iPad class action

[Seadog]

I hear a lot of whining, but the reality is that the courts will not do a whole lot. The lawyers are hoping for a settlement, which pays them and gets tokens for owners. This nonsense about implied or written contract has no foundation. The courts have ruled a long time ago, that there can be an implied limitation to the term unlimited. It has also ruled that companies that change the rules are free to do so, provided they meet certain criteria. Our legal system is not concerned with justice, only the nuances of application of the law. If a confessed killer can go free because of a minor technicality by someone in the chain of authority, it should tell you that the only way you will win, is if AT&T does not fight this.

 

[pallentx]

That's a good point. Perhaps they are hoping for some kind of out-of-court settlement just to make it all go away.

I dont really have a problem with how the courts operate. Their job is to accurately and fairly interpret and enforce the law. If the laws are not fair, that is the job of lawmakers to fix the law. The courts can declare a law unconstitutional, but beyond that, they don't get to make up rules on the fly. If people are frustrated by this, direct your frustrations properly to your representative lawmaker.

 

[Ultrimate]

Courts are all about how much money you have, more money equals better lawyers equals victory in court..

I mean if OJ and MJ can walk, anything is possible with good lawyers..

 

[kensteele]

Consumer protection is a matter of law. Lawmakers make laws that regulate advertising, contracts, etc. The courts exist to enforce those laws. If ATT has broken a law, then they deserve any punishment they get. Unless there are factors I am unaware of (and that is certainly a possibility), ATT has broken no law. They made no promises as to how long they would continue to offer unlimited data. They explicitly stated that there is no contract.

I'm not advocating lawlessness. In fact, I am advocating the opposite - that we follow the law and nothing more. How unhappy you are with their business decision is irrelevant to the law. I would say that making a company pay a settlement when they have broken no law is the definition of lawlessness. When you can be punished for breaking laws that dont exist, you have chaos.

No contract? If I pointed out "the contract" for you, will you go away?

probably not, but that would be an interesting contribution to this discussion. Like I said, there could be information here that I dont have. It could be that the advertising ATT and Apple made was in some way an implied contract of some kind, but I dont see it. Its a tricky thing though to say that they ended the plan "too soon". Then you get into trying to some up with a universally accept amount of time that is "enough time" to offer such a deal before changing the terms. Its fuzzy stuff.

Hmmm, so I see; I guess now there is maybe some sort of contract, huh?

I didn't say they ended the plan too soon. That would be your sorry excuse to attack this problem, not mine

One could argue in this industry, it is not reasonable to put something on the table and pull it back within weeks. In the cellular industry, one year and two years offers are reasonable and constitute normal. Hey so I might think it's normal, you might not. Let's allow a judge to decide. When a judge tells me to my face that 2 and 3 week promises are ok, he's telling the whole industry...is he willing to do that?

But I said, they made me an offer, they even said it was a breakthrough deal:

They made me an offer (see the terms above) and I accepted the offer. I paid them $130 for a GSM radio so I could specifically take advantage of the offer they made me. Otherwise, that GSM radio is good for nothing else, I didn't buy the GSM radio for its looks or to hit certain website or to shop in other app stores. It only works at the whim of ATT and whatever they allow. If I could activate on T-Mobile, they might have a point.

They offered me several things including unlimited data and the ability to do use it off and on whenever I chose (see the last bulletpoint where it is implied). They offered both of these together, not separately. It doesn't say you get all these as long as you don't cancel. It says I get all of these off and on as I see fit. I'm thinking I can use this for my trip to Europe. I'm thinking I can use this for my summer roadtrip across America. I'm thinking I can use this when my company sends me on a business trip, I can expense it for a month. I have reasonable aspirations for unlimited data off and on from time to time as I see fit.

I don't have that anymore. Apparently they pulled the offer. It's not breakthrough anymore. Whatever they gave to me, they took some of it back. But they kept my $130. I can't use the GSM radio like I wanted to. I can still use it but it's not worth $130 to me unless I can use it on an unlimited plan. If the unlimited plan moved from $30 to $50, we have a different argument.

I know this sounds like whining, everyone in court whines. Have you ever been there? It's one big bitch and whine session, of course. Pay my damages and the whining quits.

 

[pallentx]

What I see in that last line is that there is no contract. They are selling that as a bonus for you that you can quit whenever you want, but its also a bonus for them - they can quit whenever they want because there is no contract.

 

[Wolffmann34]

What people need to realize is that AT&T or Apple would not have done this if they had not known for sure they could get away with it.

 

[kensteele]

What people need to realize is that AT&T or Apple would not have done this if they had not known for sure they could get away with it.

