Xbox Live class action lawsuit spurred by 'unauthorized charges'
Microsoft is being sued by a man who claims he was charged twice for an Xbox Live membership.
How much is a one year subscription to Xbox Live Gold? $60. However, it could end up costing Microsoft a lot more thanks to a new class-action lawsuit filed by a man who claims he was unjustly charged twice for one year's membership.
Ryan Graves claims that after allowing his subscription to lapse with an expired credit card, Microsoft managed to charge him twice for Live service on his new debit card. Graves claims that other Live Gold members have "similarly experienced Microsoft's unauthorized charges."
"Microsoft cannot just charge a consumer's credit or debit card whenever it wants without authorization," E. Michelle Drake, Mr. Grave’s attorney, said in a press release. "Mr. Graves signed up to play games on his Xbox, not to allow Microsoft to play games with his debit card."
The lawsuit claims that Microsoft violated the federal Electronic Funds Transfer Act, and also alleges that the Terms of Use set by Microsoft--which gives "the right for Microsoft to decline to refund users"--is "onerous and unfair." The plaintiff expects "hundreds, if not thousands, of Defendant’s subscribers satisfy the definition of the Putative Class."
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Shacknews
replyAndrew Yoon posted a new article, Xbox Live class action lawsuit spurred by 'unauthorized charges'.
Microsoft is being sued by a man who claims he was charged twice for an Xbox Live membership.-
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naw I'm happy with mine right now.
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Is this a trick question?
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I think it was the charged TWICE and without authorization that's pissing him off.
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It does if MS is doing to a lot of people.
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According to the complaint, he called customer support twice.
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2011cv01259/177578/1/-
from that, after he let the subscription lapse, he later used a 1 month gold card for free, then signed up for 1 year of gold after that. microsoft double charged him there instead of single charging him.
the shack article made me think they just ended up charging him twice automatically but i guess i dont know how to read.
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If I'm not mistaken the Live user agreement says you agree to renewal unless you cancel. Caveat emptor.
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I'm going through the same deal right now. I got in on the 2 months for $2 deal they had a while back and seeing this article reminded me it was probably up soon and I should get to cancelling. Checked my account and I'm currently on a 1 month sub being applied to my old card that I had upgraded from earlier in the summer.
They've essentially started running a tab until I apply a new payment method.
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he still should have cancelled his original subscription instead of using his credit card to expiring do that for him. if i had a cell phone that i just didnt want to pay for anymore and let my credit card expire, i would still be on the hook for the time between the credit card expiring and starting to pay again whether i was using it or not. although MS did shut his service off in the middle of that which i guess is the retarded part on their side.
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The one major complaint I have with Xbox is it's a bitch to cancel or change a subscription. They bury it in the deepest part of the site.
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You can cancel on the site? I have always done it over the phone with the 30 minute "are you REAAAAAAAAALLLY sure?" call. I hate those calls so much. Let me fucking cancel. I don't want to talk to your stupid call center jerkoff employee just as much as he doesn't want to talk to me.
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You have to fucking dig for it.
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Getting to that point is not as straight forward as it should be from the last time I cancelled a subscription.
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Where is that? I'd like to do this but I just can't find it on the web pages.
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This is how they bury it http://chattypics.com/viewer.php?file=LOLCANCEL_1118tihroz.jpg
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That is lots of fucking laughs!
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This seems pretty baseless. The shack article doesn't mention what steps he took to try to clear this up with MS. The court isn't going to hear a case on a simple billing error, especially if MS can show where similar client scenarios were fully refunded. This guy is only half a peg to patent squatter if he went straight to a lawsuit.
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You can read what he said he went through on page 7 of this document:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2011cv01259/177578/1/
Doesn't sound like he put a crazy amount of effort into it, but he did talk to Microsoft reps on two separate occasions.-
He could of easily contacted his bank to file he didnt authorize that and been done with it. This case will get thrown out he is a dumbass
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I will redirect you to House's argument, which I did bother to read. To make it easier for those interested in the allegations here are those articles that I found noteworthy: 3,24,30-44,46.
Credit goes to House for posting this. Here it is again:
http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2011cv01259/177578/1/
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Shoulda used his Amex, they would wooped Microsoft's ass if they did that.
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He probably was giant pussy on the phone with the customer service reps. I think there has been a huge change in how customer service handles customer complaints over the last couple of years. 5 years ago all I had to do was call in and politely explain the situation and it would generally get resolved within a few days. The last few times I've had to deal with major companies billing me incorrectly or making mistakes (Microsoft, XM / Sirius, Time Warner, Nationwide Insurance, Live Nation) it seems like the overall strategy used in customer service now is 'deny that the company is responsible for doing anything wrong, and insist the customer is wrong UNTIL they simply won't accept anything short of speaking with your manager'. Then the manager generally does what you want immediately. I think they honestly try and see how many people will simply hang up the phone and suck up the double charges just because of how much of a pain it is to deal with them anymore.
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MS didn't charge me twice but they DID start charging my card several months after I had canceled my sub due to my 360 dying on me. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed the recharges until 10 months later. I was reimbursed by a helpful helpdesk gal but it goes to show that their billing practices can use a little attention.
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Thank you- you made me smile and laugh a little. Few things on the internet do that frequently- thank you.
With that being said, I'm sure the jackass going for this lawsuit somehow thinks he's going to get millions. The reality is that Microsoft would have very willingly given his money back. If there is an issue, often companies are happy to deal with the situation and resolve it amicably- especially over such a trivial sum of money.
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Nothing this serious has happened to me, but I have had some trouble with XBL. One of my cards expired that I had linked to my XBL account, and they charged me for a 3-month subscription. When I finally got around to renewing it a month later, I paid for a 3-month subscription, and only received two months, even though I didn't use their service during the month before I fixed the issue. They obviously didn't receive that money, and weren't giving me service during that month because they didn't have said money, yet still counted it against my renewal.
I just let the issue go since it was only a month and 3 months was only $25, but it was still fucked. -
One of the coolest ideas Amex had back in the 90's when "cyber-shopping" was regarded as iffy was a card that generated one-time-use valid credit card numbers. So you could give your CC details to anyone for a single charge and Amex could tell that it came from your card and was valid, but then it expired shortly after that so it couldn't be used for stealth charges later, couldn't be leaked by an untrustworthy waiter or a website with poor security, etc. Sadly it never went anywhere AFAIK.
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