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Microsoft Facing Class-Action Suit Over Xbox Live Points
An anonymous reader tips news that a lawyer in Pennsylvania has filed a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging that the company's handling of Xbox Live transactions is, in some cases, fraudulent.
"Samuel Lassoff, of Horsham, PA, said an invoice he received earlier this month from Microsoft included charges for purchases he couldn't complete due to a balky download system — and he claimed it wasn't an accident. Microsoft 'engaged in a scheme to unjustly enrich itself through their fraudulent handling' of his account, Lassoff charged in papers filed earlier this week in US District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania. ... 'Microsoft breached that contract by collecting revenues for digital goods and services which were not provided,' Lassoff said in his lawsuit."
Microsoft doing something illegal, and then getting sued for it???
What is this world coming to.
I view Microsoft just like the protagonist in 'Fight Club' views the "major car manufacturer".
If cost of litigation is less than profit then Do It.
How about the so called "enterprise" software you buy for an arm and a leg. When there are serious bugs, can you not also apply the same logic, specifically "collecting revenues for digital goods and services which were not provided" - assuming your expectation was "working" and "secure" software as promised... Mmmm...
Need an ISP in South Africa?
that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
But they still have a duty to correct their mistakes.
If you have to do it, at least do it under your own name.
That is not a skill.
A skill is a first post (with first post in the comment or title) that gets modded to +5.
He blames a "balky download system" but when you buy something on xbox live. It doesn't not matter if the download completes. The item is tied to your account when you buy it, and you can download it and redownload it whenever you want. As the article points out this lawyer also seems a little shady (suing a Casino because a drunk attacked him).
One thing the article did mention that I liked was that MS is considering doing away with points. I know I always have an odd number of points on my account because of so many different denominations of DLC prices. Thats one thing I like about my PS3, it charges my credit card directly OR I can chose to add a certain amount of money to my account. Not trying to incite a flamewar between PS3/360, I have both and love them both for different reasons.
Microsoft perpetually holds between $5-10 of my money, and has for a couple years now. Every time I want to purchase some DLC it's pretty much always the case that my current points pool is short of the price by 100-400 points. Of course they don't sell 100 points - you have to buy 500 or 1000 (I forget the exact amounts offered). I'm sure I'm far from the only one in this situation. It's almost like a superman scam. I wonder how much in total of unredeemed cash they sit on each month.
Seems to be a rare case when someone can't download from Live - Microsoft collects money and provides a premium service with reliable uptime in this case. How on earth did he decide it's Microsoft's fault his internet is shitty?
Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
Did this guy even bother writing to MS?
RTFA's
Oh, this guy must be a lawyer. Or someone representing himself.
Let's just SUE 'EM!
The article makes no mention of Mr. Lassoff's experience when he contacted the Xbox Live support line, and I would expect that if it were less than expedient, that would be a major part of this lawsuit. I have a feeling that he didn't contact them at all, and instead is going straight to suing them. Now don't get me wrong... I absolutely despise the points system due to the fact that the point packs are not proportional to item costs, and that IS intentionally misleading... but it is not fraudulent or illegal, and the points system itself is not what the lawsuit is about.
Quoted FTA:
As for Lassoff, he's no stranger to suing big tech companies and other organizations. Records show he sued Google in 2006, claiming the search ads he placed fell victim to click fraud. He also sued Bally's Casino in Atlantic City in 2005, claiming he was attacked by a drunken patron while sitting at a poker table.
Google is known for their strict policies regarding click fraud, and they are very good at detecting it and very good at not charging the victims and not paying the perpetrators when it happens. This man must be afraid of phones or something, because a simple phone call should have resolved that issue as well. And as for the casino incident..... suing the casino because a patron attacked you? Are you fucking kidding me?
If this class action suit isn't thrown right the fuck out of court, what little hope I have left for our nation's judicial system will be lost.
Yes, but true, real skill is having the last post and being confident about that.
When ripping people off, make sure they're not lawyers. You wouldn't like the result.
But this is a tempest in a teapot. Broken downloads mean nothing.
Last post! I'm sure of it!
