Here is the proof, it is listed at one of the highlight features...so who thinking class action?

I have the entire thing so if we need anything else scanned...also I'm posting this to BlackBerryForums, PinStack, HowardForums and CrackBerry so cross-ref links follow:

CrackBerry: Proof that VZW advertised the 8830 with GPS - BlackBerry Forums at CrackBerry.com
PinStack: Proof that VZW advertised the 8830 with GPS - RIM Blackberry Forums - Pinstack.com
HowardForums: HowardForums: Your Mobile Phone Community & Resource - Proof that VZW advertised the 8830 with GPS

And that advertisement is accurate. There is built-in GPS in the 8830.
It's used for 911 services. Nowhere in the advertisement does Verizon indicate that the GPS can be used for any other purpose, including navigation assistance.

Additionally, the ad indicates "Coming soon", which means that the ad ran before the product was introduced to market. It's very common for released products to have different featuresets than originally planned.

You can keep trying, but you're not likely to find any "proof" that Verizon misled or defrauded the public.
Take your class-action crap somewhere else. Nothing to see here.

BFEINZIMER: I too am extremely disappointed in the lack of GPS and share your pain, I must however, agree with penguin3107. I let it go about a month ago and find myself getting much better sleep at night now.

I agree w/ Penguin3107, that's not going to get a class action as there will be little to no way to prove people saw that or were told anything other than Emergency GPS services.

Although I think the above might be usable by current customers when and if VZW releases VZNavigator for some free months of service... or something.

-Pk

Probably, but don't expect it to be free. I'm sure this was Verizon's plan all along.

All of the other phones on the page also have GPS - for Emergency Services. But none of them have the GPS pointed out like the 8830. It would appear (at least in this ad) that VZW was attempting to point out something other than an Emergency Services GPS.

Just an observation.

tomtheguitarguy

Lighten up, Penguin3107. While I agree that there's no fraud, we're still entitled to be irritated that there's a significant function built into the 8830 that we can't use.

Besides, you're not even a Verizon customer, so why all the angst?

^^^ What he said. You guys can turn this every which way you want to make it seem like Verizon is not going anything wrong. These endless threads about this is proof positive that people are not happy and want to push this as far as possible. Maybe if more people contacted Consumer Advocate Agencies or places of media coverage about this problem along with the FTC we'd see some action taken on this.

You can look at it either way, but the ad is written to be shown that it has a built in GPS, something special and diffferent...and then they pulled a 180...

Just some proof

You're entitled to be irritated whenever you want.
But that's not the point of this thread, is it?

The OP clearly stated that this is PROOF that Verizon is advertising fully functional GPS in the 8830, and could be used in a class-action lawsuit. It's simply not proof of anything, and this is far from a litigous issue.

The ad is pre-prerelease advertisement, which has absolutely zero legal binding.

My angst with this topic has more to do with this forum being flooded topics such as these, which all say the exact same thing. There's no need to start more duplicate topics which only end up as flame wars.

I support an enterprise wireless network of over 100 Verizon BlackBerry devices... several of which are 8830 handhelds. I don't need to use the device personally in order to be familiar with the GPS "controversy" regarding the 8830.

I may not agree with Verizon's decision to cripple GPS... but what bothers me even more are the crybabies and whiners who think they can change the world with threats of class-action lawsuits which, in the end, only result in the lining of the pockets of lawyers who could not care less about your personal plight.

The bottom line is that people who bought the 8830 with the intention of using it for GPS navigation simply didn't do their due diligence in making sure the device suited their needs before they purchased. Caveat emptor.

This topic has been discussed to death and it's simply time for people to move on.

Go with another carrier and another device if you need fully-functional GPS.

