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Thousands of Note 7 Phones Still in Use On Verizon, All Non-911 Calls To Be Rerouted To Customer Service (cnet.com)
Thousands of Verizon customers continue to use the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone, the carrier said. This despite the widely publicized recalls spurred by battery fire concerns and a software upgrade designed to kill the phone by preventing it from recharging. From a report: "In spite of our best efforts, there are still customers using the recalled phones who have not returned or exchanged their Note 7 to the point of purchase," a Verizon spokeswoman said. "The recalled Note 7s pose a safety risk to our customers and those around them." So now Verizon is fighting fire with fire, so to speak. The carrier plans to reroute all non-911 outgoing calls to its customer service line, and it might bill the holdouts for the full retail cost of the phone.
And when your coworker's house burns down, and his insurance company refuses to pay because he knowingly kept using a device that was a fire risk, maybe he'll grow up and decide that "I know better than the engineers at the manufacturer" is a stupid fucking game to play.
I have a coworker who's holding on to his Note 7. He's been staying on top of all of this. It appears that after a recall, a company cannot require nor continue requiring payment for a recalled device. Some may argue that he has a loan he still owes Verizon, but it appears also that Samsung bought out all those loans.
Verizon doesn't want the liability of your coworker suing them after his house burns down. Or to be sued by someone else after he burns someone elses house down, or a bus, or a plane.
If they completely discontinue service to the phones, they have a justifiable legal basis for saying that they did all that they could to prevent the phone fmor being used. They have likely decided that alienating a small portion of their customer base is worth avoiding such liability.
Also, your colleague sounds a bit daft.