Samsung Electronics East Africa will refund anyone who may have bought a Galaxy Note 7 abroad, the company has confirmed. While Samsung hadn’t introduced the device to the local market by the time its sales were suspended, some people may have ordered the device abroad and had it delivered locally or bought it while travelling outside the country.
According to the Business Daily, Samsung had received about 100 pre-orders for the device through local suppliers. Those who pre-ordered the device locally and paid for it have already been refunded according to Samsung Electronics East Africa Vice President Jung Hyun Park.
The company is doing a similar thing in Thailand for customers who had pre-ordered the device while also throwing in a generous voucher worth an equivalent of $282 to go towards the purchase of either a Galaxy S7 or last year’s Galaxy Note 5 in addition to a free pair of Samsung Level Active headsets.
Globally, Samsung is even taking care of those who bought second-hand Galaxy Note 7s by giving them an option to swap in their Note 7 for either a Galaxy S7 or Galaxy S7 Edge regardless of where they bought their second-hand device. Other Galaxy Note 7 buyers have an option to either get a full refund or pick another device of equal value of their choice. Samsung is reportedly throwing incentives like $100 credit bills to those who opt to replace their Note 7 with another Samsung Galaxy smartphone in the US and lower amounts in other places like Korea.
The Galaxy Note 7’s image was tainted by early reports of the device exploding which prompted a global recall from Samsung affecting over 2.5 million units. After initial assessment, the company started issuing replacement devices soon after hoping that its worst days were behind it.
The company stopped global sales of the device early this week urging users to power down the device and return it. It then permanently stopped its production and announced a second recall that has seen it slash its Q3 profit forecast by a third (over $2.3 billion) after the replacement devices also started exploding.
Samsung hadn’t started selling the device anywhere on the African continent before trouble started brewing. The device was set to be launched in South Africa on November 11th.
