note 5 to be had here either. SAMSUNG got rid of them all, at least all the ones in the sales channel. So both AT&T and Samsung can't get me ANY model note phone, including prepaid devices or refurbs (why the rep thought she could find a Prepaid Note 5 is a joke in itself.

To add (another) insult to (yet more) injury, the AT&T rep tells me "You can use the S-Pen on the S7" I kindly explain to her why that is not so, no Wacom digitizer, thus no S-Pen, but she INSISTS! Sher READ IT SOMEWHERE (therefore it MUST be true, right?) So, since I HAVE an S& and 2 S-Pens (one kept back from the 1st N7 recall) I tell okay, let's TRY IT! HEY! Guess what? (I say that a lot here, don't I?) It DOESN'Y WORK! WHAT A SURPRISE! I am SO disappointed. But she tells me (wait for it) You must be doing something wrong. My documentation says a stylus works with the Note 7. FACE PALM (when what I feel like doing is reaching through the phone line and (expletive deleted)

So yeah. Truly without a viable option. And the sad part is, I didn't even WANT the damn Note 5 very much, but was willing to make the best of it, AND stay loyal to Samsung, and buy yet ANOTHER Samsung Phone next year. They keep this up they will be competing with HTC and Motorola on phone sales again. You can't stay at the top of the tier when you a) have no product to sell at that level, and b) Give your (potentially loyal) customers no way to remain so, despite their willingness to work with you.

Based on these realizations I have to believe Samsung will reap exactly what they are sowing today which is big losses of sales, loss of market share, and loss of loyal customer base. It doesn't get much worse than that. But fret not. Even these extremes wouldn't send me over the dark side of the apple.

 

[whoofit]

Note 5's for ATT are everywhere. Have you looked at Amazon lately? BH Photo?

My search was really fruitless. No Verizon Note 5's anywhere except at Verizon, where I would have to pay as much as the Note 7 costs while simultaneously losing my Upgrade status and be stuck with it for 24 months to boot.

So I feel for you but only half as much as I feel for me.

 

[Blairware]

Yes but I need AT&T to GIVE the NOTE 5 to me. I dont want to buy one, lol! I would, under the right circumstances give up the NOTE 7 (sob!) but there's no way I am using up an upgrade or the GO TO on an N5. It has to just be a placeholder, not a replacement for N7.

 

[br0adband]

Just to ask:

Have you tried calling Samsung's Note 7 department based in Colorado? The number is 855-291-6255 - no matter who you first speak with ask for the Note 7 department in Colorado. If you get any grief over it tell them you had called earlier (a little white lie) and you had been on hold with that department for an hour or so and got disconnected and nobody has called you back.

I know of 13 people personally that have used that method to get a full retail refund of the purchase price on their Note 7 devices: 5 of them with AT&T, 4 of them with Verizon, 3 with T-Mobile, and 1 with Sprint. How do I know? Because I gave them that number and those instructions last week after I saw the number posted over at Reddit with the same info and instructions.

Now, as of this minute Samsung might be doing things a bit differently, I don't know, but 5 (2 from AT&T, 1 from Sprint, 1 from T-Mobile, and 1 from Verizon) of those 13 people I provided the number and info too already got their refunds this week (they told me when their checks arrived). They also returned their devices to their carriers and were told to either keep them or wait for Samsung to send the return packaging.

It sure can't hurt to give 'em a call and see what happens. If you're successful and you get the refund congrats, now you'll have money to go buy whatever phone you want (given that if you were under contract with the Note 7 purchase you'd be paying that off if required, some carriers are just writing off those losses at this point).

 

[svache]

I read the other day that the Note is only good for about one or two percent of their phone sales, so while it bites, it's probably not biting them as much as it should be, resulting in a general feel among people that they don't care. Or that's my guess at this point.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N930A using Tapatalk

 

[Blairware]

Just to ask:

Have you tried calling Samsung's Note 7 department based in Colorado? The number is 855-291-6255 - no matter who you first speak with ask for the Note 7 department in Colorado. If you get any grief over it tell ...

It sure can't hurt to give 'em a call and see what happens. If you're successful and you get the refund congrats, now you'll have money to go buy whatever phone you want (given that if you were under contract with the Note 7 purchase you'd be paying that off if required, some carriers are just writing off those losses at this point).

