You know what they say: let the
good times class action lawsuits roll! Or something like that. The latest in what I'm sure is to be a
long list of iPhone-related class action lawsuits was filed in New York today over the iPhone's SIM card lock-in, as well as what the plaintiff alleges is Apple withholding of information on roaming data charges. The plaintiff, Herbert H. Kliegerman, wants the iPhone unlock code, and he also wants to restrain Apple from selling iPhones without disclosing both that the included SIM cards are locked to AT&T, and that users could incur roaming data charges when traveling internationally. We have
a PDF of the lawsuit (sent to us directly by the plaintiff), but considering the facts that:
- Kliegerman's complaints seem to have much more to do with AT&T's practices than Apple's
- US SIM cards, to my knowledge, are always locked to their particular provider, meaning travelers have always had to purchase some kind of other phone service or an international SIM
- There's plenty of information available at AT&T's site about their international roaming practices, as well as extra plan options to provide for international calls and data usage
I don't think Kliegerman has much of a leg to stand on. Plus, he sent this to us himself, which reeks of digging for 15 seconds in the spotlight - but who am I to shoot down his hopes? Anyone, particularly those who travel and know more about US mobile phone company practices, care to place some bets as to how far he'll get with this?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
a ham sandwich said 12:48PM on 8-27-2007
im sure he'll go absolutely nowhere with this, but it'd be cool if something came out of it.
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AR said 12:56PM on 8-27-2007
I have to agree, this suit isn't going anywhere. It should be common knowledge that US phones are locked to their carriers as well as receiving charges for international roaming. If the judge doesn't throw this out, I'd be dumbfounded and throw a party for no reason.
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NutMac said 1:01PM on 8-27-2007
The plaintiff will probably lose but it's all to easy to incur expensive data roaming fee when traveling overseas.
Apple and AT&T should offer one of 3 solutions: (1) offer unlock code to international travelers (risky move), (2) add GPRS/EDGE on/off feature on iPhone, (3) let iPhone detect US carrier signals and let it accept non-AT&T SIM if none are found.
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Jay B said 1:14PM on 8-27-2007
L for lame
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DrunkDwarf said 1:48PM on 8-27-2007
I've been to China numerous times with AT&T and I can speak from experience when I say that practicing your sheep-waiting-to-be-sheared impression is an excellent idea.
On my first trip to China i was on my way to getting a local SIM card (the one I'd purchased on the Internet before leaving turned out to be a scam) I had to make two calls totaling eight minutes before I found one. AT&T fleeced me $64 USD!!! Yep, satellite phone rates.
Next time I signed up for their international roaming package, where you pay them $5 a month, they only sheared me $2.25 USD per minute.
Last year, during the we're now CIngular fiasco, they told me I'd have to upgrade to a Cingular SIM or they'd keep charging me the International Roaming Package fee, as it was otherwise "impossible" for them to remove it from my account.
Now I'm back on an at&t SIM and my head keeps moving from side to side waiting for at&t to come at me again with the shears.
A local SIM card is around $200 RMB (about $25 USD) and works out close to $.02 USD per minute to use. A phone call back to the USA is $.12 per minute. I could speed a week there and not burn off the bundled minutes from the initial purchase.
I suspect on my next trip to China I'll find a shop over there with a happy China man waiting to sell me a local SIM and an iPhone unlock as an all in one package.
I believe the legal angle the unlockers face here is that the iPhone is shipped completely and totally locked down. You can't even play Mary Had A Little Lamb on it until you activate it on an AT&T plan via iTunes.
However, those of us that have activated our iPhones on an AT&T plan should be able to use One Hung Lo Telecom in China, if we want. I paid full freight for my iPhone, AT&T has only a peg leg to stand on in this case. They need to get competitive, or get out of the way. Period.
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richard Lawrence said 3:45PM on 8-27-2007
A gprs/edge on/off switch would be nice. But in the meantime, there's a real easy way to not incur data roaming charges: remove the sim. Fortunately iphone is still usable - including wifi - even without the sim installed. I know some phones will lock up if you remove the sim.
While I like the all-in-one(ness) of iphone, if I go overseas any time soon, I will be taking an unlocked cheapie phone with me for calling and only using my iphone in wireless hotspots.
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pyrahna said 1:50PM on 8-27-2007
Believe it or not you can call your cell phone provider and have them unlock your phone so you can use sim cards over seas. I had cingular (now ATT) do this about six months ago when I traveled to Europe and the happily gave me the code to unlock my cingular 3125. I was told at the time that it was illegal for them not to give me the code. From everything I have been told they are not handing out any code for the iphone so I can see why this guy is upset.
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Mo said 1:51PM on 8-27-2007
Just because all the carriers do it doesn't mean that if challenged it wouldn't be found an illegal practice. In lots of countries, providers SIM-lock, but have to (by law) unlock for a nominal fee (say, $20) if requested to by the customer—though sometimes certain conditions apply. The really smart ones have woken up to the fact that deliberately restricting what your customers can do *increases* churn due to dissatisfaction and would rather customers stick with them because they're happy with the services they provide rather than “because it's a pain to switch”.
Unfortunately, such carriers are an extraordinarily rare breed.
