Attention lawyers: Is this grounds for a class action suit?

[Dan Druff]

The scenario:

You download a free game app which offers premium "in app purchases" for real money.

You purchase 5000 "gold" for real money to be used in the game.

The game is designed very poorly, and causes accidental and spontaneous "purchases" with your gold to be made, thus wasting it.

You ask support for the gold back. They refuse, claiming "all purchases with gold are final". When you show the details which would make it obvious the purchase with gold was accidental (i.e. it would have no benefit to you in the game), they still refuse.

Upon going on a Facebook group for players of this popular game, you uncover that likely thousands of people have been victimized in this exact same way, due to both the poor app design and the no-refund-of-gold policy. Furthermore, you begin to suspect that this is intentional.

I am of the belief that the company acted illegally for refusing to refund the obvious accidental/unintended purchases with the gold, as the gold cost real money to get, and the app did not provide reasonable protections against accidental purchases (nor is a reasonable refund policy in place for when this occurs).

Is this class action material?

[WillieMcFML]

jesus buddy

[RS_]

How is the gold “accidentally” spent? Is it an actual bug? Or is it something where it’s very easy to misclick or something like that?

[Dan Druff]

How is the gold “accidentally” spent? Is it an actual bug? Or is it something where it’s very easy to misclick or something like that?

Both

[limitles]

Was waiting for Tellatard, Tellatard and Tard to weigh in but until then did you read the fine print/terms of service and
can you document that fact?

[Dan Druff]

Was waiting for Tellatard, Tellatard and Tard to weigh in but until then did you read the fine print/terms of service and
can you document that fact?

It would be easy to demonstrate that the game is poorly designed to where unintentional purchases are made when one plays it actively.

It would not be difficult to produce a large number of people to testify under oath that this happened to them.

Terms of service do not matter, as they do not legalize fraud.

However, law involving in-app purchases is immature, and the FTC is just beginning to address some of these issues.

A few years ago, there was a case with the FTC involving in-app purchases by minors, and whether the parents were responsible. It was ultimately ruled that, absent of proper safeguards to prevent minors from making in-app purchases, the parents must be able to get a refund, even if the minor was allowed to use the device and even if the minor did intend to make that purchase.

This, of course, is a lot different. But I'm saying that I'm not sure of the exact law here.

I do believe that this is illegal (from a civil standpoint), though. To me it appears to be a case where you pay for a service and do not receive it, thus the customers have been (civilly) harmed.

But I'd like to hear from a few attorneys on this.

[Jayjami]

The scenario:

You download a free game app which offers premium "in app purchases" for real money.

You purchase 5000 "gold" for real money to be used in the game.

The game is designed very poorly, and causes accidental and spontaneous "purchases" with your gold to be made, thus wasting it.

You ask support for the gold back. They refuse, claiming "all purchases with gold are final". When you show the details which would make it obvious the purchase with gold was accidental (i.e. it would have no benefit to you in the game), they still refuse.

Upon going on a Facebook group for players of this popular game, you uncover that likely thousands of people have been victimized in this exact same way, due to both the poor app design and the no-refund-of-gold policy. Furthermore, you begin to suspect that this is intentional.

I am of the belief that the company acted illegally for refusing to refund the obvious accidental/unintended purchases with the gold, as the gold cost real money to get, and the app did not provide reasonable protections against accidental purchases (nor is a reasonable refund policy in place for when this occurs).

Is this class action material?

LOL, caveat emptor bitch.

[Dan Druff]

The scenario:

You download a free game app which offers premium "in app purchases" for real money.

You purchase 5000 "gold" for real money to be used in the game.

The game is designed very poorly, and causes accidental and spontaneous "purchases" with your gold to be made, thus wasting it.

You ask support for the gold back. They refuse, claiming "all purchases with gold are final". When you show the details which would make it obvious the purchase with gold was accidental (i.e. it would have no benefit to you in the game), they still refuse.

Upon going on a Facebook group for players of this popular game, you uncover that likely thousands of people have been victimized in this exact same way, due to both the poor app design and the no-refund-of-gold policy. Furthermore, you begin to suspect that this is intentional.

I am of the belief that the company acted illegally for refusing to refund the obvious accidental/unintended purchases with the gold, as the gold cost real money to get, and the app did not provide reasonable protections against accidental purchases (nor is a reasonable refund policy in place for when this occurs).

Is this class action material?

LOL, caveat emptor bitch.

I was hoping for something more enlightening than that from you.

Or is this why you stopped practicing?