I disagree. ATT doesn't care if they can get away it or not. They weighed the cost of providing unlimited data to millions of customers vs. the cost of pissing off some customers some of which could potentially sue for damages. The math said cut off unlimited data right now. If that would have cost them $10 million for unlimited data, it would be easy for ATT to set aside $2 million for a class action lawsuit but they are hoping and praying most of their affected customers will "roll over" and take it up the....

It's clear. ATT offered something they couldn't live up to. That's ok, we understand if you underestimated sales or you get overwhelmed with data congestion or even if you got caught off-guard. Go ahead and make the correction to benefit all customers on the network and the company's bottom line. I never said they should continue to offer it as promised. All I am saying is if you withdraw the offer, compensate the people who've been damaged. The GSM radio in the iPad is not completely worthless to me but it's not $130 either. It's somewhere in between and a $100 credit on your ATT bill should you decide to go with the "new" plans would save ATT a ton in legal fees and goodwill and an already questionable reputation.

 

[kensteele]

What I see in that last line is that there is no contract. They are selling that as a bonus for you that you can quit whenever you want, but its also a bonus for them - they can quit whenever they want because there is no contract.

Of course they can quit whenever they want.

I'm going to court to have a judge decide if the reason they quit so early had anything to do with deceptive practices. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if ATT knew beforehand that they were only going to offer these terms for less than month but failed to say so in the ad for fear it would cut into 3G Ipad sales. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if ATT threw out a plan solely for the purposes of boosting 3G Ipad sales. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if they quit so early I suffered damages. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if they were unfair enriched by their advertising and subsequent actions. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if the timing in which they quit is reasonable in this industry and a consumer should have had no other expectations. I'm going to court to have a judge decide if the first 5 lines constitute an offer and the 6th line says the first 5 lines can stop being an offer at any second anytime.

If you know the answers to these questions, post them. If you don't think these questions are relevant to consumer protection laws, let's hear it. If you don't care about these questions and you're not interested in the answers to them, go away.

I'm fighting, I'm not just a sheep that stands around and does nothing. I've been a part of a dozen class action lawsuits and every single time I have been compensated. Of course, for half of those I was contacted first but the other half made sense as well.

 

[pallentx]

Well, all I can say is good luck. In my opinion, those are not questions for a judge to decide. Unless there are laws out there I am unaware of, neither ATT nor Apple have done anything wrong. I think it was a bad business decision that will probably cost them in lost customers (people will remember this when Verizon offers the iPad/iPhone), but I see no wrongdoing or anything illegal. If you know of a consumer protection law that places limits on how often businesses are allowed to change their pricing, post it. Unless such a law exists, I dont see a case here. You might get a judge to award you something anyway, but I dont think that makes it right.

 

[kensteele]

Well, all I can say is good luck. In my opinion, those are not questions for a judge to decide. Unless there are laws out there I am unaware of, neither ATT nor Apple have done anything wrong. I think it was a bad business decision that will probably cost them in lost customers (people will remember this when Verizon offers the iPad/iPhone), but I see no wrongdoing or anything illegal. If you know of a consumer protection law that places limits on how often businesses are allowed to change their pricing, post it. Unless such a law exists, I dont see a case here. You might get a judge to award you something anyway, but I dont think that makes it right.

There are no laws that exists that I am aware of that places limits on how often businesses are allowed to change their pricing.

There are laws that help consumers when businesses posts prices that lure a customer in to make a purchase and then those prices are changed to benefit the business and hurt the customer.

There are laws if you advertise a price on tv or in a newspaper and when the customer arrives, you have the item but it shows a different [substantially higher] price than what you advertised or a different item.

There are laws if you sell goods to a customer at a certain price and before the customer get home, the prices have changed.

There are laws against gouging or raising the price on certain goods beyond reason during a crisis or an emergency.

There are laws against advertising services at one price and then failing to deliver the level of service you promised at that price what is reasonable.

I'm not saying any or all of these happened with the ipad and att, I'm just trying to educate you that it's not open season on businesses and their pricing and they simply are allowed to operate their business however they see fit without consequences other than customer loyalty or repeat business. I understand you may not see or understand this, this case it's cut and dry by any means. It used to be this way, businesses could do pretty much anything they wanted. Advertise in the newspaper they have $99 flat screen tvs and when you get there, they have 1000 tvs in stock, only two of them are $99 and the rest are $600 and above. Not anymore.

I don't know if it is illegal or not. All I know is what they are doing, people are damaged. When people are damaged, the business first gets to decide how to proceed. If the business fails to make you whole, in America, the person who is damaged has the right to become a plaintiff, which is to see damages in civil court. Businesses are not immune to lawsuits as you suggest when you say a judge shouldn't get to decide. Not sure who you feel should get to decide if a business has damaged their paying customers or has done something wrong when it comes to affecting the paying customers?

