Phone manufacturer Samsung is under fire by a federal judge for allegedly putting out false information about the Samsung Galaxy 4, misrepresenting the total power available on the device. A federal judge most recently slammed the company for misleading customers about the product. Samsung has been confronted with a long-standing class action lawsuit led by plaintiff Daniel Norcia. In 2011 Norcia filed a lawsuit against the company saying that the features and capabilities of the Samsung S4 were “grossly misrepresented”. He also stated that Samsung led customers of the phone to believe that the S4 was more powerful than its competitors phones at that time. Although parts of the lawsuit have been dropped, the complaints about the power of the phone alleged by Norcia are still being upheld by courts.
Norcia complained, “Samsung also knew that if it artificially boosted the performance of its devices when running benchmarking apps, reviewers and the public would falsely believe that the Galaxy S4 was similarly fast in real-world situations. In reality, the processors in the Galaxy S4 run at a lower speed and the artificial performance boost disappears when the devices are performing real-world tasks instead of running benchmarking apps”
Samsung tried to fire back, attempting to move the case to arbitration court by arguing that the S4’s warranty specifically “forbid class actions lawsuits being brought.” Unfortunately, an appeals court dismissed the claim stating that the warranty isn’t imposed on the buyer, especially when introduced after the sale.
At a previous hearing on the case, U.S. District Judge James Donato said: “Samsung rigged the deck, fixed the game; and as a result of that, consumers were misled about the speed of the phone.”
