Return of the Stupid: FFXI Class-Action Lawsuit

The only thing that ever happened when I didn't have funds or either my credit card info had changed and I forgot to update it, they would simply cancel the content ID until payment was made. Then it was reactivated immediately. God forbid they cancel service when they don't get paid lol
 
Kajimaru said:
After reading the artical, I found it didnt' give anymore info. Guess it woulden't of matterd, right?
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Regardless of the fact that it didn't have any more information that didn't interest you, it's pretty dumb to comment about an article and then say "Maybe I should read the article."
 
Every one of those points makes them look like an idiot except for perhaps the point of having to pay even while you're suspended. As far as the other points go: We're forced to register with a credit card and we're forced to accept the ToS any time we want to play. While there are weak arguments against both of those points they're not the sort of arguments that are going to win a case.

One point of interest though is on the legal page that Pascal pointed us to, there's a reference to the plaintiff asserting claims against defendants under the unfair competion law (UCL). Now...I get that they're upset over losing money, but where does competition between companies come into play? If anything, they're giving their clients over to other MMOs due to the (previously mentioned) awful customer service. Maybe my interpretation of what the UCL is supposed to stand for is inaccurate.

Thread title seems spot on.
 
Skaw said:
Regardless of the fact that it didn't have any more information that didn't interest you, it's pretty dumb to comment about an article and then say "Maybe I should read the article."
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I read what was on the original posts, but did not click the link. The link, in turn, was extactly what was posted on the original message. I thought the link would of been a more detailed artical, but I was incorrect.

Sorry that I wasn't clear on that. You'll forgive me, right?
 
Tagrineth said:
You broke the rules to get banned/suspended. Why the heck should they give you a refund? "Oh, OK, you cheated. Here's your money back! Sorry for the hassle!"
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Because you're paying for a full month of service. If they're halting your service in the middle of the month, no matter what the reason, they need to refund the prorated difference to you. They obviously wouldn't need to refund the entire month, but if you're being denied access to something you're paying for, that's very bad juju.
 
Tagrineth said:
Welcome to all PC software, ever. ALL SOFTWARE WORKS THIS WAY. There's ALWAYS a license agreement you have to accept, even with fully offline software.
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Yeah, I know, thanks for stating that twice, I couldn't read it without caps. But is it right to do that? Definitely not. Just because everyone does it doesn't make it right. You should have access to the license agreement before you're bound to your purchase. As of now there's only a tiny notice on the box that says "Acceptance of certain agreements is required".

Don't get me wrong, I'm a programmer, and sure as hell wouldn't want to sell something without making everyone agree that they can't reverse engineer it, resell it, etc. But at the same time the current practice favors the business over the consumer. The agreement should be in the manual, and the CD with cd key should be sealed separately inside the box to allow returns.
 
Euphacent said:
Because you're paying for a full month of service. If they're halting your service in the middle of the month, no matter what the reason, they need to refund the prorated difference to you. They obviously wouldn't need to refund the entire month, but if you're being denied access to something you're paying for, that's very bad juju.
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If you broke the ToS, you forfeit those so called rights, as well as the money you paid. Breaking the ToS gets you temp or perma-banned depending on the severity of the offense, so "deserving" the money back for what was left of the month doesn't apply because you broke the rules. Not that I agree with how SE bills us, but hey, we agree to it everytime we sign in and every month we pay our dues to SE to keep playing their game.
 
I had a buddy with LM-17 due to credit card issues. It's kinda dumb and their customer service is ridiculous. S.E. really needs to get their act cleaned up.
 
Euphacent said:
Because you're paying for a full month of service. If they're halting your service in the middle of the month, no matter what the reason, they need to refund the prorated difference to you. They obviously wouldn't need to refund the entire month, but if you're being denied access to something you're paying for, that's very bad juju.
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in a general sense, if you get suspended or terminated mid month, it's your own fuckin fault. if you're gonna do something to get yourself banned, why should you get your money back?
 
Hexx said:
If you broke the ToS, you forfeit those so called rights, as well as the money you paid. Breaking the ToS gets you temp or perma-banned depending on the severity of the offense, so "deserving" the money back for what was left of the month doesn't apply because you broke the rules. Not that I agree with how SE bills us, but hey, we agree to it everytime we sign in and every month we pay our dues to SE to keep playing their game.
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Breaking the TOS doesn't negate the fact that they have your money for x amount of days of playtime. If they're taking the playtime away for whatever reason, they need to refund that amount of money back to you. Especially when considering how opaque their processes have been, they could just make up something that isn't even in the TOS and is just what the GM-of-the-day's opinion is, or is in the TOS but isn't stated clearly enough (gee, that's never happened before) and decide to ban your without ever telling you what it's for.

I'm sure you've read the posts before when someone that is innocent is banned, especially during all the recent hackings, and couldn't get any information about why the ban was in place even when calling and providing all their personal information. Can you guess how many of those people were reimbursed for the time they were banned even though they paid for the month and weren't at fault?

