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Microsoft Facing Class-Action Suit Over Xbox Live Points

Posted by Soulskill on from the demo-suit-is-free dept.

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."

7 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Something doesn't sound right by Brianech · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Something doesn't sound right by Xest · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'd actually be quite sad if they did away with the points system. It ensures costings are roughly fair across all regions as it's effectively a global currency, bought for fairly balanced local prices.

      It's much easier for them to set a global price in terms of MS points and sell the points depending on local currency than to constantly try and update the price of every piece of content. You'd end up with a situation like with Steam where people in the UK can be charged as much as 200% of elsewhere. Right now it isn't perfect with MS points, but it is much more fair than most other systems from iTunes to Steam in terms of pricing.

    2. Re:Something doesn't sound right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Personally I don't mind the points system at all, it means I'm able to use prepaid cards instead of handing them my credit card information. Never mind the fact that I don't actually have a credit card (they aren't as common outside of the US).

      Leftover points don't really bother me. Eventually something cool will come along to spend them on. Of course, Microsoft prefers it if you spend your last 100 points on silly picture packs and then buy a completely new set of points when the next Dragon Age expansion comes along, but I'll just leave the 100 points sitting in my account and put them towards the expansion as well.

      As for the original topic, I dislike Microsoft's general business practices as much as the next guy, but they seem pretty okay when it comes to the points thing. A while ago they had an offer where I could buy Braid at a discount, but (presumably due to a bug) I was charged full price. I hadn't actually noticed that I was overcharged though. Still, a few weeks later, I received an email with an apology and the points were refunded, without any action or complaint from my part. I thought that was very decent of them, and honestly I've started buying more arcade games from them since then.

  2. Re:Deja'vu by Xest · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yeah, except it's basically just a load of complete and utter bollocks from a serial ambulance chaser:

    "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."

    The problem with his argument is that you can redownload content whenever you want to, so even if the download servers did fail for a couple of days, you'd still be able to download it after that. Despite having spent a small fortune on XBox Live, I've never had any problems accessing content I've bought. The issue is that his argument doesn't even really make sense- Microsoft would have nothing to gain by preventing users downloading content they've bought because it would mean those users wouldn't go on to buy any more content afterwards. It's not like DLC really costs them anything much to provide, it's not too far off being just pure profit, they're not just going to risk turning that away. Even if you do run into problems it's not like Microsoft support wont help either, when my original XBox 360 died through RROD they gave me 4200 points when I complained about my DLC not being tied to my replacement console anymore and then tied my content to my new console for me.

    This story is about as stupid as the Visual Studio tabs one from the other day. Really, has it come to this? Slashdot is so desperate for anti-MS stories now that it really has resorted to just scraping the bottom of the barrel?

  3. XBox Live points is definitly a game by Degro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Screw Resolving Things "Peacefully"... by RoFLKOPTr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Deja'vu by njandtmp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I can confirm that the Microsoft server do not always hold the content on their servers. I had bought a dozen or so songs from the Zune marketplace, then after an update I lost media rights to play these purchased songs. When I went to re-download the songs, they are no longer available on the Zune Marketplace. I called Customer Support (in India), and they are if course unable to assist. They blamed me for not backing up my license file. They sugested that I burn all my purchased songs to a CD for a backup. I tried to explain that was the reason why I purchased the Zune in the first place, to get rid of the CD media. So do not always assume this content is available to be downloaded again, which is a major issue with the XBOX, since you cant backup any of the content.