Ok first, they put the ad they it has a functioning GPS, the law states all phones must be capable of doing E911 so why would they put that as a highlighted feature? Plus, I was just addressing the fact that something like this might result in a class action. Remember the v710?
I'm not an idiot, I've had Verizon for years and delt with their crap. This was just so people who said that Verizon never claimed a GPS could be proved wrong. (In the nicest manner) This is the only topic of its kind. Check out my history on HowardForums and see what I've done before.
I was involved in the Moto v710 suit. I got cash back from that, and now look, the phones can do a little bit more with their Bluetooth, so it does result in something.
Again, this is the only topic of its type.

That's BS man and if you think about it for a sec you'd realize that it's just as trivial to think that by doing this it'll change Verizon's way of doing business. If you think everyone making threats of lawsuits and complaining to media/legal resources about the problem is a trivial way of getting Verizon to change their tactics on the matter so is your way of thinking. Changing to another carrier isn't going to cripple VZW's cashflow enough to do squat. Even if you took everyone that bought an 8830 and moved them to a new carrier it wouldn't do squat. Yeah, your idea is just as trivial.

Also, honestly, if a class action lawsuit forced VZW to enable the GPS to full functionality I could care less who's pockets got lined, because unfortunatly we live in a country where unless you have a lot of money, the average joe needs to escalate their lawsuits to "class action" status in order to be able to get the lawsuit financed enough to stand against the big dogs.

And the more of these threads we have with various points and documentation being shown the better. It shows that people want this to change. One big thread burried in the GPS Forums (idiot move BTW) is not the way to get viewable traffic on this.

blah blah blah say something new you sound like a broken reocord.. keep calling the mods idiots i cant wait till they ban you

Frankly, the ad says "Built-in GPS". And nothing more. And it isn't a lie either as the phone does have GPS, built-in. Just because you can't do with the GPS what you'd like to do with it, doesn't mean VZW is lying.

Although Penguin is being a little difficult, I can't say I disagree. If GPS is such an important feature, why not take an extra 2 minutes with the rep to verify that both the GPS hardware and software necessary to conduct the important GPS tasks you need, are available?

You can't rely on a print ad all the time you have to do a little bit of work for yourself. Most of these ads have a "Not responsible for typographical errors" footnote somewhere anyway.

Bottom line. If there is a product feature that is a requirement for you, might be a good idea to see if the product has that feature BEFORE you buy it. Not after. And as always, get it in writing.

We can argue semantics. After reading your posts, it is my perception that you are much more knowledgeable than the average consumer which would be me. If you are providing a feature and it is your top of the line device at the time, it is my expectation that it would be available.
It is not as if, they have an 8840 model which does have the service enabled.

That's the whole point. The "product" as release by "RIM" does have this feature. The "product" as "resold" by "Verizon and ONLY Verizon" does not have this feature. Not only that, but every single freaking Blackberry that has GPS built in and sold by Verizon has had it's GPS disabled. How is this "alright" by everyone's standards? Someone explain that to me? I think you all are just brainwashed.

BTW, ABC Car Dealership has a brand spanking new BMW530 with factory cruise control to sell you.... unfortunatly they've disabled the cruise control until they feel like they can charge you to use it. Would you agree with something like this? I didn't think so.

Verizon is also doing a pretty good job of "false representation of product capabilities" when it sends it to public reviewers which test the product and publish their findings to boost sales for VZW. Check out this thread. RIM BlackBerry 8830 World Edition Review - Brighthand.com Smartphone and PDA Discussion Forums

When I bought my 8830, I knew the GPS had been disabled. I was irritated, but I made the move anyway since the 8830 was still a better device for me than my Treo 700p (which didn't have GPS, either)

So I guess I agree with you about some of these people trying to blame Verizon for their own lack of due diligence.

However, when I see the (numerous) threads complaining about Verizon and GPS, I simply don't click on the thread; the only reason I clicked on this one was the "proof" issue (which turned out to be less than compelling). You, on the other hand, take a different (and MUCH more time-consuming) approach. I still don't get it - but it's your time, not mine, so I suppose I don't have to.

