Ram Olson Announces Class Action Over Alleged Defect In "Google Voice" Application
San Francisco, California (PRWEB) August 27, 2013 -- Ram, Olson, Cereghino & Kopczynski LLP, along with Himmelstein Law Network, announces the filing of a class action lawsuit against Google, Inc. over an alleged defect in its “Google Voice” application for Android-based smartphones and iPhones which caused users to be billed by their cell phone carriers for international calls that were supposed to go through the Google Voice system at much cheaper international rates. The complaint alleges that users have reported incurring as much as $700 in excess cell phone charges as a result.
On August 5, 2013, Google removed the case, Rabbi Allan Greene v. Google, Inc., Northern District of California case number 5:13-cv-03613-PSG, to federal court, stating that the complaint seeks damages which “far exceed” the $5 million requirement for federal jurisdiction.
The Google Voice application has been installed on over 10 million Android devices, and millions of iPhones. It allows users to make inexpensive international calls, by routing the call over the Google Voice system. When the user dials an international number, the application calls a US-based Google Voice access number, and the call is carried from there to its destination over the Google Voice system. Low per minute international charges are deducted from the credit balance in the user’s Google Voice account.
The class action complaint alleges that since its launch, the application has suffered from software defects, or “bugs,” which caused international calls that should have been routed through the Google Voice system to be routed instead through the cell phone carrier’s international calling system. The complaint alleges that as a result, users were billed for these international calls by their cell phone carriers at the carrier’s tariff rates, instead of having the per-minute charges deducted from their Google Voice accounts at Google’s lower international rates.
Users who paid cell phone charges for international calls that should have gone through Google Voice may visit http://www.ramolson.com for more information.
Barry Himmelstein, Himmelstein Law Network, http://www.himmellaw.com, +1 510-450-0782, [email protected]
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