diff --git a/src/HipChat/HipChat.php b/src/HipChat/HipChat.php
index ac93d3a..88896d4 100644
--- a/src/HipChat/HipChat.php
+++ b/src/HipChat/HipChat.php
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 <?php
 
+namespace HipChat;
+
 /**
  * Library for interacting with the HipChat REST API.
  *
@@ -37,6 +39,7 @@ class HipChat {
 
   private $api_target;
   private $auth_token;
+  private $verify_ssl = true;
 
   /**
    * Creates a new API interaction object.
@@ -158,6 +161,7 @@ public function curl_request($url, $post_data = null) {
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
     curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 15);
+    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, $this->verify_ssl);
     if (is_array($post_data)) {
       curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);
       curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post_data);
@@ -216,11 +220,26 @@ public function make_request($api_method, $args = array(),
 
     return $response;
   }
+    
+  /**
+   * Enable/disable verify_ssl.
+   * This is useful when curl spits back ssl verification errors, most likely due to 
+   * outdated SSL CA bundle file on server.  If you are able to, update that CA bundle.
+   * If not, call this method with false for $bool param before interacting with the API.
+   * 
+   * @param bool $bool
+   * @return bool
+   */
+  public function set_verify_ssl($bool = true)
+  {
+    $this->verify_ssl = (bool) $bool;
+    return $this->verify_ssl;
+  }  
 
 }
 
 
-class HipChat_Exception extends Exception {
+class HipChat_Exception extends \Exception {
 	public function __construct($code, $info, $url) {
     $message = "HipChat API error: code=$code, info=$info, url=$url";
 		parent::__construct($message, (int)$code);