Woman Suing Google For Losing “thousands” due to Google Play Store hack

Susan Harvey claims Google never reimbursed her even after admitting that she did not make the purchases.

Madera, CA based woman Susan Harvey has filed a lawsuit against Google recently. She has accused Google for not reimbursing her after she lost thousands of dollars over a 16month period when her Google Play Store account got hacked.

The complaint has been filed by Harvey in a US District Court located in Eastern California.

Harvey claims that she reported the incident to Google and the company representatives weren’t convinced even after she proved that the purchases were fraudulent.

Harvey claims that Google promised to reimburse her but so far the company hasn’t fulfilled its promise.

Detailed Analysis of the News:

Harvey bought her very first Android smartphone in March 2013 and used her existing Gmail address to sign in. She created an account with Google with her Bank of America debit card and also downloaded the game’s trial version. Sometime later she updated the game with its full version and for at least a year Harvey didn’t notice any foul play in Google Play Store transactions.

However, it all changed in August last year when she bought a new Android smartphone and tried to transfer the app she purchased in 2013 to her newly bought second phone.

The rest of the story is narrated in her complaint as:

“Plaintiff logged on to her Google account through her computer and was notified through her Google dashboard that there were one hundred and nine (109) transactions on her account. Upon clicking on the appropriate tab on Google’s website, Plaintiff was shocked to find approximately six hundred and fifty (650) listed transactions, the majority of which were unrecognizable to Plaintiff, and certainly not transactions conducted by Plaintiff.”

According to her attorney, when she cross-referenced her bank records, it occurred to her that fake transactions have been occurring since April 2013 and lasted until May 2014. This way she had to bear the loss of thousands of dollars.

Harvey contacted Bank of America and Google but both the corporations asked her to file a police complaint. She did so but neither of the companies agreed to refund the lost amount.

Then Harvey consulted the vendors that were erroneously listed in transactions history.

The complaint explains: “Almost everyone vendor that cooperated with Plaintiff advised her the same thing: they could not identify the transaction numbers as part of their billing and the transactions cited by Plaintiff are Google transactions under which Google is receiving monies,” according to a report.

Again, Harvey contacted Google regarding her complaint and “Google finally acknowledged that she clearly did not effectuate the transactions,” affirmed her lawyers. Though Google promised that it will reimburse her, she hasn’t received any yet.

Thus, Harvey was left with no other choice but to sue Google for its negligent behaviour and slow response after she informed the company about the fake transactions. Harvey also claims that her “e-mail address, password, debit card number, expiration date, and mailing and billing addresses” weren’t sufficiently secured by Google according to the industry security standards.

She alleges that Google Play Store’s “security vulnerability allowed hackers to obtain her Information and subsequently post fraudulent transactions” to her account.

Google maintains that Harvey’s attorneys didn’t return Ars’ request for commenting.