For those of you that think "built-in GPS" works as a cover for E911, please stop being so anal, and Google "built-in GPS" blackberry

When did you buy yours? I bought mine when it first came out for business customers. The GPS issue was not discovered yet. Not only that, but you've got VZW sending out 8830s to publishing reviewers (see my link above) with WORKING GPS. That's some shady isht in my book.

The only problem that i see is that Verizon did not have their navigator service ready to go when they launched the phone. If they had it ready then their would be no issue at all. I see why people are angry but it seems their is nothing that can be done, just wait for navigator and you be good to go.

Exactly I bought it through our buisness channels...I knew that GPS was not going to work but hell Verizon is a bunch of...

Of course, you knwo why Verizon does this...

Heads ask accounting, how much $ can we get if we, make the small number of people that know about GPS happy, or charge $10 a month the the bunch of others who don't pay any attention...

Nope, you still don't get it. It's not that they don't have their navigation system ready, it's because they disabled it and won't let 3rd party apps access GPS on the handheld. The other carriers (while they use TeleNav-which btw can be downloaded and installed on a 8830, they have an OTA download for it apperently) don't restrict access from 3rd party apps to the GPS. That's the problem I have. If GPS works and it's free, but the app support for using is just sucks on 3rd party solution, while VZW had a "pay for" software to make better use of it then I would have ZERO issues. The problem I have is that I bought a device which has certain capabilities which were MADE/BUILT BY THE MAKER OF THE DEVICE which a "selling party" decided to take out until they decided to put it back in and charge me to use it. I bought the device and everything it encompasses (hardware/software). I own it and EXPECT it to work the way it was designed to work. I can't belive there is no legislation restricting cell phone carriers from making changes to device prior to sale. It's illegal to do crap like that for other goods, why not cell phones?

Oh yeah, I think everyone knows... it doesn't take a genius to realize this and it amuses me that VZW thinks everyone is stupid enough to buy their CSR excuses about "It conflicts with something else so we had to disable it" BS line. Yeah, it conflicts with their bottom line! Fuggers. I don't even have an issue if VZW wanted to sell the device at FULL price or higher is they wanted to turn a profit, but disabling key features of the device to sell them later for more money is BS. Maybe RIM needs to take every single component in the device (hardware/software) and mark it as "Not for individual resale". When you think about it, RIM is just as much to blame for this as VZW is. RIM gave in on the "disable the GPS" request to make a sale... Mind you, "The largest sale to date" as documented for the order VZW placed on the 8830's from RIM. It was the largest order VZW ever placed and the largest RIM ever received. Of course RIM looked the other way (towards the bottom line) when they read the contract that stated VZW wants RIM to disable GPS on the 8830 prior to branding. This is why I despise corporate suits. They never look at the entire picture of things, just the immediate bottom line figures. Well, when this blows into a lawsuit for them maybe they'll rethink things next time they are sitting at that negotiations table.

verizon is not required to allow 3rd party anything. I do not understand why you insist on saying that they have to allow 3rd party gps app? When the device was released did you not have the customary time where you could return it?

I understand that you feel duped but I dont see how you can think you can force Verizon to do anything. They will release their program when its ready and thats that, its a waste of time and energy to keep insisting they did something wrong, maybe not a good PR choice but it definitely withing their rights to run their business as they choose.

And your arguement about RIM is no good unless you bought it directly from RIM.

Thank you for saying I still don't get it but I believe I do.
The constant thread of lawsuits are getting old and I for one dont see why the mods dont merge them into one thread.

Why is Verizon then the ONLY carrier to not allow 3rd party apps (I don't think you can even say that Blackberry Maps is 3rd party really) to access the GPS in their 8830s? Answer that....

And please stop with the same questions of "Why didn't you return the phone when you discovered GPS wasn't working?". I have Verizon because their network is reliable and the phone fills my needs for what I need it to do. What I don't agree with is VZW disabling things on the phone I paid to have. RIM designed the phone with GPS, I paid to have that "chip" in working order. That is all that matters in my eyes. I'm no leasing the phone from VZW so VZW has no legal right to sell me a "watered down verison" of the 8830 simply because they want to use that as a money making scheme at a later time. If I was to return it, what other PDA phone would I get from VZW that has native GPS onboard? Oh yeah, NONE, BECAUSE THEY DISABLED IT ON ALL THEIR FREAKING PHONES!!!

