Jeff Smith and fianceé Diana Peters of Canby were surprised to learn that their private photos, including some nude shots, ended up on the new cellphone of an elderly stranger last week.

When they found out, Smith went to a Verizon Wireless store in Molalla to ask what happened, but got the runaround, he alleges in a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday.

He's now seeking a jury trial and up to $4 million in damages, claiming unlawful trade practices and negligent data breach.

"Plaintiff had hoped to resolve the issue outside of court but he was told by Verizon's agent that nothing could be done unless plaintiff hired a 'big shot lawyer' to try to take on Verizon," the lawsuit said.

Heidi Flato, a Verizon spokeswoman in San Francisco, said she wasn't aware of the lawsuit and that the company typically doesn't comment on pending litigation.

Peters told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the couple has gone through a cycle of shock, frustration and anger since trying to figure out what happened. No one at the Verizon store had an explanation for them and neither did anyone through Verizon's customer service line, she said.

"We didn't want to go this route, but the company needs to be accountable to its customers," she said. "Verizon doesn't have any answers for us or any system in place to help us. We don't know what else to do."

They might not have ever discovered that the 2-year-old photos had migrated to someone else's phone if not for Nick Crommie of Oregon City.

Crommie bought a Verizon LG V20 for $167 last week in Molalla for his grandmother and offered to download her photos and videos backed up on the Verizon cloud to the new phone.

But Crommie noticed as he scrolled through his grandma's photos the next day that there were photos of a man and woman and their child mixed in. He realized that the woman in the photos was a former co-worker he hadn't seen since the summer and the man was her boyfriend.

Crommie reached out to his former co-worker on Facebook and called her about the photos. She told him the photos had been on Smith's phone.

Crommie said how they got on his grandma's new phone remains a mystery. He went with Smith last week to the Molalla store and confirmed that a manager suggested suing Verizon.

"There's no connection between them and my grandma, their phone numbers aren't the same, we later cleared the phone completely and the same photos came back again," he said.

Peters said she wonders and worries if their pictures have been downloaded onto other Verizon phones.

"They don't want this to happen to anyone else," said attorney Michael Fuller, who represents Smith. "And at this point, we don't know if this is something that other Verizon customers have experienced."

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey