Could someone shed some light on this Seagate Law Suite email I just received

RangerXML

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Apr 16, 2006
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I just checked my email work and I found this email by the Settlement Claim Administrator. Looks like a phishing scam to me. I love what this suite is about, users getting 7% less then they claim and the fact that you could receive not just money, but also software makes it all that much more legit (sarcasm off). Anyways with no more delays, my new favorite phishing scam:

Notice of Seagate Hard Drive Class Action and Proposed Settlement
Settlement Claim Administrator <[email protected]>

If you purchased a Seagate brand hard disc drive between March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007, a proposed class action settlement may affect you. A hearing has been scheduled in San Francisco Superior Court to approve the settlement. Under the settlement, you may have the right to make a claim for cash or software. You also may choose to exclude yourself from the settlement. Alternatively, you may file written objections to the settlement and appear (or have your own attorney appear) at the court hearing. If the settlement is approved and you do not exclude yourself, you give up the right to sue for the claims the settlement resolves, and you will be bound by the terms of the settlement. To learn more about or exercise any of your rights, please read below and visit www.harddrive-settlement.com.

The lawsuit is Cho v. Seagate Technology (US) Holdings, Inc., San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. 453195. In the suit, the plaintiff alleges that in the sale and marketing of hard disc drives, Seagate stated that purchasers of the drives would receive approximately 7% more usable storage capacity than they actually received. Seagate has denied and continues to deny each and all of plaintiff's claims, and denies that anyone has been harmed or deserves compensation. The Court has not made a decision on the merits.

You are a member of the settlement class if, between March 22, 2001 and September 26, 2007, you purchased in the United States a new Seagate brand hard disc drive from an authorized Seagate retailer or distributor, separately as a Seagate product that was not pre-installed into and bundled with a personal computer or other electronic device.

As part of the settlement, Seagate will make certain disclosures regarding the storage capacity of its retail hard drives.

In addition, if you submit a valid claim, you will receive free backup and recovery software, or a cash payment equivalent to five percent of the net amount you paid for the hard drive (excluding taxes or rebates). To receive the software or the cash payment, you must submit a claim form available at www.harddrive-settlement.com by March 10, 2008. You may submit a claim form for each qualifying drive you purchased. To obtain the cash payment, you must have purchased your drive before January 1, 2006 and you must submit appropriate documentation or the serial number for each drive.

If the settlement is approved, plaintiff's counsel will apply for an award of attorneys' fees, expenses and incentive awards not to exceed $1,792,000, to be paid separately from and in addition to the benefits available to settlement class members.

All claims of settlement class members which were or could have been asserted in the litigation, based upon the facts alleged in the litigation (as well as in a related case entitled Lazar v. Seagate Technology LLC, et al., San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. 439700; and California Court of Appeal, Case No. A116350) will be released. This means that if you do not exclude yourself from the settlement class, you will give up the right to sue for the claims the settlement resolves, and you will be bound by the terms of the settlement.

If you do not want to participate in this class action or be bound by this settlement you must exclude yourself from the settlement class by submitting a written request for exclusion which includes your full name and address and your request to be excluded from the class. Mail your request for exclusion to Hard Drive Settlement, c/o Rust Consulting, Inc., P.O. Box 1240, Minneapolis, MN 55400-1240. Your written request for exclusion must be received by December 21, 2007. If you exclude yourself, you will not receive the benefits of the settlement, and you cannot object to the settlement.

If you wish to object to the settlement, appear at the settlement hearing, have your own attorney appear at the settlement hearing, or intervene in the case, you must file your objection, request to appear, or request to intervene with the San Francisco Superior Court located at 400 McAllister Street, San Francisco, California 94102 and you must send copies to the attorneys for both parties. The plaintiff's attorney is Brian R. Strange, Strange & Carpenter, 12100 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1900, Los Angeles, CA 90025. Seagate's attorney is Peter S. Hecker, Heller Ehrman LLP, 333 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA 94104. For additional detailed instructions go to www.harddrive-settlement.com. All objections and requests to appear or intervene must be received by the court and attorneys by December 21, 2007.

