Settlement Good News for MotorolaV710 Owners 210
bluebanzai writes "When hordes of people bought up the Motorola V710 upon its release a year ago, Slashdot readers may remember many impressive features including the cutting edge Bluetooth features (picture/mp3 transfer, wireless syncing) as described on Motorola's website. However, when used with the popular Verizon Wireless cell phone service provider, many Bluetooth features were sadly crippled (apart from a wireless headset) because OBEX features had been purposely disabled by Verizon. Hundreds of people donated to a hacker rewards program to unlock the full features of the phone to the tune of $3000, but was never fully successful.
Well, one year later, the Los Angeles Superior Court (PDF Warning) and Verizon have announced the initial steps of a Class Action Lawsuit that appears to be influenced by the user community allowing everyone who bought it before the start of 2005 a few options for compensation--including a refund up to the purchase price of another phone which, interestingly enough, is a lot easier to hack."
How about... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about Verizon just stop crippling their customers and unlock the locked features?
thats the problem with US phone networks (Score:5, Insightful)
In any other part of the world, you buy your own phone from wherever you choose (even another country) and just plug in a sim card from your chosen provider and it just works.
If any provier here tried to pull those tricks, the market would take care of the problem very quickly.
Is GSM actually getting any foothold in the US market?
I got the mailling (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Current Verizon customers that want to keep the phone and the service may get a $25 credit to their bill.
2) Current customers who want to keep their service but not their phone may send it in for a refund.
3) Customers who cancelled their service and paid the cancellation fee can get a refund of the fee.
I am not sure why they just don't enable OBEX?! That is what everyone wanted in the first place.
Re:thats the problem with US phone networks (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't seem quite so bad, but they still do annoying things in the UK.
IE. you get a free phone from vodafone, it is locked to the vodafone network so you have to pay 10 quid down the local corner shop to get it unlocked if you want to use it on another network.
Then vodafone put firmware on it that maps various function keys to automatically launch the browser and go to their "live!" website, and you can't map the button to more useful functions, e.g. launch new txt msg.
Of course you can always pay full retail for non-network branded phone and just put your sim in that.
Greed IS Verizon's business model (Score:4, Insightful)
A. Verizon does business unlike any other carrier, and we make no apologies for that.
'we make no apologies for that' =Translation= We do what we want, when we want, and you do not matter.
'don't work with our business model' =Translation= It is much more profitable for us this way
'Every customer is certainly entitled to their own feelings.' =Translation= F You!!!
steps to profit (for lawyers only) (Score:3, Insightful)
Step 2: Find group of disgruntled customers and file class action suit, and let them pay you.
Step 3: Profit from step 1 & 2, with in step 2 the added bonus of a percentage of the settlement.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The MONOPOLY industry. (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically, we have an industry which makes loads of cash by preventing their customers from using technology to make things cheaper and more efficient. It is in the industry's interest to make sure that we download expensive ring tones and backgrounds from them, rather than simply using an MP3 or an image downloaded from the web.
In other words: This industry artificially maintains its profits by using what I consider to be highly immoral methods. If they did not have this choke hold on the market, the industry would shrink a lot and lots of people (investors, content owners...) would probably lose a whole lot of money.
It is almost like a cartel where various companies (content owners, mobile makers, etc.) get together to agree on how to squeeze the most money out of people and maximizing their own profits. Something like price fixing.
I am kind of wondering why no mobile maker has released a phone which lets the user do anything. Do they depend on content owners and network operators to make money?
Re:T-Mobile and Motorola (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you shop at Walmart, Target, Old Navy? Do you scour fatwallet or slickdeals? Do you shop for the cheapest broadband service? Well, why then would a manufacturer waste storeshelf space on really expensive stuff when you only buy cheap crap?
Showing prices after mailin rebates work in the US for a reason...because most people focus on price. Price at any cost. Maybe not you, maybe not me, but the majority of Americans, yes. Remember, this is the home of the Big Gulp and Costco. Where more=cheaper=better.
So if you're one of the rare Americans that buy high-quality stuff at high prices, then you shouldn't care that Verizon or Cingular doesn't offer some high-end phones. Go and buy your Bang and Olfsen CD case. Nor should you care that some Japanese import game isn't available in the US. You just buy them from some of the many numerous online vendors that sell them. And you buy your phone without the subsidy lock or your import PS2 without the discounts that come with volume. But since you don't care about price, you'll pay that right?
Until the market starts buying expensive phones (which the manufacturers would love to sell, by the way), the carriers won't waste the effort trying to sell them. When you see regular Americans (not early adopters) routinely pay $400 for a phone, carriers will be happy to offer that model.
You want to know where we beat virtually everyone else in the modern world? Gasoline prices (no taxes), SUV choices (cheap gas), home square footage (suburb living), grain production (subsidized farming). Folks paying $10/gallon find it annoying we complain so loudly about $3/gallon.
Do you really feel that bad that your fellow Americans don't have the option to buy some phone that you like? Or are you really upset that the majority of Americans don't feel as passionate about tech as you do and so you can't get a discount on your niche-market phone?
Welcome to slashdot.
Re:The MONOPOLY industry. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where I come from the carrier doesn't "activate" the phone. I just bung my SIM chip in and use it.
Isn't it funny that your free market has produced monopolies that screw the customer and our regulated one has produced competition?