Hear that siren? It’s an ambulance chaser. Seagate is facing a class-action lawsuit from lawyers representing one pissed-off Barracuda disk drive user – and they want more people to join in.

Acting on behalf of one Christopher A. Nelson of South Dakota, the lawyers say the drives failed more often than they should have been expected to, causing users to lose data.

The claim alleges Seagate’s hard drives failed to live up to the advertised promises of being “reliable or dependable”, violating various Californian consumer laws and Seagate’s own warranties after the firm was said to have delivered faulty replacement hard drives.

In particular, it is said that a 3TB Seagate Backup Plus drive failed two years after Nelson bought it, taking various documents and photos with it. He ordered a replacement under warranty but that one failed 10 months later, claims the lawyer.

Steve Berman, managing partner of Hagens Berman, the lawyers involved, said: “These hard drives failed to deliver on Seagate’s promises, and replacements from Seagate were just as defective, amounting to loss of data and wasted money for thousands of purchasers – something we believe to be direct violation of federal consumer-rights laws.”

He’s looking for more affected users of Seagate Barracuda 3TB and Backup Plus 3TB external drives and wants payback.

So far the suit, reference number 5:16-cv-00523, which was filed today in the Northern District of California, has just one single named plaintiff. Seagate has not yet filed a response. ®