Faulty cellphones recalled

By PAUL BRISLEN

Vodafone New Zealand has stopped selling the Siemens 65 series cellphones because of a potentially harmful software error.

The phones play a short melody when they shut down, but Siemens has discovered this melody will play loudly in the user's ear if they are talking on the phone when the battery fails. The tune is loud enough to cause hearing loss in extreme cases.

Vodafone has "quarantined" its existing stock and has asked all of its retailers to send their stock back to the warehouse. Siemens itself is going to contact all customers about the problem. Customers with these phones should take them to their nearest Vodafone outlet for a software upgrade.

Users can deactivate the shutdown melody by accessing the "setup" menu, selecting "ringtones" then "more melodies" and then "shutdown melody". Siemens will release a software upgrade to take care of the problem in the next few weeks.