How to complain to the FTC and/or FCC about deceptive advertising

[Poutnik]

Danny D. posted Sun, 6 Apr 2014 15:24:10 +0000 (UTC)

Well, we live in age of advertisement. Lies became fully tolerated behaviour. Vendors are used to say half truth at the best.

[trader_4]

Why can't the consumer turn on the phone when they first take possession and see how much free memory it has? I bet that if you went back in the first week and said I can't use this phone because my apps won't fit, they'd do something about it, like offer to switch you up to a better phone for the difference.

One problem with having that number available is that I'm sure it constantly changes with software loads, bug fixes, etc. And it sure isn't how it works with similar devices, eg a PC. They tell you that the PC has 6GB of RAM, 1TB of hard drive, not how much is free and available for either storing or running apps.

[trader_4]

A cell phone today has many characteristics of a similar consumer device, the PC. When you buy a PC and the manufacturer lists the specs that say 6GB RAM, 1TB hard drive, are they lying because not all of it is free and available to store or run apps? They've been selling them that was for 3 decades, AFAIK.

[Poutnik]

Poutnik posted Sun, 6 Apr 2014 17:40:39 +0200

Your cannot say it is the lie. It does have 4GB and it CAN be added by 32GB card.

It is rather a kind of half truth, hiding what you can do with them.

[trader_4]

I just checked my phone. You're right, chrome is a big app. On my phone it's 113MB. But.... That's the only app that's anywhere near that size. Next biggest is Google Search, which is 62MB and they quickly tail off in size after that. Total used is 670MB, with

1.3GB free.

So, where's the list of these other mega apps that are taking all your memory?

Sure, but again on my similar phone the total of all apps removable or not, is 670MB, with 1.3GB still free.

It can be augmented and used for photos, videos, music, etc. So, I wouldn't say it's exactly a lie.

Did you verify this was all you had when the phone was new, out of the box? Or did you wind up there after some period of time, with something possibly corrupted that is resulting in space being marked as used, when it's not, etc? Did you try doing a full restore on it? Take it to Tmobile, show them the problem and see what their tech says?

[VinnyB]

On Sun, 6 Apr 2014 08:41:13 -0700 (PDT), trader_4 wrote in

Good point.

[trader_4]

I wonder what he thinks when he sees a PC advertised with 6GB of RAM, 1TB of disk? They don't indicate how much is free, how much is used by the OS, recovery partition, any apps that are included, etc? Hell, even just formatting the drive reduces what's available. Same thing for many other consumer devices no? Like if you buy an iPod type device with 100MB, does that mean you actually have 100MB? That some of it isn't lost to formatting, the OS, etc? Not sure about the iPod stuff, but it sure works that way on PCs.

To be sure, the case he's talking about, the reduction is a lot more drastic, but the basic principle is still the same. I'm still wondering what apps he needs that take 600MB+ that he has available for whatever he wants. The typical stuff I've installed is maybe 5 - 20MB.

[Danny D.]

The device is unusable out of the box, so I have never put it into service (it was intended as a gift). It has zero user content.

The problem isn't the user content anyway (for that, there is the 32GB sdcard). The problem is that it is a 600MB phone, but if the carrier actually informed you of that limitation, you'd never have bought the phone (as a gift, or otherwise) in the first place.

That's why they lie about the memory.

Anyway, what's done is done. I'm working on unlocking the bootloader, which isn't as simple as it sounds:

[Danny D.]

The LG Optimus L9 already at factory default settings (because it was intended as a gift, but it's unusable as a smart phone).

Out of the box, the OS says there is 1.8GB but that's only what the OS thinks there is to start with.

The non-movable and non-deletable apps that come pre-installed on the phone use up 600 more megabytes, so, what you have "available" to the user, out of the box, is 600MB for app storage.

BTW, the first step to solving the problem is "unlocking the bootloader", which, as innocent as that sounds, turns out to be a bit confusing (so far) for the P769 that I have in my hands:

[Danny D.]

Depending on your OS, you probably have far less space available for apps on that phone than the 1.13GB indicates. For examnple, on my LG Optimus L9 (P769), the Android 4.1.2 OS indicates there is 1.8 GB, but, in reality, there is only half that, at 600MB.

So, be careful when you read what "available memory" is in an Android phone because the various versions of Android spit out different answers to the same question.

