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A design defect in Samsung refrigerators causes the coils to freeze over, leaving the refrigerator unable to remain cold enough to keep food from spoiling, according to a class action lawsuit filed in New Jersey. The lawsuit estimates thousands of U.S. consumers have purchased the defective refrigerators since 2005, and that consumers have suffered hundreds of dollar in damages from lost groceries and repairs caused by the alleged defect.
According to the Samsung refrigerator class action lawsuit, “The refrigerators are designed and manufactured with heated coils that are intended to prevent excess frost from developing in the back of the machine. Instead of preventing frost, however, the coils allow frost and ice to build up in the refrigerators until the ice clogs and/or disables the machine’s fans, making it impossible for the fans to work to keep the machine cool.”
The alleged defect not only renders the refrigerators unusable, but also poses a safety risk to consumers because it leads to food spoilage and the risk of food-borne illnesses. Further enhancing consumers’ risk of illness is the fact that many of the refrigerators falsely display on the exterior temperature reader that the inside of the fridge is at a standard cool temperature.
The class action lawsuit alleges the defect exists in all three varieties of refrigerators Samsung manufactures, including its French door, side-by-side and bottom freezer varieties, and the model numbers:
- RF266AASH
- RS263BBWP
- RB1955SH
- RS2533SW
- RS267LASH
- RS267TDRS
- RS2630WW
The lawsuit further charges that “Samsung sold and serviced the refrigerators even though it knew, or was reckless in not knowing, that the refrigerators were defectively designed, would fail prematurely, and would ultimately result in [class members’] inability to use their refrigerators for their intended purpose.”
This is the second class action lawsuit filed in two months over defective refrigerators causing food spoilage. A class action lawsuit filed in July alleges LG’s French door refrigerator models contain a defect that causes the interior light to stay on after the doors are closed, resulting in overheating, food spoilage, melted plastic and fire hazard.
The Samsung refrigerator class action lawsuit is seeking damages, restitution and other awards for class members. A copy of the lawsuit can be read here.
UPDATE: On September 3, 2015, the Samsung refrigerator class action lawsuit was dismissed.
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856 thoughts onSamsung Refrigerator Class Action Lawsuit
Same problem Called Lowes several times. The nice man at Cooks Appliance repair told me back then; It was a factory default! I kept calling Lowes finally the hateful lil gal who answered told me there was othing wrong & if I kept cslling. I’d be billed for the service call! Ridiculous The repairman from another Co even knew it was a factory default. And instead of replacing my fridge had him change compressor which it didn’t need. Also the entire back of fridge! Make NO mistake the Co knew. Ilike so many I’m stuck with defrosting & Food Spoilage! At the time I was dealing w/a complete disc replacement recovery. And thought this would last me for yrs. Just been a complete nightmare! I feel gor all of you folks. And certainly appreciate the info the gentleman left about the pres of co.
Thanks SO much
I have a Samsung French door frig, bgt 12/2019 for $ 2053.00 from Lowes.
Problem from the very beginning, an extremely noisy ice maker.
However my complaint at present is that I cannot push in the release tabs that will allow me to remove the glass cover over the veg. bins to clean it. I had overlooked liguid having been spilled on the cover and which leaked between cover and frame because I was caring for my partner who was dying of cancer and did die April of this year.
I finally decided to clean that cover and found that I did not have the strength to push in those 2 tabs and even watching several UTube demos could not do it. I am 89 and do not have the strength in my fingers that seem to be needed ,nor could I do it using 2 srewdrivers to press against the tabs.
I found that this is a big problem for many people
I than went to a samsung chat line for help and eventually it was suggested that I call for service from a Samsung service. Ridiculous to suggest with a straight face to pay someone most likely at least $ 150.00 at least twice a year to release those 2 tabs so I could remove the glass from the frame so it and the frame could be cleaned properly.
In my years of owning frigs I never had such a problem with the different brands that I had .
No one should buy any of Samsung frigs- which are poorly designed for ease in cleaning yet have gimmicks like the Smart frig like mine which is of little use for me.
Same here. I can’t count the number of times I had to defrost the main compartment. Then the freezer started to have ice pile up. By the end the too and bottom didn’t work. The freezer would produce a glacier then melt over and over. My food would go bad quickly especially vegetables. We had a repairman do some work in it but it never improved. It was a nightmare. Someone gave us their old frig. We need to save for another one.
Same thing happened with mine ! I had to get rid of it I lost food and couldn’t afford to keep it ?
I have the Samsung RF265TD, the coil on the fridge side starting to freeze and obstruct the fan like 5 years ago. What you have to do is put the fridge on demo mode overnight and that will take care of the problem for about a month or so. Demo mode still cools the fridge and the freezer but defrost the coils at the same time. I know it is not convenient but at least you can still use the fridge.
Just use google to figure out how to access the demo mode.
