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Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

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Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#231

Post by xyzelement »

bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges. This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your m…

Can you help me make sure I follow this right. You do a charge back in cases where you can't reach an agreeable resolution with the company, right.

Presumably that's the end of the relationship - you claw your money back via the CC and say good bye to the company.

What's the argument for being able to charge back but then wanting to (and the company being forced to, as I think you are suggesting) doing business with each other?

I suspect I am missing something.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#232

Post by akira2501 »

xyzelement wrote: post #231
bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges. This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your m…

Can you help me make sure I follow this right. You do a charge back in cases where you can't reach an agreeable resolution with the company, right. Presumably that's the end of the relationship - you claw your money back via the CC and say good bye to the company. What's the argument for being able to charge back but then wanting to (and the company being forced to, as I think you are suggesting) doing business with…

The lack of any other viable means of customer support seems to be the issue. The only way to manage these problems is the use of the app, and these companies can definitely make usage of the app and the ability to hail a ride separate. Or they can provide better customer service, or an alternative mechanism for people to resolve any ongoing issues they've created.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#233

Post by wkat4242 »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #170
paulmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this too. This just needs to be the rule generally. Steam and Amazon do the same thing - get hacked and get charged for some items, if you dispute the Steam charge you lose your $5000 account, that's not a fair playing field and effectively negates the protection offered by credit card networks. Hopefully steam resolves it, that's always the first line of defense, but if they don't, you still can't c…

I think ultimately the only way to solve this is to legislate some notion of digital "ownership." Steam SOLD me a game. Amazon SOLD me an e-book. Shut down my account or refuse to do further business with me as you like, that's your right, but if you SOLD me something, you can't have it back. You need to either make it available to me or return my money. If Amazon wants to put the word "buy" on a button, then somethi…

[dead]

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#234

Post by robertlagrant »

yamtaddle wrote: post #61
vuln wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be interesting to see the EU try and force a company to host something in perpetuity. Interesting thought exercise.

They could just actually sell things instead. As in, sell for real , not some at-our-discretion lease. Nobody's forcing companies to gate access and add DRM and all that. Such a change probably wouldn't result in perpetual hosting, but in actually selling things . Or, in only providing rentals. Either way, the situation would be clearer to the end user.

What are you talking about? Do you mean send out games on DVD?

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#235

Post by CydeWeys »

camhart wrote: post #111
bluetidepro wrote: post #5

> Additionally, the order bars Epic from blocking consumers from accessing their accounts for disputing unauthorized charges. This could be bigger than people realize. This is very common in many tech companies like Uber/Doordash/Sony/etc. where if you do a chargeback, you often get blacklisted on their service. It would be amazing if this starts to end this practice, and you can actually have authority to get your m…

There is the business side of this to consider. Disputes are expensive--companies are forced to pay significant fees whether they win or lose the dispute. A dishonest customer lying to their bank about your product/service should be able to be banned from using your product/service. Otherwise, what's to stop them from maliciously charging then filing disputes over and over again? To be clear, I'm talking about a diff…

One simple answer to this is they could disable all new purchases without disabling the entire account. If you can no longer spend money there's nothing to charge back.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#236

Post by moffkalast »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #170
paulmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this too. This just needs to be the rule generally. Steam and Amazon do the same thing - get hacked and get charged for some items, if you dispute the Steam charge you lose your $5000 account, that's not a fair playing field and effectively negates the protection offered by credit card networks. Hopefully steam resolves it, that's always the first line of defense, but if they don't, you still can't c…

I think ultimately the only way to solve this is to legislate some notion of digital "ownership." Steam SOLD me a game. Amazon SOLD me an e-book. Shut down my account or refuse to do further business with me as you like, that's your right, but if you SOLD me something, you can't have it back. You need to either make it available to me or return my money. If Amazon wants to put the word "buy" on a button, then somethi…

> Otherwise the button needs to read "acquire revokable license" or something.

