Samsung has denied that up to half of the attendees at the launch of its Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge were paid to be there. The company released a statement yesterday denying that anyone was financially compensated for attending the Shanghai gathering last week.
“[Samsung] investigated a media report on April 3 which claimed people were temporarily hired and paid to attend the Galaxy S6 launching event in Shanghai, China and later found that the story was totally groundless and bogus,” a statement on the company’s website said.
The accusations were originally made by a Chinese language publication, The Paper, which claimed that up to half of the 1,100 attendees had been “recruited” to attend the event for 30 yuan (US$3.20) per hour. The Paper also said that a recruiter had targeted “fans” who were under the age of 30 and could pass for students.
The story was reported across several Chinese language media sites as well as in China-based English language publications.
In their strongly-worded statement, Samsung says it is “seriously considering whether to request the media outlet take further action” in issuing a correction.
Several instances of ‘crowd-hiring’ have been reported in China in the past for a range of different events. Popular chat apps such as WeChat are used to post recruitment ads, though there has been no solid evidence that this was the case at the Samsung launch event.
Image Source: March Marcho / Shutterstock.com
Editing by Mike Cormack (@bucketoftongues)