Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: October 16, 2016

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COMM UNITS RECALLED BECAUSE OF FIRE RISK

by Hazed

Scamcom Inc have issued an urgent notice recalling their Universe Mind 9 comm unit due to a safety flaw in the power unit which resulted in some devices exploding. The company has also announced that it has halted production of this model. This has hit Scamcom’s share price badly, angering investors.

Reports of spontaneous combustion in comm units started several months ago, but it wasn’t until people started to die that the company took action. Fortunately, all those affected had life insurance so were not permanently harmed, but after an explosion in the trading exchange on Titan, which wrecked most of the moon’s trading machines, was traced to a comm unit being worn by a cleaner, Scamcom was forced to recall the unit. It offered replacement devices to all those who had that particular model.

However, last week it emerged that the new models were also prone to explode without warning, and after several public combustions that caused chaos through Sol, the comm units were recalled and production ceased. “Stop using your device, back up your data and switch it off,” users were told. A compensation scheme is being put into place whereby users can choose to get their money back, or swap the comm unit for a different device.

Scamcom has a 22% market share in the lucrative comm unit market, making them the largest supplier of comm units in the Galaxy. Its Universe Mind 9 gadgets were introduced last year and have been enthusiastically received by the consumer market. If the company can’t figure out what is making the power units in their comms devices explode, and get the model back on the market soon, it’s going to have a severe and long-lasting effect on the company’s finances – not to mention its reputation.

A source inside the company told us that as yet, Scamcom has no idea what is causing the problem. Engineers haven’t been able to reproduce the fault in their labs, with their comm units remaining completely unexploded. The worry is that its next model, the Universe Mind 10 due to be launched next year, could suffer from the same fatal flaw.

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