Samsung Electronics, still reeling from the Galaxy Note 7 fiasco, is now facing class action lawsuits over the recall of the smartphone in South Korea and the US, according to sources and news reports on Wednesday.

In Korea, around 60 local consumers so far are preparing to file a class action suit and the number is expected to rise, according to Seoul-based Harvest Law Office representing the plaintiffs. 

“We will gather more plaintiffs by Friday and submit a petition to the Seoul Central District Court on Oct. 24 to claim 300,000 won ($267) in damages per individual,” Koh, Young-il, a lawyer of Harvest Law Office, told The Korea Herald by phone.

The law firm is seeking more plaintiffs from the online site it created on Friday. Currently, around 600 people joined the website designed to sue Samsung Electronics. Each plaintiff pays 10,000 won to file a lawsuit, the law firm said.

“It may be hard to demonstrate property damages for each individual plaintiff but it is commonsensically certain that they had mental damages,” Koh said, adding, “Considering the precedents of compensations made from faulty products, we are confident in winning the case.”

The Note 7 owners claimed they visited Samsung stores around four times to purchase the smartphones, inspect their batteries and change their devices. In the process, they had a fear of using the fire-prone products and lost trust in the company and products.

In the US, another big market for the Galaxy Note 7, three Note 7 users each from Nevada, Pennsylvania and California, also recently filed a class action suit against Samsung Electronics in a federal court in Newark, New Jersey.

They claimed that following Samsung’s advice, consumers discontinued using their Note 7s only to find out that Samsung did not have replacement smartphones available.

“Samsung informed consumers that they would have to wait several days, and even weeks in many cases, before receiving a replacement smartphone,“ the complaint said.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)