All of the opinions in this thread are entirely my own. IANAL. Anything I say or express in this forum is strictly my words and does not represent anyone one else or any other business or company. If invited, I will become part of the class if it is granted such status by the courts. Personally, I feel damaged. I understand not everyone feels the same and it is your right to ignore all of this or even criticize me if you wish. It was a poor business decision.

 

[figmo10]

This issue is no mere price increase. It concerns the abrupt termination of a new product's major feature...one that undoubtedly influenced the consumer's buying decision.

Here's an analogy. More than a few years ago Kodak introduced a line of instant developing film cameras to compete with the Polaroid Land. Polaroid prevailed in the resulting patent infringement suit and, instead of accepting a licensing agreement as customary in these cases, forced Kodak to immediately abandon all support for their instant camera. No repair.No batteries. No film. Tens of thousands of Kodak cameras became worthless overnight. Apart from the 30-day warranty, Kodak had no contract with the consumer to sell film or parts for its new camera, yet the court decided that it would be UNFAIR to consumers who bought a product in good faith to be deprived of its use so abruptly. Kodak had to compensate owners of the infringing camera.

I use this instance to illustrate that consumers are not only entitled to the benefits of provided by contract, but are entitled to fair dealings with a purchase. the Court will decide if the Defendants in the case acted unfairly, not simply in accordance with a contract.

 

[DavidNM]

What people need to realize is that AT&T or Apple would not have done this if they had not known for sure they could get away with it.

I disagree. ATT doesn't care if they can get away it or not. They weighed the cost of providing unlimited data to millions of customers vs. the cost of pissing off some customers some of which could potentially sue for damages. The math said cut off unlimited data right now. If that would have cost them $10 million for unlimited data, it would be easy for ATT to set aside $2 million for a class action lawsuit but they are hoping and praying most of their affected customers will "roll over" and take it up the....

It's clear. ATT offered something they couldn't live up to. That's ok, we understand if you underestimated sales or you get overwhelmed with data congestion or even if you got caught off-guard. Go ahead and make the correction to benefit all customers on the network and the company's bottom line. I never said they should continue to offer it as promised. All I am saying is if you withdraw the offer, compensate the people who've been damaged. The GSM radio in the iPad is not completely worthless to me but it's not $130 either. It's somewhere in between and a $100 credit on your ATT bill should you decide to go with the "new" plans would save ATT a ton in legal fees and goodwill and an already questionable reputation.

The damage / potential damages go a little deeper. Everyone has a different circumstance they're dealing with. I live in a very small town - and the best we get is ATT edge service. The best I do in a month using ATT on my iPad is about 75mb - mainly because the Edge signal is horrible - only use it for basic web and e-mail when needed. Unless I'm travelling. When I travel I use a tremendous amount of bandwidth - download tons of video's, etc. Last trip I took I used the 3G ATT service and racked up 600mb in about 4 days.

So - I spent the extra $139 so that when I knew I was going out of town there were no worries. I could be on the $15 a month plan - and switch over to unlimited and then back off as needed. I already have a Samsung Omnia with Walking Hot Spot - so it wouldn't have been that big of a deal to just tether - but I didn't want to screw with the extra batteries and set up.

Now I'm stuck on the grandfathered $30 plan. I'm afraid if I go to the smaller plan - when I travel I'll get royally screwed on usage charges - or worse yet not utilize my iPad the way it should be.

The one thing I didn't think was going to happen is that ATT & Apple would change the plan 5 freaking weeks after I spend the extra $139 for my iPad. That's false advertising. Apple intentionally boasted about the flexibility of the plans, their beautiful unlimited plan - go on , go off - as needed - and to make it even easier and more appealing - no contracts. Apple was acting as the agent for ATT during all of this.

The way I figure it Apple owes me $139 + tax - and enough for a couple of good microbrews to compensate me for the GD'md aggravation this has caused.

 

[pallentx]

I bet Apple would let you return it and buy a wifi

 

[kensteele]

I bet Apple would let you return it and buy a wifi

You might be right. I will go to the apple store tomorrow and try to find out.

Seems Apple is facing several other class action lawsuits and I think I read somewhere they were offering refunds: Multiple class action suits filed over iPhone 4 antenna

 

[pallentx]

I think the antenna suit might have some merit. I think its pretty reasonable to assume that something called an iPhone would be able to make phone calls where there is a signal from the service provider. Although, I generally consider it smart business to not buy expensive things sight-unseen.