Apple's locked iPhones the subject of new class-action suit
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted August 28th 2007 11:31AM
posted August 28th 2007 11:31AM
The Apple class-action party continues folks, this time featuring a disgruntled New York State customer named Herbert H. Kliegerman, who claims that the Cupertino giant failed to adequately disclose information pertaining to the "locked" nature of the iPhone and the roaming charges which might be incurred if a user was to take the device overseas. According to the 9-page suit, which was filed Monday in a New York Supreme Court, Kliegerman traveled to Mexico a few weeks after purchasing the phone, where he proceeded to check e-mails and make calls, blissfully unaware (or so the suit tells us) that AT&T would be charging international roaming fees for the usage. Apparently, when Mr. Kliegerman received his bill, he was shocked to discover $2,000 in the aforementioned fees. The suit argues that if he had been allowed to unlock the phone and use a foreign SIM card, the costs could have been avoided. As a result, Mr. Kliegerman is seeking a judgement which bars Apple from selling locked iPhones, plus an order for the company to offer unlock codes to all current owners. Perhaps Mr. Kliegerman should call these dudes.
This man is NOT stupid! Don't you guys realize he's fighting for us??? Of course he knew he would be roaming while in Mexico. He is just looking for a case here, that's it. I think what he's doing is great.
Wow you're the first person in over half a page of comments to get that fact. Congrats.
This guy is not an idiot, the only idiots are the people who honestly believe he was dumb enough not to know?!!! The guy was out the sue from the start. Isn't that blatantly obvious from this ridiculous lawsuit?!!!
I don't usually like these lawsuits, but hey if he can get Apple/AT&T to unlock the iPhones then more power to him. Fat chance it will happen though.
The object of a class action lawsuit is to catalyze change.
If he loses the lawsuit abruptly, but several popular news publications cover the story then more people will realize some truly daunting faults of the iphone, and consumers will demand a change.
If enough people demand a change, then Apple will change, and the lawsuit will have served its purpose.
I bet his lawyer is happy that he has detailed billing statements handy.
Dumbass. I hope he loses just to prove a point. The phone being locked, and international roaming charges are two different things. They're Apples and oranges.
CASE DISMISSED. Sir, here's your bill from Apple's legal team. I'm sure it'd be more than the $2000 he had on his phone bill.
I´d like to say, Apple is one of those big companys that does really good toys for all of us, but when it comes to the iphone lock, give em hell!
Lawsuits like this are ludicrous because they are nullified by the contract signed by the end user. What I'd like to see is a lawsuit based on the actual technical collusion between AT&T and Apple: namely, the fact that the user can't turn off EDGE connectivity and that no matter what the user does, the phone continually downloads data over EDGE with no way of stopping it. This is something that is not covered in the contract as far as I can see.
Just having the phone on -- even when in a WiFi environment -- causes it to access EDGE and run up the bill.
Ever notice that when you wake it from sleep, it switches back to EDGE, does some downloading, and then goes back to WiFi?
Sadly, if I go abroad I won't be taking my iPhone at all because I can't turn off this function.
Well, you can put it in Airplane mode while you're abroad; you could then still use it as an iPod and such, and only connect at brief intervals. That will disable the Edge (if you're not roaming it isn't 'running up the bill' since the data is unlimited). Or just get a local pay-per-use plan and don't worry about it.
Well thats the problem here you cant get a local pay-per-use plan, remember for the time being the phone is network locked. Doubt the court will rule in his favor but maybe they could force Apple to include a disable EDGE function.
What a maroon! What a nin-cow-poop! ROFL!
If you cannot "hard unlock" of "soft unlock", you always can apply "lawyer unlock".
absoloute idiot. its not AT*T's fault that he doesnt read.
i hope he wins :)
It always amazes me how fast people dismiss cases as frivolous without knowing more than the basics of a case. Any case can seem frivolous from the basics. "Oh he wants to goto that school but there already is a school for him to goto". Most phones have an unlocked version and while it may say in the contract that international fees cary it may not say that Sims available for usage on other phones will not work with the Iphones. Also most contracts have a give and take. You sign up for a contract and you get a discount on the phone. In this case there is no advantage to signing a contract you do not get a price break and you get a locked phone that does not work with international SIMs...(PS many travelers use SIMs bought from airports all the time). Oh and should of known is not a defense nor is common sense...Also this guys lawyer already costs him more than 2,000 unless he is doing it pro bono whihch I doubt very much.
ha well half my classes were canceled for today...and most of the classes next week.
You want Apple to unlock the phone and price it more competitively? That is rather simple. Stop flocking to the AT&T store to pick up this new gizmo. Market demand will quickly fix it. Obviously there are more than enough people to buy a full priced locked phone and commit to a 2 year contract. The courts have no business dictating whether a phone is locked or unlocked yet alone wasting money on such a frivolous complaint.
Makes no sense to me. I can see how people would be irate about the iPhone being locked to AT&T but it's no different than XM radios being locked to XM and unusable without an active contract. One would not buy an XM radio to the use with Sirius. Not yet at least. And then, that same radio's satellite radio usage would not work without an active subscription. I hate to see the court's time being wasted with crap like this. What someone should do is try and get AT&T to not charge one the $175.00 fee for canceling a subscription early. I think that's the biggest act of unfairness in this whole deal.
Umm, haven't read through all the comments nor the suit, but if the case in fact states that he knew about foreign SIMs and knew that he could avoid roaming charges for other phones by using them, and he's a frequent traveler.
Looks like his argument is based on "a statement on Apple's iPhone website stating that '[y]ou can browse the Internet and send emails as often as you like without being charged extra.'"
So he's claiming that despite his knowledge of foreign SIMs, roaming charges, signing a contract and being a frequent traveler, he still maintains that the iPhone should be treated differently.
Sorry, ignorance in the first place isn't a defense, and in this case, he was hardly even ignorant of the situation!
The international roaming charges mr. kliegerman it could be argued are a result of his inability to unlock the phone.. but this is precisely why i don't buy an iphone since i visit europe often and know that my phone would be useless there unless it was unlocked and i could switch out the SIM card. Moral of this tale: the iphone is not a good solution for transcontinental users .
This guy's a lot smarter than you guys (for the most part) think. He saw an opportunity in Apple's strategy of locking the iPhone and is trying to take advantage of it.
As another poster mentioned above, I'm also surmising that the whole purpose for that trip to Mexico was to deliberately to rack up a 2000 dollar bill to file the class action lawsuit. He knows what he's doing. Good luck to him.
He also filed his suit in New York State, which has consumer protection laws all over the place. This suit could eventually force Apple to unlock iPhones for every person living in NY.