Verizon is hot to holdout Galaxy Note 7 owners from using the recalled device.
Some Verizon customers apparently know a hot item when they see it and don’t want to part with it.
That appears to be the case with the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. The wireless carrier told Fortune that much to its dismay, \u00ab\u00a0thousands\u00a0\u00bb of its customers continue to use the device. This despite the widely publicized recalls due to battery fire concerns and software upgrade designed to kill the phone by preventing it from recharging.
\u00ab\u00a0In spite of our best efforts, there are still customers using the recalled phones who have not returned or exchanged their Note 7 to the point of purchase,\u00a0\u00bb a Verizon spokeswoman told Fortune. \u00ab\u00a0The recalled Note 7s pose a safety risk to our customers and those around them. \u00a0\u00bb
Samsung voluntarily recalled the Note 7 early last September as reports surfaced that the phone had caught fire and damaged people and property. Samsung issued replacement phones, but those started blowing up , too.
Since then, the company has bribed and begged buyers to turn in their Note 7s, going so far as to brick phones that hadn’t been turned in. As of last December, Samsung recovered 93 percent of the Note 7s sold in the US.
So now Verizon is fighting fire with fire, so to speak. The carrier will now reroute all non-911 outgoing calls to its customer service line, and it might bill the holdouts for the full retail cost of the phone, Fortune reported.
Verizon representatives did not immediate respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n