Square-Enix Facing $5 Million Final Fantasy XI Lawsuit

[KingPiccolOwned]

Stuff like this happens in a lot of MMO's. People continue to get billed after they cancel their account. I'm surprised this hasn't happened to Blizzard, Mythic, or Funcom as this exact thing happens frequently.

That's the most disturbing thing. This could set a precedent for others to sue other companies.

Well if they are big enough bastards to continue asking for money after you've already stopped using their product, then they deserve it.

Looking over it, she's sueing them for charging for a P2P game and denying service when she didn't pay the fee. Apparently she didn't notice it was P2P or something.

Yeah, and I would agree with you, but there are over 100,000 people from the same city saying the same thing, and I have a fairly difficult time believing that NONE of them had thought of that.

 

[Ashkente]

The court filing reads:

The deceptive advertising, unfair and undisclosed business practices, and concealment concern, among others:

i. Licensing of the online games software disguised as a sale;
ii. Monthly fees ("fees") to play the online games;
iii. Penalties for late payment of the fees;
iv. Interest charges for late payment of the fees;
v. Charges while the online game account is suspended;
vi. Termination of the right to use the online games for late payment of the fees;
vii. User restrictions and conditions related to the online games;
viii. Termination of game data for payment of the fees.

So...she's suing because she had to pay a monthly fee to play an ONLINE game, and because she couldn't use play anymore because she didn't pay the fees? OH COME ON.

i. Isn't disguised as a sale, even the expansion boxes say 'Requires FFXI Online to play' and directly under that statement is "THIS GAME CAN BE PLAYED ONLINE ONLY", and "Additional requirements: Additional monthly fee, and broadband connection"
ii. It's a P2P MMO, of course there's a freakin' fee, which is very easy to locate. $12.95/month + an additional $1 per extra content ID (character).
iii. I've missed payments, I've never paid a penalty, I've just not been allowed to log on until I settle my account.
iv. Never been charged interest either, in 6.5yrs.
v. They've never charged me, my wife, or anyone else we know whilst their respective accts are suspended.
vi. You don't pay, you don't play. Makes sense to me.
vii. It's their world, their servers, and their license, they can state anything they want to in a privately-owned system.
viii. Somehow I seriously doubt SE sent ninjas into her house to steal her cd's/dvd's, remove all traces of info from her hard drive, and little-red-MIB-Flashy thing her entire family.


Stupid frivolous bullshit.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

Actually, I'm a current FFXI player and they have screwed me on the occassion as well. My friend and I both used my bank account to pay for our fees. He would give the money to me, I'd put it in the bank, ect.

The two of us decided to quit and dabble in some other MMOs, so we cancelled our account. This was done via the PlayOnline viewers "cancel Content ID" section. Time passed and we came back to the game. We put our money in the bank, renewed our IDs, and logged in to play. We paid that month fine, but when next month rolled around we were charged TWICE for both accounts.

I called up their customer support and they said it was due to a charge of a 'late-fee' coupled with that month's fees. It was strange. Even the Customer Support Associate said it shouldn't have happened. However, for the erroneous charges they gave my friend and I a free month each and my bank returned the other two charges as "not authorized." So really, I came out ahead of the game.

However, even though I got lucky, some banks won't overturn such things without speaking to the company responsible directly. I had one helluva time getting a hold of that one Associate. I don't think it's a matter of SE not being forthcoming in their advertisement, I think it's because the people making these claims are morons. But to be fair, if you've ever tried to deal with SE's customer support, you'll notice those people seem equally stupid.