Ocoee teen claims iPhone 7 burned, scarred her stomach

Girl files complaint against Apple after injury

OCOEE, Fla. – An Orlando-area teenager has a new complaint about Apple after she says her iPhone 7 Plus burned her bad enough to leave a nasty scar on her stomach.

Tina Pierre, 17, said she was waiting for a text, and after only a few minutes she started feeling pain where she had placed her phone and the phone was hot to the touch.

"It was really painful. It was, like, extremely painful," Pierre said.

When Pierre and her dad lifted up her shirt, they found a burn mark the exact shape and size of her phone.

"I was like, 'Oh my God,'" Pierre said.

Pierre said as the days passed, the burn mark got darker and darker. Two months later, the mark is still visible on her stomach. 

Pierre said she sent pictures of her scar to Apple, but she said officials there seemed more concerned about the phone instead of her and her injuries.

"So they just kept asking me, 'Well, how's the phone doing? You need to send the phone in,'"  Pierre said. "And I was like, 'What's going on with my stomach?'"

Pierre said at first a representative promised to send her an upgrade. She said instead Apple sent her another iPhone 7 Plus -- the same make and model as her current phone.

Pierre said the replacement phone also gets warm to the touch, and that has both her and her father concerned. They said they are also concerned that workers at Apple didn't seem to believe the phone caused the scarring on her stomach.

"They didn't ask me about my burn," Pierre said. "They weren't concerned with it."

Pierre showed News 6 several messages between her and members of the Apple customer service and technical support team.

One stated, "I am sorry to hear about the discomfort you feel," and another stated, "I hope you get better and start to feel well soon." But Pierre said no one at Apple was able to explain what could have caused her phone to damage her skin.

"That's all they wanted to do, just troubleshoot the phone," Pierre said.

Pierre said once she sent in her phone, she received a message that Apple engineers found no defects with the device, which was something she said she just couldn't believe.

Pierre said she wants what happened to her to serve as a warning to other teens and children and even adults.

News 6 did find a couple of other reports online of iPhone 7 devices overheating.

Apple declined to comment about Pierre's case or about how many complaints have been filed concerning overheating iPhone 7 devices.

Pierre said she was hoping for some help from Apple so she could afford to see a doctor about her scar. Her father declined to comment on this story due to the sensitive nature of his job but said he wanted his daughter's story to be told.


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