Thanks for your thoughts, I appreciate it, but I think you may have missed the entire point of my long winded tale... I don't WANT a REFUND. AT&T will give me a refund, take back the device, shut down the extra line I assigned it and all that. None of which helps me in any way. What I need is a NOTE PHONE. Having sold my perfect condition NOTE 3 and Note 4 after grabbing the Note 7, I have nothing to fall back on and no way to GET a NOTE PHONE. Having a refund leaves me without the phone I need and no reasonable replacement. Thanks anyway, though.

 

[asaqwert]

So you're trying to get a Note 5 for free? You think they're just going to do that? After all of this mess?

You said AT&T couldn't find one to sell you... so what is is, you are trying to get one for free, or you can't find one to buy? Apparently you CAN buy one. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-N920C-Factory-Unlocked-Galaxy/dp/B013WACF4S?th=1

 

[BarryH_GEG]

This has sucked for everyone affected. Personally I've been through two Note7's and ended up with a S7 Edge. If I wanted a S7 Edge I would have pre-ordered it when it came out. I stuck with Samsung because I use their features across all my other Samsung devices. Those devices include a NotePRO 12.2 (my laptop), Note 10.1 2014 (retired - now primarily my TiVo remote), Galaxy View (my portable home and away TV), and Gear S2. I use SideSync, S Note (including the Windows app), Scrapbook, Samsung Link, Samsung Pay, and Samsung's browser (ad free w/o root) and wasn't prepared to give those up. My non-Samsung device choices on AT&T amount to the LG V20 (too big for its screen size, not enough sizzle) or iPhone 7 (I'm not changing eco-systems). So I'm keeping the S7 Edge until the S8 comes out which will most likely be a Note7 with beefier specs and no S Pen. I'll hope for a Note8 in the fall and then I'll move from the S8 to it.

Like OP I had Note5 I was fine with. If the Note7 never came out I would have kept it and waited for what followed the S7-series. I do like the S7 Edge though and like the edge features I grew accustomed to on my time with the Note7. Since I do use S Note heavily I picked up a Tab A 8 with 4G and S Pen that I imported from Malaysia. It's a nifty small little tablet that's great for taking notes and it's on 6.0 so has the Note7's S Pen features. When I only want to carry one device I forward my calls from my S7 Edge to it and I can send and receive MMS on it using AT&T's unified messaging.

So I've exchanged phones three times, have a phone I wouldn't have chosen, and had to buy a tablet I wouldn't have needed. Sh!t happens. Samsung didn't want what happened to happen and neither did AT&T. I'm loyal to Samsung and Note devices especially so I'm just rolling with it. Of the over a dozen Samsung devices I own or owned this is the first time I've been let down. Assuming this incident has taught them humility their future products will be the best designed, best tested, and best QC'd on the market.

It is what it is.

 

[poor_red_neck]

Wow this thread truly makes my head hurt....

Let me make sure I get this right.

You are fully aware you can get a refund... for the FULL RETAIL AMOUNT of the phone, but don't want to do that, because you want AT&T or Samsung, to give you a Note 5... as a matter of principle???

There are PLENTY of Note 5 devices available for sale, at a MUCH lower price than the Note 7.

So you are UNWILLING to get a refund, and use that money to BUY a Note 5, and use the rest of the money for whatever you want.

This makes Z. E. R. O. sense. Please tell me I am missing something here, but getting around your generic rant and getting to the details was a bit difficult. End of an era? Like others have stated, the Note is a small percentage of their total sales. Until S7s and S7 edges start catching on fire, the era will continue just fine.

 

[The Phone Company]

I read the other day that the Note is only good for about one or two percent of their phone sales, so while it bites, it's probably not biting them as much as it should be, resulting in a general feel among people that they don't care. Or that's my guess at this point.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N930A using Tapatalk

I read the other day that the Earth is in fact flat and not round after all <- True story!

 

[svache]

I read the other day that the Earth is in fact flat and not round after all <- True story!

Thank you for that insightful contributing post.

 

[tonymy01]

Wow this thread truly makes my head hurt....

Let me make sure I get this right.

You are fully aware you can get a refund... for the FULL RETAIL AMOUNT of the phone, but don't want to do that, because you want AT&T or Samsung, to give you a Note 5... as a matter of principle???
.