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Dave said 1:52PM on 8-27-2007
This guy is a Royal Moron. By Royal, I mean completely, and by Moron,
I mean ignorant. Ignorant in the tradional dictionary definition sense.
Every commercial I have seen for iPhone plays "All 'round the world,"
displays the AT&T logo, THEN the Apple logo with it's short jingle.
It's not only suggested, implied, & stated iPhone's EXCLUSIVELY AT&T,
there's a picture of iPhone on www.att.com with 100% confirmation.
It's not Apple's duty to describe the plan details of wireless carriers!!
Any roaming or other reasonable fees should be disclosed by AT&T.
I believe ignorance of the law is no excuse to break it, OR TO SUE :-)
If I were to travel internationally, my carrier would charge me, too.
If the judge were to rule in favor of the Plaintiff, phone prices would
triple everywhere, because Nokia & Motorola would be next in line.
There's no reason to fear, however, that Senior will be schooled.
I wish Apple could counter-sue and takes their iPhones away.
Some people do not deserve an iPhone, here's living proof.
(I know young college students that would benefit from a donation...)
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GadgetGav said 1:53PM on 8-27-2007
As FSJ would say 'frigtard'
Imagine how much more productive the country could be if this kind of time wasting wasn't allowed... Class action suits with no merit I mean, not commenting on blogs..! ;) I'm home sick, so I'm unproductive anyway..! :)
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OC said 2:27PM on 8-27-2007
Well I don't know about the other complaints in his suit, but I sure as hell hope he gets somewhere with the unlocking codes. Isn't it required by law for companies to disclose that information to customers who ask anyway?
A lot of readers are quick to pin down suits like this, yet are whining about signing contracts to specific carries (AT&T). If anything they should be rootting for this guy if only for his attempt at the unlocking code.
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pete said 2:51PM on 8-27-2007
i don't understand why so many people are hating on this guy. i'm not a big fan of class action lawsuits but desperate times require desperate measures. he's standing up to the MAN while u're cowering beneath the sheets. i think at&t should provide a way for the iphone to be unlocked for international use. as another commenter pointed out, they already do this for their other phones. why don't they do this for the iphone???
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mapin said 3:20PM on 8-27-2007
i'm confused, isn't it illegal for a carrier NOT to give you the unlock code of a cell phone? If that is true, which I've always heard to be true, then I can understand the merits of this lawsuit.
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Sam said 11:27PM on 8-27-2007
Here's what's NOT clear about International roaming, it's not when you place calls, it's when calls are posted to your account, up to 90 days after the fact
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Steve Simitzis said 4:25PM on 8-27-2007
Just about every other carrier in the world (outside of the US) will sell you an unlocked phone so you can swap SIM cards around. What mobile carriers do in the US is extremely wrong, and should be illegal. It's an anti-competitive practice. And considering how high AT&T roaming rates are for data, this class action makes perfect sense.
It's very easy to spend thousands of dollars just for browsing some pages, sending some email, and doing a few google maps searches each day. I'm about to go to Europe for a month with my iPhone, and I won't be able to use the phone's features when they would be most useful to me: when I'm away from computer, in need of directions and information to help me get around.
Everywhere else in the world, you solve the problem by popping in a new SIM card. This helps consumers by creating a real market for mobile services.
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Christian said 4:34PM on 8-27-2007
This guy is 68, has enough $$$ to buy three iPhones and complains about roaming costs of $ 2000? Oh please! He's begging to be called a moron.
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Isaiah said 4:45PM on 8-27-2007
What a wimp. I ran up $15K in the UK!
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tofupunk said 5:22PM on 8-27-2007
I received a $400 bill for less than 20MB of data while using Google Maps on my iPhone while traveling through a small portion of Canada. The AT&T person told me of someone who called in earlier living in Michigan. They were charged a huge amount for roaming in Canada, but it was actually because they were receiving Rogers Wireless signals IN MICHIGAN! Crazy. I agree that they keep the very large roaming data charges as quiet as possible.
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Tom Boucher said 5:22PM on 8-27-2007
In about four more months I will walk into my nearest AT&T store and ask for the unlock. Their policy is six months into the contract they will unlock for free. They've done this on every phone I've owned with them.
If they do different on the iPhone, I'll have a problem, until then, I'm following their policy.
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Brandon said 7:50PM on 8-27-2007
While it seems that the plaintiff may not have a super strong case, it does show that people are growing less tolerant of the practices US phone carriers use to retain their customers. It just seems that its taken a product as innovative and desirable as the iphone to finally jolt consumers into taking action against cell phone providers and the exclusive relationships they use with cell phone manufacturers to enslave their customers (props to George Holtz).
In addition to lengthy contracts, cell phone providers use cell phones as another way to "lock" customers into a relationship with the brand. I think this is a failing business model that will eventually end; either by consumers banning together to force change in the industry, or by a provider coming in and changing the way things are done. At any rate, it seems that a common platform and cross provider phones would benefit the consumer and require the cell phone providers to provide better service and more value-added features to keep customers happy.
In the end, while the iphone is the catalyst for this type of consumer action, I don't think that Apple will suffer as much as AT&T, and perhaps even the other cell phone providers who hold their customers captive.
See more at my blog:
http://thecword.typepad.com/thecword/2007/08/consumer-take-o.html
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