It's just my opinion. Working in the services field, myself, I see crap like this becoming an issue all the time. If someone were to actually make a big deal about this, it would change, but people don't care that much about MMO's and their $12.95. I know I don't.

Tagrineth said:
in a general sense, if you get suspended or terminated mid month, it's your own fuckin fault. if you're gonna do something to get yourself banned, why should you get your money back?
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No need to get your panties in a bunch over a simple discussion.

Typically it's your own fault. I never claimed otherwise. I just said I think you should be reimbursed for time you are suddenly denied which you prepaid for. :)
 
I am suprised SE just does not put the banned accounts into GM jail till the paid month is up then remove them from the game. Then a player would have their month of FFXI. There should be a clause for people who can prove it was not them who broke the ToS. Give them a month free to comp for the paid one while banned or something.
 
Euphacent said:
Breaking the TOS doesn't negate the fact that they have your money for x amount of days of playtime. If they're taking the playtime away for whatever reason, they need to refund that amount of money back to you. Especially when considering how opaque their processes have been, they could just make up something that isn't even in the TOS and is just what the GM-of-the-day's opinion is, or is in the TOS but isn't stated clearly enough (gee, that's never happened before) and decide to ban your without ever telling you what it's for.

I'm sure you've read the posts before when someone that is innocent is banned, especially during all the recent hackings, and couldn't get any information about why the ban was in place even when calling and providing all their personal information. Can you guess how many of those people were reimbursed for the time they were banned even though they paid for the month and weren't at fault?

It's just my opinion. Working in the services field, myself, I see crap like this becoming an issue all the time. If someone were to actually make a big deal about this, it would change, but people don't care that much about MMO's and their $12.95. I know I don't.

No need to get your panties in a bunch over a simple discussion.

Typically it's your own fault. I never claimed otherwise. I just said I think you should be reimbursed for time you are suddenly denied which you prepaid for. :)
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That's retarded. That'd be like if you paid a monthly fee to be a member at a club and stole money from someone else at the club, get kicked out by the management, and then expect them to give you your money back for your membership. No, if you asked for that you'd expect an ass-kicking from a bouncer.
 
the problem is that they dont prorate any of their charges.

in the case of the full charge for 3 days worth of play time. thats just idiotic.

also Tagrineth relax.
 
I think the most applicable analogy would be comparing it to paying rent. You pay your rent in advance, just as you pay your FFXI subscription in advance. If you do something to get yourself kicked out of your home/apartment (i.e. excessive noise, smoking, whatever), then you're going to get reimbursed for the prorated days left in the month you already paid for. The only exception to this would be if there is a clause in your lease agreement that states that you forfeit your right to a prorated reimbursement if you're forced to break the lease due to violations. There is no such wording in the ToS for FFXI, merely that SE reserves the right to ban/cancel your account at anytime. If the main complaint in the case is the reimbursement of such fees, they have a very strong case and it's likely that SE would agree to settle out of court.
 
Whether all the reasons SE is getting sued for sound right or not ("Termination of access for not paying" really does make sense, why get a service you're not paying for?) they really do deserve it for their really crappy customer service and billing practices.

I have a friend that has sworn off FFXI over a somewhat minor issue with their billing. His account was hacked last year and through some arguing with their customer service over a week or so, he was actually able to get his account back and his characters restored. Although there had apparently been a world transfer charge while he wasn't able to access his account that SE never reimbursed him for. He eventually got tired of calling them over it, since they kept saying he would get his money back but he never did, and instead just quit playing the game. I don't really blame him, why pay for a service from a company you can't trust?

I was thinking about coming back to the game, but after reading on on some of these problems, and remembering my own experiences, I think I've decided against it. When I was playing at the end of last year, their billing schedule was really screwy. It seemed like they would alternate between billing at the beginning and the end of the month, so some times I would be billed twice over two or three days, and other times there would be a 50+ day gap between billings.

Unfortunately for them, however, their poor choice in billing lost them out on two monthly fees. I had changed my credit card in the middle of December, after canceling my subscription (wasn't able to afford the game anymore), but that was one of the months where they decided they were going to bill me at the end of the month apparently. So they went to charge a card that was no longer active and I now owe them $26 or so in total, that I'll probably never end up paying them. I'm not saying that I don't owe them money or anything, but I think it's their own fault for not using a normal, pre-paid, billing schedule.

But between their poor customer service, hearing about continued hacking of accounts, and the problems getting those security tokens, I'll probably be staying away from FFXI anyways.
 
gomanfox said:
But between their poor customer service, hearing about continued hacking of accounts, and the problems getting those security tokens, I'll probably be staying away from FFXI anyways.
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Stolen accounts aren't on their hands. It's your responsibility as the user to make sure your machine is clean. The apathy about putting out actual security updates to knock out the problems, on the other hand, is their fault.

Your friendly likely ran something or went somewhere he shouldn't have, or a combination of the two, and he's just a giant pussy to fess up.
 
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