HTC and Nokia get on Santa's nice list while Samsung is getting a lump of coal

Habib Tannazi wanted his HTC Amaze 4G back. This was his second unit, with both models turning into bricks. The first time, WIND Mobile replaced his phone with a new HTC Amaze 4G after three months. The second time, he was forced to put up a $60 deposit for a loaner. When he heard that the cost to repair his second Amaze 4G would be $450, Tannazi decided just to return the loaner, get back his deposit, take back his broken phone and move on.

When Tannazi got to WIND to return his loaner, he was told that it had already been returned and the deposit given back in cash. Apparently a young WIND Mobile employee had entered in the system that the loaner was returned and pocketed the $60 deposit. And incredibly, when Tannazi confronted the rep who stole the money, he was asked if he could come back next week so that the employee could give him his $60 out of his next pay check. And then he was told the most amazing news of all. He couldn't get his broken phone back because no one knew where it was. Not wanting to pay $300 for a phone that was lost, Tannazi called customer service and was told to see if a deal could be worked out so that the employee who was handling his phone at the store would pay off the balance. Right.

Thoroughly frustrated, Habib Tannazi sat down and wrote out a long post on Reddit, and that is when a holiday miracle took place, one that they will be talking about for hundreds of years for a few weeks. Someone at HTC's PR firm read the Reddit message and...get this folks...sent him an HTC One for free. This is how you do the right think in a faceless world of huge multinational corporations. Kudos to HTC for taking the initiative to make things right. And this is the sort of thing that doesn't happen by accident. A company has to be ingrained with this type of thought process from the top down. 

The next story also has a happy ending, although not for one well-known Korean OEM. Last week, Richard Wygand of Vancouver woke up only to notice the strong smell of an electrical fire. He sees that the source of this is his Samsung Galaxy S4, burned beyond repair. The charger that came in the box with the phone had overloaded the lithium-ion cell inside the device, which came perilously close to starting a fire. When Wygand contacted Rogers, the carrier told him that the best thing to do would be to contact Samsung directly. Samsung asked for video evidence of the incendiary incident, and the video ended up on YouTube where it received 1,000,000 views.

In a letter to Wygand, Samsung agreed to give him the replacement he was owed for his charred Galaxy S4, with the proviso that he remove the video and stop talking and publicizing the incident. He refused to sign the letter and even posted a second YouTube video which also hit 1,000,000 views. Samsung finally sent him a phone, which he turned down, and the whole experience put the Korean OEM on Santa's naughty list.

But once again, a holiday miracle took place. Nokia, taking advantage of the situation, sent Wygand a brand new Nokia Lumia handset, which he did accept. Kudos here to Nokia.

We can see you gently wiping that tear away. We know that Nokia has done this kind of thing before. Back in October, we told you how it sent a Nokia Lumia 1020 to filmmaker Casey Niestat after Apple stole his footage about people waiting in line outside of Apple Stores before the launch of the Apple iPhone 5s and Apple iPhone 5c. As for HTC, let's hope this kind of good will continues even when the holiday season comes to an end.


source: Reddit, @ghostlyrich via MobileSyrup