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I reached out to Roku support regarding this. The rep told me “why are you complaining. You are the only one.” He then disconnected the chat. I’ve reached out to my state’s AG to report this. No action so far but waiting. If there are enough complaints, that might help move the needle.
What Roku is doing should be completely illegal - bricking the product after purchasing it for full price if you don’t agree to waiving your rights.
Sounds like a class action lawsuit to me.
Sue them in small claims for the price of the device.
Sounds like a good way to get a new tv and move away from roku. They're really piling on the ads lately and making their os really slow.
If they actually said that to you word for word that's an open and shut case for suing them
Report Roku to the FBI for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by hacking into and sabotaging your property.
That's a sincere suggestion, by the way. This shit should literally be a crime.
Sucks this happened to you. If it is still under warranty, you should return it for a replacement or store credit. Complain that it has ceased to function.
A good set of advice is to never connect your TV to the internet. A cheap streaming box or HTPC does the same function, and doesn't open you up to issues like this. Your TV is also almost certainly selling your viewing data if you have it connected to the internet.
While it's good advice to never intentionally connect TV to internet, some devices bypass you if they can. I think it was samsung that would connect to any other samsung product and through them to the internet, even if the other product was in your neighbor's living room.
That’s creepy
This is disturbing. I wanted to know more so I googled it but I found nothing. Where did you hear this?
Not sure of Samsung’s offering but it sounds very similar to Amazon Alexa’s sidewalk “feature”
Almost certainly - but that is what I agreed to when I bought the TV.
Like I said in the post, I'd much prefer dumb TVs, but they I can't really find them anymore. Best I can do is buy a smart TV that'd won't let you do anything (including selecting inputs) until you connect it to the internet, agree to their horrible anti-consumer licensing agreement. Only then to open up a different smart device product that will still steal my data and force me to give up my legal right to a class action? The current system is scam.
Do you have any recommendations for dumb TVs?
As someone in pro AV, here's my recommendation for a dumb TV: A smart TV that you never connect to your wifi.
All that bloatware shit they install is what makes it cheap. At my job I can buy commercial displays (no crapware) at cost and it's still cheaper to buy a consumer one.
Unless IP control is absolutely mandatory for you, it's cheaper and easier to go consumer for displays
I also got this on my stand alone roku. And it's forced arbitration. Only way to opt out is by sending a written letter saying you don't agree. If I can be forced into an agreement with a click of the remote, opting out should be just as easy.
Sue in small claims for the cost of the device instead of sending a letter.
One of the reasons so-called "smart" TVs are so much cheaper is because they are data-mining you.
Where can I buy a non smart TV? I don't see any available for purchase.
Also weird that you think they are cheaper when that doesn't work for anything else. Phones certainly don't get cheaper. It's just extra profit.
I suppose you're in the US so I don't know if my answer fits but if the terms are against the law they are simply void: as in if you have a reason for a class action, no terms or contract can take it away from you
Most likely the terms say that you agree to go through individual binding arbitration rather than a lawsuit which the courts have found to be legal and enforceable. It's really shitty and has become corporations favorite weapon to use against people, particularly because the arbitration companies are usually fairly friendly towards whatever corporation is being challenged. Contractually mandated arbitration really needs to be invalidated. Arbitration is a fine alternative if both parties want to go that route but it should never be forced on someone, particularly because of some bullshit EULA.
afaik even those terms would be unenforcable if you can only see the TOS after buying the product, which would be the case here.
This is an adhesion contract (no counteroffer or ability to negotiate terms, and it was made unilaterally) and probably will not stand up to a challenge in court. Of course, someone would actually have to sue / afford to sue. https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/adhesion_contract_(contract_of_adhesion)
Anyone else getting radicalized because of this?
Yup. My LG TV has 85% of its features "disabled" until I accept new terms which is an acceptable middleground.
I wanted a high quality OLED display over 50inch, good luck finding one without voice control or adverts lol
IANAL, and not that it really makes this bullshit any better but...
It's unlikely that agreeing to terms of service that claim you waive rights to any class action lawsuit would actually hold up as legally binding in court. Many of these agreements aren't reply binding are already legally gray... Plus, universally vaguely signing your legal rights away in any contract doesn't hold any water either.
I highly doubt you'd actually lose any rights to a check box that's bound to "you can't ever sue us".
IANAL either, but I'm pretty sure you are correct. I put it in another comment somewhere, but I'm more upset about not being given a choice to refuse the change rather than the actual change itself. I don't mind signing the waiver at amusement parks, or to buy a car with no warranty. I just want to know what I'm agreeing to, and I don't like folks pulling the rug out from under me or changing the deal.
The situation feels like if I were to drop out of college, I would be given electroshocks until I'd forgotten anything learned in class.