DO NOT CONTACT THE COURT OR SEAGATE CONCERNING THIS NOTICE OR THIS LAWSUIT. If you would like more information about this notice or this case, please visit www.harddrive-settlement.com. If you do not have internet access, you may request additional information by mail from counsel for plaintiff, as set forth above.
 
Why would you assuming it's phishing? If it was phishing, they'd have bad grammar or misspellings. Plus, they'd ask you for a bank account number or something.

It's a class action suit, just like the DRAM class action that I still get letters about every now and again. Find your receipt and get your ~$1.50 or some software. The lawyers are the only folks who make out on these class actions. This is basically a suit about the whole 1000 vs. 2^10.
 
Basically after reading it, someone is suing Seagate for using metric notation on there measurement for hard drive capacity instead of binary.

Metric "Giga" = 10^9 = 1,000,000,000
Binary "Giga" = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824

Windows measures disk capacity using binary notation, whereas Seagate (and every other HDD maker) uses metric. So a 250GB harddrive is ~232GB in Windows (if I did my math right).

This suit is really hokey, but it looks like Seagate is going to settle from what I read in those documents.
 
My friend got an email about this too. I think if you ever RMAed to Seagate or registered a hard drive you bought with them, you got the email.

If they went after Seagate, why not go after Microsoft for calculating storage size in binary instead of metric in Windows? :rolleyes:

devman said:
This suit is really hokey, but it looks like Seagate is going to settle from what I read in those documents.

I just googled and it looks like Seagate is offering customers one of two choices - 5% back or hard drive recovery software.
 
Hmmm...another 5% rebate...I should crack some of my PCs and Notebooks open and see where I have a Seagate drive (j/k). This is a bullshit lawsuit!
 
Western Digital settled a similar suit based on consumer ignorance of the difference between 10^9 and 2^30 a little while ago.

1 GB = 10^9 B
1 GiB = 2^30 B

1 GB = 10^9 / 2^30 GiB =~ 0.93 GiB =~ "7% less"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte

The terms of their settlement were such that anyone in the US who had bought a WD HD within the noted period was entitled to a free download of EMC Retrospect Express (Windows or Mac).

http://www.wdc.com/settlement/docs/document20.htm
 
I got this too. I've actually RMA'd the same model Seagate 400GB twice, the third one's been going strong for nearly 2 years though.

Absolutely frivolous lawsuit, but it's probably Seagate's own fault for not pointing out the difference between GB and GiB on the packaging.
 
why just segate?

and I heard that drives that come preinstalled in a machine you bought aren't eligible. Even if I did had drives that were, I hardly think I would....it sucks, but I don't think this is the best way to go about changing it if you're really that pissed off about it.
 
Hmm it says on all products order until Sep 2007, but for cash its only until Jan 06? Well that sucks :p
 
Let's see, you get 5% of the purchase price(if you still have a receipt).
or some software.
The law firm representing some whiny ass who doesnt know that there is even a difference in measurement of storage capacity.......gets no less than 1.7 Million dollars.

Sheeeesh......but then again, Microsoft just paid 240 million for 1.6% share of Facebook.:eek:

(I'm going to go spill some hot coffee on myself.......wait, somebody did that already.....)
 
Absolutely frivolous lawsuit, but it's probably Seagate's own fault for not pointing out the difference between GB and GiB on the packaging.

Probably their own fault? On the retail box it says specifically 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes.

This is a complete BS lawsuit, I hope Seagate fights it.
 
A binary gigabyte should have stayed a gigabyte and not changed to the lame 'gibibyte' term. This is what happens when people change term around long after they are well known. The metric measurement should have gotten the weird name.
 
Probably their own fault? On the retail box it says specifically 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes.

This is a complete BS lawsuit, I hope Seagate fights it.

They only put that on the box within the last few years, and in small print. WD lost, a nearly identical lawsuit a while back. I would expect other suits against hd manufacturers to follow this one.

I would rather hd manufacturers were just ordered to use the same metric used by Win, Nix, and Unix based OS's. Deceptive marketing is everywhere, and it sucks.
 