Somebody get the EU on that, stat.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#237

Post by harry8 »

capableweb wrote: post #221
bioemerl wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers don't pay that 30 percent, users do. You could even say that steam is a customer of the developers (I buy your game at x to sell for y), and the average person is a customer of steam and the devs. I don't really see the customers or the developers as the core. Both groups tie into each other in a big network effect.

> Developers don't pay that 30 percent, users do. No really, the developers have 30% removed from a sale which goes to Steam. People who buy games don't see a price + 30%, it's the developer who sees the fee when they look at the sales. Otherwise all receipts from Steam would be $GAME_PRICE + $STEAM_FEE, but it's simply $GAME_PRICE and then the developer when looking through their sales, that see $GAME_PRICE - $STEAM…

So I pay $X and 30% of that goes to steam.

This is not me as the user paying. Gotcha.

The customer pays for /everything/ /always/ under /all/ circumstances. It's not cost plus pricing, vendors will charge as much as the customer will part with. Customers are willing to part with less when competition pushes prices down. That 30% is definitely keeping prices higher to the customer in any remotely competitive market. (I say nothing about whether that is a good thing or bad, whether that is cheap or expensive - it's just nuts not to know the customer is paying it, that's whose pocket the money comes out of).

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#239

Post by paulmd »

munk-a wrote: post #214
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think ultimately the only way to solve this is to legislate some notion of digital "ownership." Steam SOLD me a game. Amazon SOLD me an e-book. Shut down my account or refuse to do further business with me as you like, that's your right, but if you SOLD me something, you can't have it back. You need to either make it available to me or return my money. If Amazon wants to put the word "buy" on a button, then somethi…

Isn't a big blocker in this space the fact that when you can hide behind a digital license to use a copy of the game the potential that you may, at some point in the future, be unable to deliver a copy of that game to the consumer isn't a big issue? I had thought that electronic goods dealers (e-books, steam, whatever) had some issues with actually selling goods because of the fact that a sold good needs to continue…

Or you may not be licensed to deliver a copy of that game.

This has already happened with e-books, the rights are negotiated for a term and then when they're not renewed the copy is deleted off the consumer's device.

https://gizmodo.com/amazon-secretly-removes-1984-from-the-ki...

Another odd place this might crop up is music licensing... if the license for some music expires, often the show will be re-mastered with a different track instead. But that could be viewed as a different "edition" of the work, and if you aren't allowed to yoink the user's purchased copy (or simply stream the newer edition) then you have a problem.

Frankly these issues have already gotten out of hand and forcing producers/authors to reach less predatory agreements may be a good thing. I'm not thinking of the small author here, they're already losing, but the estate of a dead artist of some smash-hit catalog will often milk that extremely hard.

Re: Epic Games to pay $245M for tricking users into making unwanted charges

#240

Post by hnick »

ridgered4 wrote: post #112
SimonPStevens wrote: post #17

Quite frankly in-game purchases has destroyed an entire industry for me. Mobile games are so filled with this junk I don't even bother looking at them any more. I avoid anything on PC that has a store, repeating season passes or virtual currency of any kind. It's even coloured my view of the types of add-on DLC that 20 years ago would have been a legitimate expansion pack, purely because it feels too similar to the d…

I already live in a pay to win world so the idea of unwinding in one seems insane to me. My biggest beef is when this is added in an update after I bought a game that didn't have it.

I can't remember the game (I think it was Marvel related) but I remember seeing a preview for one where the YouTuber called out suspicious gaps in the UI, which would easily allow in-game store stuff to be added after the fact. And it was shortly after release. They knew we didn't want it, so they hid it.

Either way I'm with all of the above comments, the mere intermingling of real world cash concerns with a game ruins the immersion for me. I have made a few exceptions to this rule where I think it's really warranted due to the quality of the game or people involved, but overall I hate this direction.

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