A woman suffered second degree burns on her bum after an iPhone case she bought for $20 broke and leaked chemical onto her skin. The burn has left Erin Nelson, who lives in Otago, New Zealand, with blisters and she has to apply dressing several times a day as she is prone to infections. She also has to be careful when sitting down so as not to aggravate the injury.
She detailed her ordeal on Facebook, writing
‘Last week I brought an iPhone 5 case off you guys, the one with the glitter that moves around anyway on Saturday night it got a small crack in it and I didn’t realise,’ the comment posted on Forever New’s page read. ‘I woke up the next day to a broken phone and second degree chemical burns on my bum. ‘On your packaging it doesn’t say anything about having chemicals in the case. So I would like someone to get in touch with me to let me know what chemicals have burnt me. ‘A $20 phone case has sure costed me a lot of money and I’m not happy about it.’
Forever New was quick to respond to the post, with a spokesperson writing:
‘Hi Erin, Thank you for reaching out to us with this unfortunate set of circumstances, we are terribly sorry for the pain and inconvenience this has caused you. While we investigate this issue further, we will remove this style of iPhone case from Forever New stores and online. For any concerned customers who have purchased this style of iPhone case from Forever New, please return the item to any Forever New store and we will happily offer a full refund.’
Other people documented their similarly unpleasant experiences with the dodgy phone case,
‘Same thing happened to me apparently there wasn’t anything in it but it smelt like petrol,’ one person wrote.
‘Omg this is the stuff that was in my case!!! I wondered why it smelt like turps when it cracked! Lucky I threw it out right away!’ another said.