Samsung denies paying people to attend the Galaxy S6 launch event

Samsung has denied a report that it paid people to pose as fans at the launch event for its new Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge phones in Shanghai, China. The Paper, a Shanghai-based news company, claimed that up to half of the 1,000 attendees were sourced by a recruiter and paid 30 yuan (US$4.80) for an hour of their time. The Chinese report — summarized in English by Want China Times — suggested that Samsung’s Beijing office vetted an initial 20 paid fans, but that number was later upped to 400-500. Samsung called the report “totally groundless and bogus” in a statement issued this morning on its blog. “Our findings have indicated that under no circumstances has anyone been hired or given money to attend the event. In fact, the more than 1,100 attendees, including consumers and industry officials, have all been formally invited to the Shanghai Culture Square where the event took place,” the company said. Samsung said that The Paper “corroborated our findings and soon retracted the erroneous story.” The Korean company said it is trying to understand where the story came from.