After admitting to deceiving customers over the water resistance claims of roughly 3.1 million Samsung smartphones sold in the area, the Federal Court of Australia ordered Samsung Electronics Australia Pty Ltd (Samsung Australia) to pay AUD 14 million (roughly USD 9.6 million) in penalties.
According to a statement from Australia’s Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the company ran many marketing campaigns between 2016 and 2018 in which their smartphones were portrayed as being acceptable for usage in seawater and swimming pools.
Samsung Galaxy phones with water resistance claims included the S7, S7 Edge, A5, A7, S8, S8 Plus, and Note 8. All of these versions were given an IP68 designation, indicating that they could allegedly be fully submerged in water for up to 30 minutes at a depth of 1.5 meters. However, there was a restriction that it only applied to freshwater, not saltwater or chlorinated pools.
The ACCC deemed these advertisements that implied water resistance to be deceptive.
Gina Cass-Gottlieb, head of the ACCC, stated: “We investigated hundreds of complaints from consumers who said they suffered problems with their Galaxy phones after it was exposed to water and, in many cases, they reported their Galaxy phone completely stopped operating.”
The vulnerable point in the phones’ charging ports has been confirmed by Samsung Australia. If the Galaxy phone is charged while still wet after being submerged in sea or pool water, corrosion may develop on the port.
In its statement, the ACCC also revealed receipts for the allegedly deceptive Samsung marketing materials.
Although this may be a subtle swipe at Samsung, it also serves as a gentle reminder to customers to be more skeptical about the substance of advertisements and other forms of media.