PAUL James thought his iPhone was about to explode when he woke up to find it glowing red and his bedroom full of toxic white smoke.
Paul, 25, from Quedgeley, had returned from a night-shift at the Stonehouse Court Hotel and put his iPhone on charge before going to sleep next to his heavily pregnant partner, Jess, 27.
He woke just half an hour later to a discover his iPhone 4S was red hot, billowing with smoke and melting next to his bed.
Paul picked up the mobile and threw it across the room, before dialling 999.
"When I saw white smoke coming out of the glowing mobile my first thought was to get it away from the bed in case it caught fire," he said.
"I was most worried that it could set fire to the bed so threw it by the cable across the room.
"The fire marshall who turned up to do a safety check said we could have died from smoke inhalation if we hadn't woken up."
Paul bought the phone just four months ago, taking advantage of an online deal at Carphone Warehouse.
He contacted Apple who arranged to collect the phone to carry out their own checks.
A week later, he was told by the California-based company that they would not be able to send him a new phone. The firm's engineering department had completed a technical review but said that because the phone was damaged from when he threw it across the room, they could not replace it.
"I was gobsmacked by the response from Apple," he said. "I didn't expect any compensation, just a new phone.
"Despite arguing the fact that I could have been burnt, died or let the house burn down – that didn't seem to matter to Apple. I felt I had been treated like a second class citizen."
Despite being contacted by The Citizen, Apple was unavailable for comment.
