OCU starts legal procedures against mobile phone main manufactures

Madrid, 9th December 2015. Consumers and Users Organization (OCU) has started legal actions against the key mobile manufactures due to misleading advertising on their products’ memory capacity. The objective is to demand more clear information from manufactures on the real memory capacity on the mobile devices. Furthermore OCU requests for mobiles already sold either the possibility for the customers to delete apps or to obtain a compensation for those memory gigas not available to them.

 OCU points out that memory capacity are one of the mobile device key characteristics which a consumer evaluates in order to make their buying decision. OCU has identified through different lab tests that the available capacity is far less than they officially announced.

Mobile devices contained apps not requested by the consumers already installed and in most cases they cannot be removed. This means that the actual memory capacity is reduced considerably. And furthermore in many cases these apps are another source of income.

Test performed by OCU reveal that the real memory against advertised memory differs per company and depends on each mobile store capacity. Phone devices with less gigas (4 gigas or less and between 4-8 gigas) the memory “lost” can be up to 78% in same cases. This in practical terms means that the device will be useless in a short periord of time. Phones with 8 gigas the “lost” capacity is up to 70%.

In OCU’s opinion this misleading publicity causes a serious damage to consumers. This is why we summon mobile manufactures majority to modify their publicity urging them to reach a legal agreement. In the memo presented at court OCU demands them to modify their current publicity to show real memory capacity available to users.

 OCU requires also that users are able to remove the apps preinstalled in the device, so consumers can increase their memory capacity if they want to. In those cases were this option is not possible OCU requires a compensation for the “lost” gigas.

OCU has launched the campaign http://www.ocu.org/movilizate/no-tocar-gigas to get support from consumers to this legal procedure.

In our webpage we have available an online calculator to allow consumers to check their real mobile capacity and join our initiative.

OCU already report this practice to consumer authorities but as this type publicity has not changed we have initiated this legal action. We are going to submit as well the data provided by the consumers together with the expert advice; we want to obtain a fair compensation for those consumers affected by misleading publicity from mobile manufactures.

OCU does not discard extend this legal actions to other producers or mobile devices such as tablets or Pc.

For more information (media communications): Phone: 91 722 60 61  - ejimenez@ocu.org www.ocu.org