[Jayjami]

LOL, caveat emptor bitch.

I was hoping for something more enlightening than that from you.

Or is this why you stopped practicing?

Typical client, can’t handle the truth. Exactly what are your economic damages? I understand you being butthurt because product didn’t perform up to your expectations, but that is not compensable under contract principles. And fraud? LOL, those Sea Monkeys I bought as a kid were a ripoff, too. As I said, caveat emptor bitch.

[Dan Druff]

I was hoping for something more enlightening than that from you.

Or is this why you stopped practicing?

Typical client, can’t handle the truth. Exactly what are your economic damages? I understand you being butthurt because product didn’t perform up to your expectations, but that is not compensable under contract principles. And fraud? LOL, those Sea Monkeys I bought as a kid were a ripoff, too. As I said, caveat emptor bitch.

My economic damages are low. But that's why I was asking about class action, and not about suing the company for a very small amount of money.

This wasn't about failure to perform to expectation. It's about failure to deliver services paid for.

I bought the gold in order to purchase premium services on their app. That is the gold's only function, and it is clear that the user is purchasing the gold as an intermediate currency for use of purchasing premium services.

I did not get the premium services because the app is full of bugs and design flaws, which took my gold and "purchased" services I did not want. My attempts to have the company reverse this were met with failure.

As I said, disappointing response.

There's no question I was ripped off here. I don't need a lawyer to tell me that.

The question is whether existing law would allow me to get a remedy, and if existing law would support a class action if one were to be attempted.

[Dan Druff]

For those who think the company can do what it wants with its internal gold, provided that they state so in the TOS, consider these scenarios:

1) Most things in the game cost 100-3000 gold. You purchase 10,000 gold for $100. The next day, the company raises the price of items to where everything costs between 20,000 and 1,000,000 gold. They will not refund your money or give you more gold to compensate.

2) You purchase 10,000 gold for $100. While chatting during the game, you say the word "fuck". The company says that you committed a TOS violation by cursing in the chat, and takes your gold as punishment.

Even if the TOS permitted these, both actions would clearly be (civilly) illegal.

Neither of these two things actually happened, but I was citing some possible examples to show that a company can't just hide behind, "It's our internal gold, not real money" or TOS rules in order to cheat people.

Bottom line is that if you purchase a service and it's not delivered, you were cheated. That is 100% true. I am surprised that some people here are taking a "shit happens, read the TOS next time" attitude. That's blaming the victim and not the perpetrator, and that's bullshit.

Would this probably be too much trouble to pursue legally? Yes, and if that's your argument, I can respect that.

Is the law immature regarding in-app purchases to where I might lose if I pursed them legally? Yes, and if that's your argument, I can respect that.

Might this fail as a class action, due to various legal factors? Yes, and if that's your argument, I can respect that.

Is this one of those cases where I got ripped off, but should just let it go because the money is small? Perhaps, and if that's your argument, I can respect that.

But seriously... LOL at anyone who thinks that this company isn't actually ripping people off here.

[Jayjami]

Typical client, can’t handle the truth. Exactly what are your economic damages? I understand you being butthurt because product didn’t perform up to your expectations, but that is not compensable under contract principles. And fraud? LOL, those Sea Monkeys I bought as a kid were a ripoff, too. As I said, caveat emptor bitch.

My economic damages are low. But that's why I was asking about class action, and not about suing the company for a very small amount of money.

This wasn't about failure to perform to expectation. It's about failure to deliver services paid for.

I bought the gold in order to purchase premium services on their app. That is the gold's only function, and it is clear that the user is purchasing the gold as an intermediate currency for use of purchasing premium services.

I did not get the premium services because the app is full of bugs and design flaws, which took my gold and "purchased" services I did not want. My attempts to have the company reverse this were met with failure.

As I said, disappointing response.

There's no question I was ripped off here. I don't need a lawyer to tell me that.

The question is whether existing law would allow me to get a remedy, and if existing law would support a class action if one were to be attempted.

Of course my response was “disappointing”, because I didn’t tell you how right you are and that you are some type of “victim” that deserves sympathy. You would make a perfect representative client for a class action suit, a rich whining California Jew who makes his living playing poker. I’m sure the jury would be very sympathetic to you being “ripped off.”

LOL, if it wasn’t your butt that was sore, you’d be bitching about scummy lawyers who file frivolous class action lawsuits, bankrupting corporate America, making millions, while their clients get 50 cent recoveries. I bet you’ve had difficulties with lawyers you’ve retained in the past. You exhibit all the signs of a “nightmare client”.