SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20210805-65801-2147361346. Severity: Injury, First Aid Received by Non-Medical Professional. Product: Samsung RF30HBEDBSR (Samsung Refrigerator Model RF30HBEDBSR). Incident: I have a Samsung Refrigerator, Model RF30HBEDBSR, purchased in late 2014. The refrigerator suffers from multiple design defects, some of which cause potential dangers to consumers. The ice maker is defectively designed. After multiple prior attempted repairs, I had the ice maker completely replaced, at a cost exceeding $800, in 2019. More recently, I discovered another design defect, as a result of which the refrigerator compartment temperature appearing on the display panel on the front of the refrigerator did not accurately reflect the actual temperature inside the refrigerator. The display showed a temperature of 34 degrees. The actual temperature, measured with a thermometer, was 57 degrees. We had food spoilage over a period of several days, resulting in illness to members of our household, and the spoilage and loss of hundreds of dollars worth of food. Today, we had a repair technician to our home and he determined that the fan was not working. He removed a panel on the interior of the unit, at which point he found a red electrical supply wire to the fan that was hanging loose, apparently broken. This was in an area of the fridge that is covered by a plastic panel and not accessible, meaning that the broken wire could not have resulted from one of us bumping it, etc. The broken wire hanging in the fan compartment apparently had sparked on one or more occasions, as there were brown burn marks on the back side of the panel. The broken wire and defective fan not only caused food borne illness, but also created risks of fire or, presumably, electrocution. I will be pursui