“Apple Inc., along with its chief executive and exclusive U.S. iPhone wireless partner AT&T, have been hit with a new lawsuit from a disgruntled customer who charges the trio with a variety of offenses stemming from the recent iPhone price cut,” Kasper Jade reports for AppleInsider.
“In the suit, filed Sept. 24 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Queens resident Dongmei Li accuses the parties of price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, deceptive actions, and other wrongdoings for their role in the Sept. 5th price drop on iPhone, which saw the handset’s price tag slashed an unprecedented $200 less than two months after its debut,” Jade reports.
“She, like thousands of others, the suit claims, is now the victim of price discrimination in that she cannot resell her iPhone for the same profit as customers who purchased the device after price drop. Similarly, she cannot trade up to 8GB model she had initially hoped to obtain and is now left with a product that has been discontinued,” Jade reports. “Li also feels cheated by Apple’s rebate policy because she was only offered a $100 store credit towards a future Apple store purchase when those customers who bought the same iPhone within a two week window period immediately preceding the cut received the full $200 refund under the company’s price protection policy.”
“‘Market conditions did not require Apple to change its price,'” Li’s attorney, C. Jean Wang of Wang Law Offices, PLLC wrote in the filing. ‘iPhone was selling very well because Apple’s stocks were increasing since August 16, 2007 and rose as high as $144.16 on September 4, 2007, the day before Apple announced that it was cutting the price of iPhone,'” Jade reports. “Li is requesting compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million, punitive damages in the amount to be determined at trial, and a court order that she is entitled to ‘threefold her damages, the costs involved in maintaining this action, and attorney’s fees.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Gman” for the heads up.]
We want a 73-foot tall talking pink bunny, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to get that, either. However, the chance we’ll get our wish significantly outweighs Li’s, since her attorney seems to think that stock price performance has some meaningful relationship to iPhone unit sales. Apple’s lawyers likely got a good laugh over this one before heading home for the weekend.
Did somebody say “tort reform?”
Oh for f*uck’s sake
1 million in compensation? For what, emotional damages?
\”C. Jean Wang of Wang Law Offices\”.
Is this anything like Rob Enderle of The Enderle Group?
[cough] A group of two! [/cough]
If the store credit was so bad that a lawsuit is called for, everyone participating th the suit should forfeit theirs and take their chances with the lawyers.
The lawyers, BTW, will clean up, while the whiners *might* end up with a $10.00 gift card.
Go ahead, make my day
Somebody pass me a 2 x 4… I feel the need to dispense some common sense.
sue sue sue sue sue so sue me.
my titanium lappy is now obsolete. i think i should sue apple for the price drop from a few years ago.
makes complete sense. the same with my car.
How do you get $1 million based on a price difference of (at most) $200? Emotional distress?
She was apparently OK with paying $499 for a 4GB model when she bought it. If Apple did not lower the price, she would continue to be OK with that price on September 5th. But Apple lowered the price, so she is actually up a $100 credit at the Apple Store; she’s not out $200 because that’s money already spent.
Crazy people…
Dongmei Li needs a Li-ttle spanking.
Tort! I am so sick of this crap.
Let’s see $499 for iPhone 4g
less restocking fee $75
$424 less $399 for new iPhone 8g
thats $25
She is suing because Apple will pay her $25 if she returns her old phone and gets a new phone.
Huhhhhhzhzhzhzhzh!!!!!!!!!
Uh Huh Huh You said Dongmei
What a country! What a company!
Only Apple could be sued for dropping prices! I think they should be sued for adding new features. I think we ought to sue everyone for adding new features! That means MS is safe!
I vote for the giant bunny. Let’s all get really baked first.
ONE MILLION?!! For what? So she can get an education?? Okay, that’s believable. Someone needs to be educated here and by the shear stupidity of this lawsuit it is going to take more than a million to educate this dumb rock of human being. SO SICK AND TIRED OF CLUELESS PEOPLE.
Can we just ship them off the planet? Seriously. We all have better things to do than end up paying for this stupid lawsuit through increased pricing.
^ Hey LOL, you IDIOT!
The word is SHEER, not SHEAR.
Talk about stupidity.
Missed opportunity.
If she had left her iPhone at the dry cleaners, she could have sued for hundreds of millions of dollars. Keep up people.
This is why our legal system needs to adopt a “loser pays” policy.
Notice the word ‘loser’ contains just a single ‘o’.
Kasper Jade.
Dongmei Li.
C. Jean Wang.
Sounds like the cast party for an Asian chopsocki flick.
– tclash . . . OUT!
How has our country (world) gotten so f***ed-up???? Tar and feather the lawyers!!!
Cull the race of plaintiffs and lawyers like this.
Whatever her hurt, the fact is she bought a product at a price she was happy to pay, and — importantly — it presumably continues to do the job she purchased it for.
My old SE/30 still works, but I don’t sue Apple because for half the price I can now buy a wango-tango 24″ iMac
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In the suit, filed Sept. 24 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Queens resident Dongmei Li accuses the parties of price discrimination, underselling, discrimination in rebates, deceptive actions, and other wrongdoings
A Mets fan. That figures! Those blowhards love to complain.
GO PHILLIES!
haaaaaa haa *said like nelson*
her name is Dongmei!
now, that my inner 7th grader has been satisfied, i think this is absolutely ridiculous. i have to agree with Dave Smith… why not sue every auto maker/dealer?? vehicles lose waaay more value in waaay less time (as in the moment you sign the dotted line), but no one seems to be dialing up lawyers over that… they just except it. it just blows my mind that ppl are so greedy and ridiculous… but then, it also blows my mind that i can even be remotely shocked at something like this. “i can’t sell my iphone for a profit now.” not crap, who buys something, uses it, and expects to sell for a profit?? a dumbarse… that’s who. if she bought 30 or ’em and turned around selling ’em on ebay new in the box, that would be a diff story. whatta idiot!
I have to say that I was hoping to sell the 4GB in short order to trade up, and was disgruntled to realize that the hit I’d planned to take had just gotten too big to be reasonable… But didn’t Capt. Steve-o say something about don’t drive in the technology lane if you don’t want to run out of gas, or something like that? Anyway. Whatever. The iPhone rules and since I don’t use it for video I figure 4GB will be fine for a long time.
Here in Europe you sometimes get the impression that everybody is suing everybody in the US, it seems suing is in someway a national pastime.
12(b)(6): failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.