RS265TDRS Same issues as everyone else! 2 service calls while under warranty. Learned on YouTube how to do a Forced Defrost. When I hear the NOISE I do the FD. Now days not doing it so often. Don’t know why! Would like to join lawsuit.
We purchased one of these fridges in 2017 to replace the whirlpool we lost when our house flooded. We learned about the ice maker and freezing up issues while watching a CBC Marketplace story about this same issue on YouTube a few months ago. Yesterday, we started having problems with our ice maker where only a few cubes came out. Today there no ice was coming out at all, so I pulled the ice tray out and found the tray was empty and the entire upper section was covered in ice and the right side where the ice cubes fall from was jammed up with ice! I searched online to find out what to do to get it working again and spend over three hours fighting with it. I tried resetting it, pulled the plug and plugged it back in, chipped out all of the jammed up ice, reset it again, had to deal with the ice making continually turning itself off….. It is now starting to make ice again, but now I am afraid that this will be just the beginning of our Samsung refrigerator nightmare!
The fridge we have is on a different class action suit and is a newer one than those listed above. Ours is RF25HMED. We paid $2,400 for it 5 years ago…
How do we join the newer lawsuit? I’ve been searching online without success.
I had the same problem and ended up finding email addresses for upper management at Samsung (see email appended below for addresses and content). I was compensated $1,100.00 for the refrigerator.
The office you need to address your issues to is:
Office of the President
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
105 Challenger Road, Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660
(T) 888-480-5675
The representative assigned to my case was:
Willistine S| Office of the President
Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
105 Challenger Road, Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660
(T) 888-480-5675 opt. 1 allow prompt to request ext. 30351
willistine.s@partner.sea.samsung.com
Hope this is helpful to all.
From: rick
To: chrisk@sea.samsung.com; j.herrington@sea.samsung.com; j.stinziano@sea.samsung.com; yh.eom@samsung.com; servicehead.in@samsung.com; SamsungAppliances@edelman.com; Officeofthepresident@sea.samsung.com
Cc: Officeofthepresident@sea.samsung.com; KiNamKim@samsung.com; hyunsukkim@samsung.com
Subject: SAMSUNG 3 Door Refrigerator RF28HFEDTSR/AA systemic issues
I have had a SAMSUNG 3 Door Refrigerator RF28HFEDTSR/AA for a little over 5 years now. My issue is around the second year of ownership the cooling fan and refrigerator coils would freeze up; this was about the time the icemaker started to freeze up as well. I have researched these issues and applied every solution I have found with no positive result. I have raised the front, made sure the drain was clear, put the fridge in manual defrost mode etc. you name it I’ve tried it. As is I have to disassemble the fridge every time this happens requires me to remove all items, remove all shelves and drawers removing all of the fasteners holding the back cover on. Defrost the back cover as much as possible
using a hairdryer, then pulling off the back panel. Then disconnecting the two power leads for the back panel. Then using a hairdryer melt all the accumulated ice that was stopping the fan from running. Once done, I have to do the aforementioned process in reverse. In my research on how to fix your defective design I can see this is a systemic issue for your customers. OBTW I do know how to fix the ICE Maker problem for just a few dollars. Bottom line; I feel that SAMSUNG has known this was an issue and as such SAMSUNG should have fixed the problems or refunded our money. I bought this product because I have several SAMSUNG products and liked them. SAMSUNG’s lack of response or corrective action has already caused a class action on the ice maker. I feel that SAMSUNG has demonstrated copiability in this matter and should provide a solution or replacement for
these effected refrigerators.
Thank you! I go through the same thing with mine, onle every two weeks or so. Customer service is NO help. I can’t even get a supervisor call back. I will try your approach. I may even plagiarize parts of your letter. Great job!
I have a model RF25HMEDBSG and Samsung wont do anything it freezing up so much, wont make ice or anything
It’s truly criminal that this is such a rampant problem and Samsung is not offering solutions. There are multiple actual defects, one of which is the foam that seals the evaporator cover which has become damaged from the dozen of times I’ve had to disassemble and thaw the coils. I cannot find a replacement for just the foam alone but must pay $150 for the entire cover. This is so insanely absurd on top of the fact that I keep having to do this.
I purchased a Samsung model RS265TDWP/xaa refrigerator from Lowes in 4/2014 and the refrigerator part stopped cooling in 6/2015. It was repaired in 7/2015 by replacing the temp sensor and cover which included the fan. It stopped again 5/10/2021 with the same issue (temp sensor failure). The first time the parts were covered under warranty so I only had to pay $70 of the $288.76 but this time I had to pay the full $321.00. At least this time it lasted 5 years. I sure miss my Whirlpool side-by-side that lasted 40 years with no issues. should have stayed with Whirlpool but went by Consumer Report and bought this one. Lemons happen. You would think since the same thing is causing so many failures based on what I have been reading they would change the design to fix it.