Class-Action Lawsuit Filed Against Datto, Alleging Consumer Fraud

A class action filed in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, on Oct, 27 alleges that Datto purposefully, willfully, and knowingly committed consumer fraud and violated multiple consumer protection laws.

Datto purchased Open Mesh. Open Mesh induced customers and distributors to buy networking hardware with a promise of a free “Lifetime Cloud License” for the cloud-based network controller platform “CloudTrax” which the hardware requires to operate. This included maintenance, automatic firmware updates, and support.

Datto allegedly defrauded consumers and distributors out of the value of their purchases by disabling the free automatic firmware updates, maintenance, and support for the hardware.

Removing this functionality of the hardware renders it useless for the purposes it was advertised for and sold to distributors and consumers to use it in their businesses, for example, hotels, apartments, retail stores, restaurants, small and medium-sized businesses, and just about anywhere else.

Datto then offered consumers and distributors to move their Open Mesh hardware to Datto’s CloudTrax, to regain this functionality if they pay a monthly fee. Datto’s CloudTrax is essentially the same as Open Mesh CloudTrax.

The lawsuit also alleges that Datto failed to provide duty of care to the customers and distributors, violated the unfair business practice act, violated the consumer legal remedies act, breached their contracts, breached implied warranty of merchantability, intentionally misrepresented themselves, and caused harm to their customers and distributors when their ability to use the product they purchased was forcefully taken away from them.

Plaintiffs and class members suffered a loss of economic gain and subsequently also suffered other financial losses due to Datto’s alleged false advertising and deception.

The case is Dinnerman et al v. Datto, Inc et al, 8:21-cv-01771-JVS-DFM.

The plaintiffs, Joshua Dinnerman and Paul Feinberg, are represented by the Law Offices of Gary R. Carlin APC, a Long Beach, California-based law firm.

If you have suffered losses or damages by Datto’s practices and would like to join the Datto class action, or if you have any questions, please contact the Law Offices of Gary R. Carlin APC by email or through the firm’s website.