IANAL either, but from my understanding of contract law, not only are terms waiving your rights not legal, a contract necessarily entails mutual agreement followed by an exchange of a thing of value. In this case, they are holding a thing that you own (which they made and designed to work in this manner no less) hostage until you agree.
I don't think that counts as an "exchange of a thing of value". There's no exchange there, so it doesn't even qualify as a contract. Even if they're supposedly adding features along with the update, if you didn't agree to the features being added then that can't be considered forming a contract either. Also it's not free agreement on your part, so it fails on a number of levels.
In fact this behaviour sounds like it's arguably illegal to me. It could even be the subject of a class action lawsuit. I imagine the courts would be especially unfavourable to the idea that they were doing this specifically to ask you to waive your right to do so.
Hisense did this to me and my TV, but in fact actually broke the TV's wifi when it forced an update that I didn't want and couldn't decline. I argued with them and escalated it for 4 months and nothing came of it. I reported them to my state's attorney general and the BBB. But this is definitely a class action lawsuit that will happen sooner or later.
I have a Hisense and had a similar experience. I was watching something fullscreen on an HDMI input, and then it suddenly switched inputs and showed a fullscreen firmware update prompt. I had no choice available other than to agree to update the firmware, no cancel button, couldn't change inputs, nothing, the only choice was to update the firmware. So I unplugged the TV.
About 10 seconds after I powered it back on, the exact same update prompt happened, still with no choice to decline it. I pulled power and booted it back up one more time just to be sure, met with the update prompt again.
This made me very angry.
The next time I powered it on, I had a packet capture running to see where it was phoning home. I created a firewall rule blocking all the hostnames it tried to connect to at startup, pulled the plug, and then booted it back up. No more update prompt, and it hasn't happened again. Good thing they don't download and pre-stage the new firmware, I guess.
Let me know if you want the hostnames and I'll PM them to you.
Just in case anyone needs to hear this, bbb isn't a government department. They are quite literally yelp before yelp and you can straight up pay to get bad reviews taken down from both. It would be better to put them on blast on social media since that sometimes gets the companies attention to try and fix PR.
It would be better to our them on blast on social media since that sometimes gets the companies attention to try and fix PR.
Works almost every time. I had a ticket with a vendor open at work for just about 3 months, and then only replies I'd gotten on the ticket was the "We've received your support request which we'll promptly ignore!" autoresponse upon opening, and then another auto-response a month later saying the ticket was being assigned to another department. I'd replied to the ticket ~20 times asking for updates in that time.
I finally got sick of essentially yelling into an empty room and called out the company, their marketing team, their support team, and their CEO on Twitter, making sure to @ each one of them in the message. I got a reply from their CEO and an actual human responded to the ticket less than an hour later.
It's shitty and a last resort, but it's generally very effective.
Send this to leuis rossmann.
Yep. I got hit with this this morning when I turned on my TV before heading work.
I thought to myself ''Well... I hadn't planned on suing you but now I'm not so sure. Lol''
Yeah. This is complete BS and has me looking at computer monitors for a suitable replacement. I went ahead and agreed to their terms and my TV still works great but when it comes time to replace it, I'll be damned if I get another Smart TV.
I don't see how this could be legal at all and how any of those terms could be applicable. My 2 year old found the remote today and he loves buttons, so naturally he pushed every button on there. I thought nothing of it but saw something pop up and then disappear, I assumed it was an error or something from the button mashing, but I guess my 2 year old agreed to rokus new TOS.
I would like to see legislation that forces optional recalls or refunds whenever TOS updates modify the usability and viability of a product.
You can try to Root your TV. https://www.xda-developers.com/rootmyroku-jailbreak-roku-tv-set-top-boxes/
That sucks, but fine - I don't use their services except for the TV itself, and honestly, I'd rather by a dumb TV with a streaming box anyway, but I can't find those anymore.
Search for monitors, not televisions. For example, you can get an 48in and 55in OLEDs dumb monitors with multiple HDMI inputs.
I like everyone saying “but this is surely illegal!” as if these corporations actually care. At least in the US, it really doesn’t matter what the law says at this point.
Corporations will do what they want and the law will be modified to reflect that, this is the current status quo and it is going to take significant political action (specifically making rich people afraid again to piss the rest of us off too much) to make it change.
Take a brick to Roku until it agrees to your terms.
Is there a factory reset button on it? Maybe you might be able to reset the TV and never connect it to the WiFi?
Mac address ban the TV from your network and it should work but will no longer have Internet access. I just did this locally and it worked for the one, have to go out but will do it on the other one as well.
I just stick with computer monitors these days.
"Smart" TVs are f****** ridiculous now.
I have a dumb 4k tv. It’s cheap, it won’t meet everyone’s needs, but I really really really don’t want a smart tv.
It’s a Sceptre. Cheap enough that if it breaks it won’t break your heart to replace it.
