I don’t know if anyone ever believed this kid’s story from the outset, but it’s worth repeating nonetheless. An Irish student posted on an online forum complaining that his smartphone – which just happens to be a Samsung Galaxy S3, Android’s current flagship handset – exploded, of its own accord, while he was innocently driving along in his car.

The student wrote: “So I (sic) driving along today with my Galaxy S3 in my car mount when suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone. I pulled in to look at my phone, the phone burned from the inside out. Burned through the plastic and melted my case to my phone. The phone kept working but without any signal. I brought it to the Carphone Warehouse and they told me that they couldn’t replace it for me, that they had to send it off to be checked out first.”

He then complains that “The phone was destroyed and it slightly burned a piece of plastic on the inside of my car. And they are refusing to give me a replacement, they had to send it off… That could have burned the side of my face or through my pocket and my leg, or set fire to my bed. It’s very dangerous.”

It sounds like a serious complaint, but the plot does thicken, and we perhaps find out why the student was so reluctant to leave the shop empty-handed. The phone was sent back to Samsung, who seem to have performed some thorough checks on the phone in order to provide further information to its customers. Of course, if you were Samsung, you’d probably want to know why your phones were exploding, too.

Samsung contacted Fire Investigations UK to find out why the S3 caught fire and this was the result: “The energy source responsible for generating the heat has been determined as external to the device.” The report also clarified that “the device was not responsible for the cause of the fire.” So, it didn’t explode. If you own a Samsung Galaxy S3, you can exhale now – yours isn’t in danger… unless you set fire to it. Which is pretty much what it turns out our Irish student did.

“I would like to retract my original statement.” he wrote. “The damage to the phone was caused by another person, although they were attempting to recover the phone from water, this later caused damage shown on the phone.” For some clarification, he – or ‘another person’ – microwaved the phone, in order to dry it out. What a terrible idea. The Fire Investigations report also said that the only possible way that the phone could have been damaged was if someone had put the device or some of its components into a microwave oven.

Well, that’s the whole story. Three cheers for the internet; always unearthing new ways to make yourself look stupid. I’m happy to report that, as yet, Samsung Galaxy S3 handsets are without trouble, so if you’ve got your eye on one, don’t let one person’s stupidity deter you from taking the plunge.