A man from Ohio, US, claimed that his Apple iPhone XS Max went up in flames in his back pocket. He stated that the phone was just three weeks old and the fire burned his skin and caused damage to his clothes.
Josh Hillard, who lives in Ohio, claimed that he felt his iPhone turning hot in his pants, which he kept in his back pocket. A while later, he witnessed thick smoke coming out from the phone. At the time of the incident, he was on a lunch break in a break room with a colleague. And when he noticed the smoke, he ran outside, took his pants off and another company colleague used a fire extinguisher to put out the flame.
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The incident was reported by iDropNews, which took place on December 12 this year, around noon. When he felt a strong heat burning his skin, he saw green and yellow coloured smoke coming from his back pocket.
“Left no other option, I had to exit the room since there was a female in the break room with me and remove my pants. I ran to the boardroom where I got my shoes and pants off as fast as possible. A VP of our company put the fire out with a fire extinguisher because he heard me yelling. Once the phone was extinguished, I was left with a hole in my pants, fire extinguisher on my pants/shoes, and some pain/irritation in my buttocks region where the pocket of my pants was located,” claimed Hillard, as reported by iDropNews. “From the time of first noticing the fire and between removal of the pants and taking the phone out of my pocket and placing it outside, I inhaled A LOT of smoke. Later in the day, the team told me about the video that the office security camera captured,” he added.
Hillard, later that evening, went to the Apple Store with the burned phone, who in turn had to call in the safety team, who then took it into a back room, leaving Hillard waiting at the store for almost 40 minutes. Sadly, “after receiving this cold treatment with zero engagement from the team while waiting, I found a manager to locate the employee with my phone,” claimed Hillard.
“The employee resurfaced with the phone already packaged and told me that they were going to send it back to the engineering team. The manager then came up to me and said that this is the only way that I could receive a replacement phone,” he added.
He also asked for compensations with regards to his burned skin, damaged clothes and that he had inhaled toxic smoke which could cause him a health hazard. But he had to leave the store with just a new phone replacement.
He later went home, contacted Apple Care and started the entire process again, to which he received an email asking him to send in photos of the damaged phone, his burned clothes and any other injuries that may have been caused. Sadly, though he could send images of the phone and his clothes, he would be uncomfortable sending images of the private regions of his body, even though they were visible injuries.
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“I called back the next day and since the team member who I had spoken to only worked Sun-Wed, I asked to be directed to a supervisor. I was given to a supervisor still from the safety department but he said that he sat in the corporate office. He looked at the file and viewed the pictures and essentially offered a new phone,” said Hillard.
The iDropNews report stated Hillard reporting that a new iPhone isn’t an acceptable remedy for the situation, and is also seeking restitution for the clothes and shoes ruined in the incident, as well as costs to cover his wireless service which he was unable to use during his time negotiating with Apple. Hillard also notes that he’d like to brag about the great company that Apple is, however he seems to have lost faith in the company at this point in time. Hillard is currently contemplating legal action.
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