Angry Consumers Start Class Action Suit Against RIM Over Outage

Earlier this month the network behind the popular Blackberry messaging service was out for days leaving users of Blackberry smartphones with no access to email, IM, and web surfing. RIM admitted at the time it had no idea what was causing the outage, but hacking was not the cause. After the service came back, RIM tried to soothe angry customers with free apps.

Free apps may have made some users feel better about the long outage, but for others free apps weren't the answer. Reuters reports that RIM has now been hit with a class action suit over the extended outage. The suit was filed Wednesday against RIM in a court in Santa Ana, California. The suit was filed on behalf of all Blackberry users in the US that had a service agreement for BBM services during the outage.

The suit alleges that RIM breached contract and claims negligence and unjust enrichment. A similar suit was filed in Canada on behalf of all Canadian Blackberry users. I suspect that we will see similar suits filed in other countries as well. The main plaintiff in the US suit is a man named Eric Mitchell from California. The suit claims the man had an implied contract with Blackberry even though the fees for the service were paid through Sprint.

[via Reuters]