A routine late-night charge turned scary for a family in Qingdao, China, when their Samsung Galaxy S25+ suddenly popped, started smoking, and caught fire. What should have been a normal bedtime plug-in left the owners shaken and looking for answers, only for Samsung to later blame physical damage and refuse any compensation.
The phone, bought about two years earlier and mainly used by the owner’s wife, was plugged in on the night of July 31 before she went to sleep. A loud “pop” and the smell of smoke woke her up. She managed to put the fire out, and thankfully no one was hurt. The next morning the owner reported it to Samsung. Because the phone was in China, the company first said a local service center would handle it. After some back-and-forth and frustration over the weekend delay, the damaged phone was eventually brought to South Korea through an acquaintance and dropped off at Samsung’s Nowon Service Center on August 5.
On August 12 they called him in and delivered their conclusion: the phone had been dropped at some point, creating a hole in the battery. That damage, they said, caused the fire once it was put on charge. The company labelled it customer negligence and said there would be no compensation.
The owner isn’t buying it. He argues that the broken back glass looks more like it was blown out by the battery fire itself rather than a prior drop, and he’s asked for the detailed analysis report and the specific regulations that justify denying compensation. Samsung refused to hand over either, saying the report is the company’s asset and warning him against spreading “false or exaggerated information.”
While incidents like this are supposed to be rare, several other reports involving Galaxy S25-series phones have surfaced over the past year. These include a Galaxy S25+ in October 2025, another Galaxy S25+ in January 2026, and a Galaxy S25 FE in May 2026.
Separately, an incident reported this month in India involved a 26-year-old who suffered serious burns to his hands and lower body after a Samsung phone caught fire in his pocket. The exact model wasn’t confirmed, though images suggest it may have been a Galaxy S26-series device based on the pill-shaped camera design.
It remains unclear whether all of these incidents resulted from user negligence or whether there are underlying quality issues with the models that still need to be addressed.
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(Source: Samsung Community)
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