Apple Earbuds Have Defective Charging, Alleges Class-Action Suit

Design deficiencies in Apple’s Powerbeat Pro wireless earbuds and their charging case cause “a significant percentage of users” to experience “battery draining and charging issues,” limiting the product’s “functionality and usage,” alleged New Yorker Alejandro Vivar in a fraud complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that seeks class-action status. Vivar bought the earbuds at a Best Buy store in the Bronx, believing their battery would last for the nine hours of listening time promised in Apple’s ads, and that both earbuds “would charge and maintain their charges equally,” unaffected by perspiration, said the complaint. But perspiration causes the charging contacts on the earbuds and in the case to corrode, “which contributes to a failure to charge,” it said. Customers who contact Apple about the corrosion are told it's due to “liquid ingress, which would be sweat,” it said. Apple will then “rely on its terms and conditions which purport to void any warranties based on liquid ingress, and the only option will be to pay for a costly repair,” the complaint said. Apple makes other misleading “representations” about the product, and “reasonable consumers must and do rely on a company to honestly identify and describe the components, attributes, and features of a product, relative to itself and other comparable products or alternatives,” the suit said. It alleges violations of the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act and breaches of California and New York consumer fraud laws. Apple didn’t comment Friday.