Go to your posting prefs, and switch from HTML to plain text mode.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
I don't think he's going to get much of anywhere...it states in the Xbox Live TOS that content is not guaranteed or warranted in any shape or form, so if you completed the transaction and started the download, but due to whatever issue you were not able to complete it, they are not held responsible. In addition, they aren't responsible for bad content that renders a game or console unusable, though when you think about it this is a bit backwards, since they generally won't allow DLC unless they approve it...
I think the Points system is pretty useful for adding extra value to a game for usually reasonable prices. I haven't personally bought any points, since I can't seem to justify it with my wife, but I think it makes sense. Granted, I also think that M$ is nothing short of a monopoly, that they overcharge for all their products because they know most users don't have a choice or don't know the difference, and their opposition to open source is appalling.
I don't mind that they sell points instead of using money directly - in fact, because you can buy "Points Cards" at various brick-and-mortar or online retailers (rather than buying points directly through the Xbox) it isn't that uncommon to see cards carrying $20 worth of points on sale for $15 or less. This couldn't really happen if the system was simply a dollar-for-dollar transaction.
The thing that bugs me is that most of the content on the Xbox Live Marketplace - at least in the way of games - costs something that is a multiple of $5. A Live Arcade game might be $5 or $10 (which is 400 or 800 points, respectively, unless the points are bought at a discount), while an Xbox or Xbox360 game for download might be 1600 ($20) or more. In essence, 400 points = $5.
However, when you buy points, you buy them in multiples...of 500. If you only want a single 400-point game, you have to buy 500 points, and have 100 points left over (and 100 points may as well be 0, unless you're buying an item for your avatar, or perhaps some video downloads, or you're gonna buy more points).
Please, MS, sell the points in multiples of $5. I know that selling them 500 at a time means people have leftovers and that's money in your bank, though, so it's not going to happen.
Hotdogs come in packs of 8 and Hotdog Bun come in pack of 6, its a scam.
...but are they illegal? No. You are purchasing a digital form of currency--it's like an exchange rate that remains static despite economic flux.
Get over it.
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
I agree.
Certainly, when the class action papers come in, I'm spitting on them and sending then to his mother's house.
I just don't get... eh, ugh... never mind. This post wasn't worth the research I put into it.
If this goes to trial and I were a lawyer for Microsoft, I would just produce a list of the number of users who were able to successfully download the product in question within a 48 hour window. There is a really good chance that number is >1. If what the article says is true and the plaintiff is whining about the entire download system as a whole, I'd just produce a list of the number of successful downloads in that same 48 hour period that frames the time the plaintiff is charging he had a problem in.
It seems like this guy is destined for failure.
I always thought the issue with Microsoft's Live service was the whole "point" scheme in the first place. I've read complaints about the system being setup in a way so that people are often left with a few extra points laying around. For example a game might cost 8 points. Microsoft will only sell points in increments of 5 or 10. FWIW - I'm not an Xbox360 owner. I bought a PS3, the system where every game is really $1 more expensive than the listed price because Sony tacks on an extra $1 to the price. It seems like no console is perfect these days.
I think it's utterly attrocious that they get to make a fake currency, force people to buy it in absurd bundled quantities basically force you to waste money. The only legal tender in this country is USD last time I checked. Forcing me to buy your funny money seems pretty much by definition an anticompetitive and fraudulent practice done solely on the premise of making a profit on unused points and forcing us to buy something we wouldn't with our "leftover" otherwise unusable cash, or to give them a few more dollars so as to have enough to make a similar non desired purcahse..
all of which are tactics of a horrible business model. If you seriously depend upon these profits that are created by forcing your clients to either waste money or buy something they don't want then you have a horrible business and should reconsider your product. Frankly I would consider you uninvestable, you aren't creating profit from value.
At least on the wii, 100 points is 1 dollar and you can buy them at the 100 point interval.. MS seeks to confuse people by selling at bizzarre rates that don't align with anything they sell. most (not all) items are sold for multiples of 400; while points are acquired in multiples of 500. and of course there is no reverse transaction and they can terminate the system whenever they want.
The lawsuit from the article doesnt appear to be about the failed downloads per see... but the whole 'hassle' of having content transferred seems to be a bit of BS as well. Tie the content to the user ID and dont let user ID's be signed in from more than one place at a time.. not that complicated. If you can't handle this then you shouldn't be in the business of selling DLC.
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
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