LG/Shutterstock
Ronlight, a former importer of LG products in Israel, filed an unprecedented lawsuit of 15 million NIS against LG Electronics and LG Electronics Israel on Tuesday (Wednesday). in Israel
"Serial faults ignored"
"LG chose to ignore the complaints, tried to hide and obscure some of the malfunctions and did not provide an adequate response to consumers in real time"
According to Ronlight, LG convinced it to purchase the mobile phone business in Israel with explicit promises to be a true partner and part of the brand family.
LG representatives promised full support, it said, reimbursing transfer fees as long as the activity is stopped, and claimed that it would be possible to expand Ronlight's activity to other products.
The lawsuit claims that LG ignored serial malfunctions in its mobile products, and caused tremendous damage to the brand in Israel.
Runlight claims that it tried to assist LG in restoring the brand, but to no avail.
As a result, according to the lawsuit, Ronlight allegedly suffered significant losses, lost huge profits and was forced to curtail its operations.
"Our turnover in these years has been cut by more than 80%," the lawsuit states.
"We suffered a severe damage to our reputation, since we were identified in the market with the mobile brand."
LG did indeed cover some of the costs, Brownlight points out, "but this was not enough to cover the severe damage caused to Runlight, which for its part believed LG's representations according to which LG intended to continue the cooperation, solve the problems, release new products and recapture the market."
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In fact, Ronlight claims that it flooded LG with the malfunctions and complaints that came from users in Israel, but LG chose to "ignore the complaints, tried to hide and obscure some of the malfunctions and did not provide an adequate response to consumers in real time."
"This conduct by LG caused tremendous damage to the LG smart phone brand in Israel, but Runlight remained loyal to LG and tried to help as much as it could in restoring the brand in Israel and handling the class action lawsuits that were filed against LG and, as a result, also against Runlight) in Israel."
In fact, Ronlight claims that it flooded LG with the malfunctions and complaints that came from users in Israel/ShutterStock
According to Runlight, LG began simulating its operations in Israel in 2020, and in 2021 officially announced the closure of the mobile division.
"LG did not inform us of its intention to exit the market and did not give clear answers to inquiries about the matter," it was claimed.
"It was only after many months of uncertainty, in April 2021, that we were informed for the first time that LG had made a decision to stop selling smart phones."
At the same time, rumors about LG's exit from the global mobile market caused another business whirlwind.
"The prices of the phones have fallen in the local market and customers have informed Ronlight that they are not interested in purchasing the products anymore, nor are they interested in keeping the existing inventory of the phones, due to the actual exit from the local market," Bronlight claims.
"The meaning of LG's exit from the market is that no more phone model updates are expected, no more software updates are expected, and an inventory problem of spare parts is expected."
"sudden death"
The lawsuit refers, among other things, to the "sudden death" phenomenon of the LG G4 devices, which occurred several years after the acquisition of the mobile operation by Ronlight.
This phenomenon manifested itself in the fact that many devices of this model simply stopped working suddenly, without any prior warning.
In addition, a large number of users lost all the information that was stored on the device - without the possibility of restoring it.
This phenomenon received great resonance in the media and social networks, when many users reported G4 devices that stopped working suddenly and without any prior warning.
The phenomenon caused significant image damage to LG, and severely damaged consumer trust in the brand.
Runlight claims in the lawsuit that the G4's sudden death phenomenon is just one example of LG not investing enough in the quality and quality control of its products.
"Starting from the end of 2015, the beginning of 2016, failures began to be discovered in LG's smartphone models - Nexus 5, LG G5, LG G4 and LG G10," the lawsuit claims.
"Ronlight shared with LG the malfunctions discovered in its devices and even revealed to it information regarding the percentage of defective products (which were very high), reported to it about failures it identified in the products, and forwarded to it complaints received from customers. These are malfunctions that later turned out to be lateral malfunctions in the products that were in the scope of the exclusive warranty of LG, with one category of malfunctions, which caused a series of phone reboots, even earning the derogatory nickname "LG Bootloop".
The lawsuit refers, among other things, to the "sudden death" phenomenon of LG G4 devices.
Archive/ShutterStock
"In the beginning, LG ignored the repeated inquiries of Ronlight representatives on the subject, and apparently after internal decisions were discussed and made at LG, it instructed Ronlight representatives to keep the matter confidential, and tried to obscure and silence the complaints regarding the nail malfunctions while instructing Ronlight to act accordingly" , explain in Rollnight.
"Subsequently, Ronlight was asked to assist and handle the malfunctions and the class action lawsuits that were filed, when it is constantly tasked with trying and acting as much as it can to restore the brand and continue sales in Israel."
We contacted LG Israel for a response to the publication, where they chose not to respond.
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