Lawsuit Accuses Microsoft, Best Buy Of Online Scam
from the go-after-those-with-deep-pockets dept
A California man is trying to file a class action lawsuit against Microsoft and Best Buy, saying they created an online scam to charge customers for online services without their permission. For years, Best Buy has given out MSN “free trial” CDs with purchases. The guy is claiming that his CD was “scanned” by the cashier, and his debit card was automatically charged for one month of MSN service. I haven’t heard of anything like this – and you would figure, if it was a widespread practice, that news of it would have shown up before. It will be interesting to see if this is a real issue, or if it was a screwup for this particular guy.
Comments on “Lawsuit Accuses Microsoft, Best Buy Of Online Scam”
Best Buy scam
Kim is not lying. I bought a dryer in BB in December ’01 and it took 6 months to get it corrected (I haven’t looked at my bills, so it may well have not been-like an idiot, I took the word of the clerk I’d been pestering at BB that all had been fixed…).
When I was given the CD for MSN, it was described to me as an offer in which 30 days would pass before ANY billing would occur-I never used the CD, but cancelled, as the arrangement had specified, well before the 30-day limit. Lo and behold, I am billed for the next few months while I have to waste about 2 hours every time I go over to argue my case with, generally, a different clerk who doesn’t know a damn thing about the arrangement and is obliged to involve the manager, who, herself has trouble decifering the arcana involved. Needless to say I have written off any purchases at Best Buy and deal with microsoft only because they are the only phone company in town…
A word to the wise: ANYTHING THAT SHOWS UP ON YOUR CREDIT CARD/DEBIT CARD BILL THAT IS REMOTELY FUNKY, SHOULD BE CAUSE FOR AN IMMEDIATE CALL TO THE CARD ISSUER FOR A STOP PAYMENT AND INVESTIGATION INTO THE ISSUE. My present card issuer is extremely good at that, thank you very much… These people get away with this kind of crap because most of us are polite and (unfortunately)have been socialized to expect much the same from others (I think that’s why it’s called civilization). NO MORE MR./MS NICE GUY–screw ’em all, big ‘n small.
Best Buy/Microsoft scam
I bought a dryer from Best Buy two years ago and took home the cd to load MSN and never even removed it from the package. I went back to Best Buy a few days before the 30 day trial period expired and cancelled. A couple of weeks later I noticed I’d been charged for the service on my credit card and went back to Best Buy to investigate. Turns out no one really knew how to cancel the program once one was speared, so I spent about two hours there with supervisors and clerks working through the maze of cancellation and was assured all was fine and dandy. As it turns out, this ritual was to be repeated three more times over the next seven months, til I was (apparently) expelled from the beast’s gullet.
I would love to be part of a class action suit against these rogues-I already have included Best Buy in my Book of Bastards, along with AT&T, Fleet Bank and other choice companies which place customer service on a par with wiping their butts-necessary, but dispensed with as quickly as possible.