Somebody get the the guy suing a pacifier...he's nothing but a whine bag mamma's boy! Waaahhh, it's not fair, I didn't get my 500Gigs!!!

I wouldn't even participate in a lawsuit this ridiculous!
 
So.. if I lived in the USA... I would get a total of $5 back. That's not even worth my time. I'm quite glad I am not eligible.
 
Screw it. I've bought many Seagate hard drives, and they're a great company.

Not worth $20 or $100.

I'd urge that nobody sign up for this, because the lawyers' fees are probably based on a % of the settlement amount. If nobody signs up, then seagate pays less.
 
I totally agree. I'm all for free stuff, but this suit is ridiculous. I hope not too many people register for the "settlement".
 
So much misinformation and misinterpretation in your responses so far...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like this settlement has already been reached and agreed upon between these two parties. The only thing left appears to be a final hearing and finalization of the settlement by the courts. From briefing these documents, it looks like this will be happening and you will be able to sign up and get your software/cash.

I don't think anything you do will affect the amount of money the lawyers or plaintiff will receive from this settlement. Your piddly 5% request is a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.7 something the plaintiff's lawyers will be raking in. Remember, this lawsuit started before the hard drive manufacturers were clearly defining their Gigabyte or GB calculations. Today, it's obvious. Back then, it wasn't.

---

Now, I am NOT a lawyer, nor do I have any experience in the field. I simply read a little deeper than the short summary and am stating how the documents read to me. I would most certainly concede to anyone claiming to understand this more thoroughly than myself.
 
I'm not an expert here but don't our computers recognize the drives as having the advertised space before formating? and its the formating file table that takes the space and not different gig measurements?

If the library holds 100 gigs "10" of those gigs goes to the Dewey Decimal System (file table) so the computer knows "where physically on the platter" all the files are, or something like that at least.

you could argue the drives are worthless unless formated, but i mean technically thats not the drive manufacturers fault or problem.
 
I'm not an expert here but don't our computers recognize the drives as having the advertised space before formating? and its the formating file table that takes the space and not different gig measurements?

If the library holds 100 gigs "10" of those gigs goes to the Dewey Decimal System (file table) so the computer knows "where physically on the platter" all the files are, or something like that at least.

you could argue the drives are worthless unless formated, but i mean technically thats not the drive manufacturers fault or problem.

no,

with computers 1024mb = 1gb
with hdd man. 1000mb=1gb

I don't see how this is just seagate's fault. Everyone needs to agree to a standard numbering system I think. All the same, this is an idiotic lawsuit. He needs to be suing all the hard drive man. if he goes down this road.

I don't see how this could be any more or less obvious than it has been in the past. People like us know these things, people who pay people like me to install the hard drive don't. Guy probably wanted to see what this "my computer" thing was and then was upset when he saw a number lower than what the box said....
 
I'd love to get 5% back on the 50+ $100+ drives that I alone am eligible for, but I don't have the time/patience to fill out the online form 50+ times! I'm not going to punish Seagate for doing what the ENTIRE hard drive industry did.

Just say nay! :p
 
The only winners in class-action lawsuits are the lawyers who get millions of dollars in fees. Every one else gets a bone (or gets boned).
 
Class action lawsuits like this are stupid... Makes me want to punch the guy in the face that started the class action lawsuit.

Oops.. now I'm gonna get sued LOL.

I hope Cho is happy with the 5% that he makes from this completely wasteful endevour.

They need to start putting a disclaimer label on all products that says.

"We will not be held liable for your ignorance."

and

"If you have any additional questions about this product, please call xxx-xxx-xxxx before purchasing. Failing to do so will forfeit any and all liability of the maker of this product in regards to the end user not understanding exactly what the product is, the products specifications, or not knowing how to use the product."

I think that should pretty much eliminate any possibility of these idiots starting frivilous lawsuits in the first place.
 
All objections and requests to appear or intervene must be received by the court and attorneys by December 21, 2007.


