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Consumers in an iMessage class action lawsuit recently urged the court to deny arbitration bids filed by Apple and T-Mobile.
The plaintiffs are fighting to preserve their class action lawsuit which alleges that Apple and T-Mobile breached their privacy by linking Apple IDs to recycled phone numbers – resulting in iMessage texts and FaceTime calls intended for other people. According to plaintiffs Tigran Ohanian and Regge Lopez, their claims should not be sent to arbitration for several reasons.
First, the plaintiffs note that Apple is attempting to compel arbitration through an arbitration provision in T-Mobile’s terms and conditions opposed to their own agreements. The plaintiffs contend that their allegations against Apple have nothing to do with T-Mobile’s terms and conditions. Further, due to a lack of a “close relationship” between the companies, the plaintiffs say that these terms and conditions cannot be applied to the tech giant.
“Apple relies solely on an arbitration provision contained in purported ‘agreements’ with Ohanian and Lopez embodied in T-Mobile’s terms and conditions that does not once even mention Apple to advance conclusory assertions that it can compel arbitration with them,” the plaintiffs contend in their arbitration opposition.
The plaintiffs also rejected T-Mobile’s bid for arbitration, finding that the company’s terms and conditions do not count as a “signed contract” due to their generic nature which does not meet the “threshold burden of establishing the very existence of an agreement to arbitrate.”
Ohanian and Lopez argue that, based on these points, the court cannot compel arbitration in this case.
The plaintiffs filed their iMessage class action lawsuit in July, claiming that they had received text messages which were not intended for them. Ohanian says he received over 100 iMessage texts and FaceTime calls which were actually intended for Lopez.
These calls and texts allegedly had serious consequences for both men. On Ohanian’s side, his marriage was allegedly affected when he started to receive pictures from another woman of Lopez’s child – pictures that Ohanian simply was unable to explain. On Lopez’s part, he says he can never get back those pictures and memories of his son since they were redirected to a stranger.
The problem allegedly stems from T-Mobile’s practice of recycling old phone numbers for new users. Due to a software problem on Apple’s end, the first user of the phone number can reportedly still remain connected to the phone number through their Apple ID.
After Ohanian reached out to Apple for help, the company reportedly told him that he would need to manually disconnect the older phone number from his Apple ID.
The plaintiffs say that, in addition to their emotional injuries from the situation, they also sustained financial injury since they paid more for their iPhones and T-Mobile service than was fair due to these defects.
According to the plaintiffs, this experience could have been common for over 1 million consumers. As such, they seek to represent a Class of consumers who purchased T-Mobile SIM cards for the iPhone devices and who, as a result, received messages intended for a different person or had their information shared without their consent.
On behalf of themselves and the proposed Class, Ohanian and Lopez sought relief in their iMessage class action lawsuit under New York’s General Business laws and other laws regarding fraudulent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment.
Apple and T-Mobile responded to these allegations in September with a motion to compel arbitration. Unlike litigation in a court, arbitration is a private process which resolves the claims against a company. Although both avenues provide a way to resolve the claims, arbitration makes it impossible for plaintiffs to bring allegations on behalf of a Class of thousands of consumers.
According to Apple and T-Mobile, T-Mobile’s terms and conditions imposed contractual obligations onto the plaintiffs to resolve their claims through private arbitration. Apple argued that these terms also applied to the plaintiffs’ claims against the tech giant since the allegations involved the use of T-Mobile SIM cards.
“This alleged problem, according to plaintiffs, occurred only when consumers used both an iPhone’s iMessage or FaceTime applications and a recycled T-Mobile SIM card,” the arbitration motion noted.
Did you receive messages through iMessage which were not intended for you? Share your experiences in the comment section below.
Plaintiffs and the proposed Class are represented by Aaron J. Solomon and Christopher J. Rados of Oved & Oved LLP.
The iMessage Mix Up Class Action Lawsuit is Ohanian, et al. v. Apple Inc., et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-05162, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
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51 thoughts onConsumers in iMessage Class Action Lawsuit Urge Court to Deny Arbitration Bids
Add me please.
I have gotten several iMessages that weren’t for me over the past 4-5 years
Please add me I’ve been having this issue. I thought the lines were crossed.
Very similar issues. Noted.
I even got photos of other people…the location said Bangladesh… I’m from Virginia
Please add me.
4 iPhone add me
How do I participate? I have 2 iphones from tmobile.
Add me please!
This actually explains a lot for me now. I had to change my number as I was receiving text messages from a woman’s children who had killed herself. On the anniversary of her death, they would text her saying how much they missed her. I also was receiving calls about her student loan debt. Can I be added?