I can't tell you what that number is telling you without you telling us which Android operating system you have.

For the gory (hundreds of posts) details, see this thread: How do we get Android to spit out the true memory & storage situation?

Assuming you neither have an older or newer Android, what you're probably seeing is the available space after the OS is installed but *before* any pre-installed apps from the carrier are installed.

[Danny D.]

The carrier has disabled the ability to delete pre-installed apps.

Google, in Android 4.1.2, has disabled the ability to move apps to the 32GB sdcard.

So, when you say 'why don't you just delete the apps', what you're asking is "why not root the phone", which is what I'm exploring before I give it away as a gift.

The phone was always intended as a gift (as my Samsung Galaxy S3 doesn't exhibit this problem). But, at the moment, it's a useless $200 paperweight that I would never have bought had the carrier advertised it for what it is, which is a 600MB phone for apps.

Unfortunately, it appears that unlocking the bootloader on the P769 is one of the more difficult phones to unlock:

[Danny D.]

I have multiple documented phone calls to T-Mobile Customer and Technical Support personnel, all of which have their first names and their employee ID (all of which was posted in the FCC complaint).

They *always* say the usable memory is 4GB, plus you can add a 32GB sdcard.

Needles to say, the LG Optimus L9 is useless as a gift, so, I am seeking ways to fix it, the first step of which appears to be to unlock the bootloader.

Here's what I'm reading (it's over 100 pages long):

NOTE: Had the carrier told me it was a 600MB phone, I would never have bought this device!

[Danny D.]

I had started to compile the list, but then got sidetracked trying to figure out how to unlock the bootloader on the P769.

Here's the list I was compiling ... (the dashed ones I think were put there by T-Mobile, the doubledashed ones by LG, I think).

- 411 & more /system/app/411AndMore.apk 1.28MB

-- AAT /system/app/AAT.apk 898KB

-- Accessibility /system/app/LGSettingsAccessibility.apk 655KB

- Alarm/clock /system/app/LGAlarmClock.apk 13.66MB

- Amazon /system/app/AmazonShopping.apk 7.37MB

-- Android System /system/framework/framework-res.apk 6.25MB

- Application manager /system/app/AppBox.apk 898KB

-- Aspect Ratio correction /system/app/CompatibilityMode.apk 71KB

- Backup /system/app/LinkBackup.apk 5.97MB

-- Bluetooth Services /system/app/BluetoothServices.apk 595KB

-- Bluetooth Share /system/app/Bluetooth.apk 823KB

- Browser /system/app/LGBrowser.apk 9.86MB

- Calculator /system/app/LGCalculator.apk 1.69MB

- Calendar /system/app/LGCalendar.apk 5.65MB

-- Calendar Storage /system/app/LGCalendarProvider.apk 690KB

- Caller Tunes /system/app/CallerTunes.apk 1.74MB

- Camera /system/app/CameraApp.apk 5.24MB

-- Camera Test /system/app/CameraTestApp.apk 114KB

-- Certificate Installer /system/app//CertInstaller.apk 61KB

- Chrome /data/app/com.android.chrome-1.apk 74.58MB

- CMAS /system/app/CMAS.apk 593KB

- Contacts /system/app/LGContacts3.apk 13.38MB

- Contacts Storage /system/app/LGContactsProviders3.apk 2.14MB

- Downloads /system/app/LGDownloadProviderUi.apk 161KB

-- Download Manager /system/app/LGDownloadProvider.apk 438KB

-- DRM Protected Content Storage /system/app/DrmProvider.apk 51KB

-- DRM Service /system/app/DrmService.apk 86KB

- Email /system/app/LGEmail.apk 9.27MB

- Email Widget /system/app/EmailWidget.apk 870KB

-- Face Unlock /system/app/FaqceLock.apk 992KB

- Facebook /system/app/Facebook.apk 24.77MB

-- Favorite Contacts Widget /system/app/FavoriteContactsWidget.apk 598KB

- File manager

- FileShare

- Gallery

- Game Base

- Games 7.50MB

- Gmail

- Google

- Google settings

- Google+

- Local

- Lookout Security

- Maps

- Memo

- Messaging

- Messenger

- Music

- Navigation

- Phone

- Play Books

- Play Magazines

- Play Movies & TV

- Play Music

- Play Store

- Polaris Office 4

- Scout

- Settings

- Setup

- Slacker Radio

- Smartphone Mobile Hotspot

- SmartShare

- T-Mobile My Account

- T-Mobile Name ID

- T-Mobile TV

- Talk

- Task Manager

- Videos

- Visual Voicemail

- Voice Recorder

- Voice Search

- Weather

- YouTube

- Zynga Games

[Danny D.]