I'd love to see a hundred individuals show up in support of Seagate. :eek:

:)"Your honor... the plaintiff is a lawsuit-happy MORON.":D

I don't hold it against an individual for not knowing metric vs binary. It happens. I do have a problem with the individual deciding to sue when they could have just asked for help, read a manual pamphlet, back of a box, or asked online. Why not sue the BIOS mfr's or Microsoft for using a non-metric measurement?:rolleyes:

I'm pretty sure this was also the case for my first hard drive which I had to input the paramaters into the BIOS... Box packaging didn't quite match up with the final windows size. I re-read the fine print, and it had the notice on there... Maxtor 540MB drive from back in '94.
 
Don't all HDD makers use binary for advertising capacity on the box? Why is Seagate getting singled out for this?
 
Actually, I felt the same as the OP and ended up deleting it.



Why would you assuming it's phishing? If it was phishing, they'd have bad grammar or misspellings. Plus, they'd ask you for a bank account number or something.

It's a class action suit, just like the DRAM class action that I still get letters about every now and again. Find your receipt and get your ~$1.50 or some software. The lawyers are the only folks who make out on these class actions. This is basically a suit about the whole 1000 vs. 2^10.
 
Ithink I'll file for this one. Never felt it worth-while, but I've bought about 12 Seagate drives from Newegg over the period :)



My friend got an email about this too. I think if you ever RMAed to Seagate or registered a hard drive you bought with them, you got the email.

If they went after Seagate, why not go after Microsoft for calculating storage size in binary instead of metric in Windows? :rolleyes:



I just googled and it looks like Seagate is offering customers one of two choices - 5% back or hard drive recovery software.
 
Holy crap 5% back?

I must go check my drives at once, I got all the reciepts... I have a ton of these drives and I can remember paying $500+ for each of them. :D
 
Don't all HDD makers use binary for advertising capacity on the box? Why is Seagate getting singled out for this?

The box uses decimal, since the manufacturers can use decimal to report 300 GB rather than 279 GB (binary). Operating systems will see the capacity in terms of binary.

Western Digital has been sued about this as well, and they settled as well.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060630-7174.html

And as always, the lawyers got half a million, everyone else got maybe cash or software.
 
I don't see why everyone is getting mad at the plaintiff, if you think about hard drives are the only component that gets away with this scam (yes its a scam to people that don't know the difference, its deceptive and we all know it). If you only got 1000mb of your supposed 1024mb ram you would be pissed, same thing on a video card and a processor. If all memory and cache is measured the same on a pc why should the hard drive be any different? Was suing the right thing? No, but neither was putting the BS Gb term on the box. Its an imperfect solution to an imperfect world.
 
I'm not down with suing people[under circumstances such], but the system of measure for hard-drives (hardware in general, as well) is confusing for many of the layfolk who buy this stuff, the ones who don't generally build computers but are comfortable enough with hooking up a hard-drive as an upgrade for their Dell.

Why not just put the windows recognized storage space on the front of the box? Add some decimals in and all of a sudden it's even more "techy" and there's no discrepancies to confuse people with.

Anyone purchasing anything surely understands decimals to the hundredth. Leave the binary vs metric discussion for the tech forums.
 
Yep, pretty shady for HD manufacturers to do that. Now it's gonna be pretty costly.
 
While I could really use the money, I am not going to file either as this is a waste of time for Seagate and all those idiots out there should have done some research before purchasing the drive.

This would be like saying that Shell gas is the most fuel efficient and yet I drive a 74 Charger and still get crappy gas mileage. It makes absolutely no sense why this suit even went to court, let alone Seagate losing it.
 
This would be like saying that Shell gas is the most fuel efficient and yet I drive a 74 Charger and still get crappy gas mileage. It makes absolutely no sense why this suit even went to court, let alone Seagate losing it.

This is nothing like that, are some of you people crazy? It would be like having a 74 charger and filling up at the Shell and only being able to fill your tank 13 gallons even though you were told it has a 15 "gallon" tank because manufacturer uses a different gallon measurement. Seriously some of you people that flame the plaintiff are crazy.
 
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