Its their choice. That the only answer that matters...

That choice is driven by the need to make money off a feature that they do not own the rights to. That is where all this is coming from.

"they dont own the rights to?"
RIM did sell them to Verizon did they not? Then Verizon did sell it to you right?
RIM and Verizon can do what they want with the devices.

Their motive for doing this is obvious, everyone knows that they want the revenue by making you use their product, but thats their choice.

I am not a lawyer but being "GPS capable" doesn't mean that it will work right out of the box without additional services/software. It's up to Vz to make it capable. Cheesy, yes, Class Action, doubtful.

Product as release by RIM, sure. Go buy one from them then. But if you want service ON that product THROUGH Verizon, I'd double check whether the features that you want are available from that service provider.

I don't think it's "alright". In fact I think it's misleading. But I don't think it's class-action worthy either. It's a simple thing that if you just ask at the store, they will tell you "No GPS" plain and simple. You know what they say about assuming...

I guess I just don't see it different as selling a 100GB Hard Drive (on which you cannot store a 100GB file), or the advertised gas mileage on a car, or battery life on a laptop.

Not all of those are achievable and of the things that are, some require very specific environmental conditions. If you don't like the fact it doesn't have GPS and you MUST have it, why not return it and get a phone that can get you the GPS you oh so desire and require?

The choice is easy, don't use Verizon. Vote with your dollar. I will never use Verizon personally due to their constant fleecing of their customers.

Yawn...

oh god look what ive done haha

Maybe I'm confused. Did VZW initially have GPS capabilities and then they removed it later?

As far as I know, since i've had mine, I knew (because I asked) that GPS was never part of the deal but that it could be later. So how could I then argue that I paid for GPS when it was never part of the deal to begin with?

I don't think you guys will ever grasp the idea here. Go out and search for the v710 lawsuit for Bluetooth that Verizon had. It's basically the same thing as this. They stripped some of the Bluetooth profiles to not allow file transfers and other things (read: crippled features). This is really no different. Same carrier, same old tricks, except this time it's GPS and not Bluetooth, that's the only difference, nothing else. Also, I'll remind everyone again, there's no GPS capable PDA (like a Blackberry) available from Verizon. This is not because they don't have any PDAs that don't have GPS built in, it's because they disabled GPS on them.

Clearly you have no idea what the RIM 8830 is capable of when it leaves the factory. Your Sprint 8830 can run BBMaps or Google Maps or whatever other freaking GPS mapping software you want to load on it and it will work. This is not because Sprint did something special to make GPS work, this is because Sprint DIDN'T cripple the phone.

No wonder it's so freaking simple for VZW to get away with crap like this... everyone's so out of it, they'll buy anything the company says.

How many chat conversations and phone conversations have been posted through the forums (not neccesseraly here, but other websites, search) where even CSRs didn't know what the phone can and can't do.

Your HD and Gas mileage cannot be used in comparison here because those are linked to something you should be able to measure, not a capability. In other words, if we were complaining about the 8830's battery life, then you could use those comparisons. BTW, you do know that you can acutally store a 100GB file on a 100GB drive right? You just won't be using one of the more known file systems to do so. It's the file system on the drive that governs file vs allocation sizes, nothing else.

This is getting ridiculous. Yes, the phone has GPS capability. Yes, Verizon cripples it. We get the idea. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Write to the president if you must. You've posted your opinion already. No need to keep posting it and posting it and posting it. Give it a rest.

Now there's a man who definatly won't get it...

John--you don't get it, because you forget that the Prez/CEO of Verizon actually checks this forum each day to see where he stands.

I'm going to ban him if he doesn't unlock the GPS!!!! *rants* "GPS GPS GPS GPS GPS"