Funny you mention that because T-Mobile said the same thing. And, in California, I get a full month to return the phone, I believe.

The problem, in my case, is that it was sent to someone as a gift, and I didn't get it back as unusable until after that - and worse yet - precious time was lost calling T-Mobile who repeatedly said (they lied) that we could move apps to the SD card.

I have archived their support emails saying this, and I referenced them in my FTC and FCC complaints.

T-Mobile purposely mislead the consumer, because no consumer would buy the phone if they knew it only allowed 600MB of app storage.

[Danny D.]

That's exactly what I've done for the other gift phone: Should I take T-Mobile's offer of swapping the $240 LG F3 with the Nexus 5 (+ $160)

In that thread, you will see that T-Mobile has agreed with me that the LG Optimus F3 (also bought as a gift) has the same problem as the LG Optimus L9, such that T-Mobile offered to trade the F3 in at its full $240 value for a

16GB Nexus 5 (at $400, plus tax).

So, my $240 gift has now turned into a $400 gift (each plus about 10% tax) simply because they lied to me when I asked how much usable memory was on the phone.

Since I bought the LG Optimus F3 from T-Mobile, they made good on it, even though it was returned to them six months after it was bought (albeit at additional cost to me); however, the T-Mobile locked LG Optimus F3 was not bought at a T-Mobile store.

Both phones were bought as gifts, but both are unusable as smart phones, simply because the available memory is less than a gigabyte.

T-Mobile knows this. They try to keep it from you for as long as they can; otherwise, you'd never buy these phones.

That's the whole point of the complaint to the FCC/FTC. All I want T-Mobile to do is tell the truth.

[Danny D.]

We all agree on that, but we also must agree that PC operating systems and pre-installed apps take up roughly around 100MB of that 1TB hard disk, and so it's not in the same league as an Android OS and apps that take up 3.6GB of a 4GB ROM.

[Danny D.]

I must agree.

So maybe I should ask the FCC/FTC mandate that they state a minimum amount of usable memory to the consumer?

For example, like they do on potato chip bags or boxes of cereal or mass-produced items in bulk.

Something akin to: "Contains at least 600MB of available internal memory"

[trader_4]

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who finds it hard to believe that the phone is unusable, right out of the box. Even by your own math, it has 600MB of free space. What is unusable about that? And even if it was "unusable", because you intended to put some apps that take 600MB+ on it, did you take it right back to Tmobile and what did they say?

Why not? I've installed lots of apps on my similar Android. My *total* installed apps, not just what I installed, but also what came preloaded, is 670MB. Meaning I've loaded maybe a couple hundred MB. I'd be very happy with your phone as a gift.

And my 4GB phone still has 1.3GB *free*, which is why I suspect either there is something corrupted on the phone or you're doing something very unusual.

We still have yet to hear what the user added apps are that require 600MB+? Just give us a list from the system of the major apps and how much they are using.

[trader_4]

How do you know there is only 600MB free, vs the reported 1.8GB free?

Different versions are going to take up different amounts of space. You probably don't have an apples to apples comparison of the same phone, same apps, with one version vs another, anyway, which would be difficult to do.

All I see there are people saying that various utilities give differing numbers. No one seems to be saying that their phones are unusable out of the box, that they can't install a reasonable amount of apps, etc.

I really doubt that.

[trader_4]

You know what really stinks at this point? Your continued insistance that the phone was intended as a gift and it was "unusable". Yet despite all the bitching, you have yet to tell us what exactly the apps were that require more than 600MB for the smartphone to be "usable". Somehow I smell a rat, like this phone was intended to be used for some kind of special apps, that require an especially large amount of memory and you bought an entry level phone. Without giving us a simple list of the big apps that were to be installed but couldn't be and hence render this phone unusable, this whole thing is a circle jerk.

As for not buying such a phone, as I've pointed out, my total app load on my Android, including Google Chrome and every app that came pre-loaded, plus all that I put on it, is only ~600MB. So, a phone that gave me space for 600MB of my own apps, would be perfectly fine.