The Sun reports today that appliance manufacturer Samsung is being forced to repair thousands of fridge freezers amid fears they may catch fire.
There is a fault in the defrosting systems of the American-style double-door models on top of a recall for a defrost problem that can lead to the fridge section of the fridge freezers not working correctly as reported by the BBC’s Watchdog.
The company sent out thousands of letters to fridge owners which read: “There is a possibility internal sparking may occur which may pose a potential fire risk.”
They tell customers to turn off fridges, and ring a helpline to book an engineer. The faulty models include the RS21 and RS60 ranges, made in 2005 and 2006. This recall was started late last year amid fears that the fridges could, potentially, go on fire or even explode.
All repairs are free but it could take months to track down every dangerous fridge.
Similar models are also being checked. Yesterday furious customers hit out. Anne Loney, 57, of Manchester, said: “You don’t expect problems with an £800 fridge.
“I’m terrified it could blow up any moment.” Another told a consumer website: “I received a letter and just two days later I opened the fridge to find it on fire.”
Samsung said “a minority of cases” need repairs with fires only in “very rare cases”.
From within the trade and on other websites reports of similar problems with the newer models of Samsung American style fridge freezers have also been seen. Whether this is a coincidence or a real danger is, at present, unclear however we would not advise buying any Samsung refrigerator until the issues with the design have been solved completely and that the machines are known to be safe.
We have reported on these dangerous fridge freezers from Samsung previously many times last year. It would appear that Samsung just can’t seem to get past this problem.
We have also had reports from the USA that Samsung USA are denying that there is any problem with the affected models and that, as yet, no recall has been announced in the USA as far as we aware despite the machines being almost the same in design.
If you have a Samsung American style fridge freezer please contact Samsung customer service immediately.