I can understand their point because I have gone through the same dilemma.
I had a Note 4 I was relatively happy with, but starting to get long in the tooth. I tend to get a phone every 2 versions if the new version is reasonable (so went from N2 to N4 for example). I never considered the N5 as I have a pretty full SD card and no way am I giving up running that.
So the N7 specs came out, and it was everything I wanted. Fork out the huge $1350au and pre ordered it. The rest of that chapter is well known (2 perfect Note 7s in 4 weeks).
Now, with what is assumed to be total abandonment of the Note 7 series, what are my options?
1-full refund-ok, but then I need to get a phone (N4 is now being used by my wife)
2-S7/S7E with gift card style refund ($450/$350au).

I forked out the $ to upgrade to a phone I really wanted. Now I have to still lose some of those $ to get a phone I never really wanted, nor would have considered.

The only resolution I can see is to have Samsung provide a loan device and re-release a Note/SPEN model again with SD card ASAP, or allow the cheap purchase of an inferior model and a discounted purchase of the new model when it becomes available. I will certainly be somewhat out of pocket over all this, plus not being able to use the phone I really was wanting to buy.

I have decided instead to get the closest phone to the N7, the S7E, with the Samsung offer in au it is basically getting it for $100 less, and hopefully it will have good resell value when the next N series comes out (but I haven't sold a phone in a long time now, always handy to keep older phone just in case!)

I never certainly planned to buy two new phones so soon!

I think buying the N5 at this stage is a massive compromise for most (esp with so little on board storage and no SD slot), I would think anyone taking this route now is doing it temporarily to keep them going to the next N release and thus 2 phones purchased when really they were after just 1, thus why we get all these threads. The N7 is almost perfect, anything else is a compromise until the N7 comes back into sale again (as N6+ lol).

Sent from my SM-N930F using Tapatalk

 

[torickray]

I will still buy another samsung phone most like the next s8. Yes, i need to return the phone twice. But i got a few valuable free gifts. And got a full refund at the end. Not even iphone will do that. If you do the math, Samsung basically just gave me a travellers charger, a wireless charge, a power bank for free. So, why not getting the s8 next year, you won't have anything to lose

 

[Wacky2bakky]

Just to ask:

Have you tried calling Samsung's Note 7 department based in Colorado? The number is 855-291-6255 - no matter who you first speak with ask for the Note 7 department in Colorado. If you get any grief over it tell them you had called earlier (a little white lie) and you had been on hold with that department for an hour or so and got disconnected and nobody has called you back.

I know of 13 people personally that have used that method to get a full retail refund of the purchase price on their Note 7 devices: 5 of them with AT&T, 4 of them with Verizon, 3 with T-Mobile, and 1 with Sprint. How do I know? Because I gave them that number and those instructions last week after I saw the number posted over at Reddit with the same info and instructions.

Now, as of this minute Samsung might be doing things a bit differently, I don't know, but 5 (2 from AT&T, 1 from Sprint, 1 from T-Mobile, and 1 from Verizon) of those 13 people I provided the number and info too already got their refunds this week (they told me when their checks arrived). They also returned their devices to their carriers and were told to either keep them or wait for Samsung to send the return packaging.

It sure can't hurt to give 'em a call and see what happens. If you're successful and you get the refund congrats, now you'll have money to go buy whatever phone you want (given that if you were under contract with the Note 7 purchase you'd be paying that off if required, some carriers are just writing off those losses at this point).

I seen the reddit site where people were talking about this refund process. So you know people who have confirmed getting a full retail check back already? I wanted to take this route with my sprint note 7 but I didn't want them to de activate my phone once I call to get the box sent. Rather it be blacklisted once I take it off my account when I get the return box.

 

[br0adband]

As stated, the 13 people I provided that info to were "OK" with getting the refund from Samsung. Since I made that post one other person got their check already as well so it seems to be the course to take. Samsung might change things as I mentioned so the only way to know is call it and see what happens.

Can't speak for any blacklisting going on, all I keep hearing are rumors and the occasional report from someone that says their device has been blacklisted but there never seems to be any way to verify those stories. If the carriers actually publish statements that they plan to blacklist the Note 7 (which is within their rights to do since it's their networks) then I'll attach some more credence to it at that time but I don't expect it anytime soon if it ever does.

Samsung has said they'll accept returns through December 31, 2016 so, after that we'll see what happens with the carriers too I guess.