LOS ANGELES, California (Reuters) -- A Los Angeles man has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Best Buy Inc. and Microsoft Corp., accusing them of scamming customers by charging them for online services without their knowledge.
The suit, filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, claims the alleged scam stemmed from a promotion in which customers at Best Buy, who paid for purchases with credit or debit cards, were given free compact discs that allowed them to try Microsoft's online service, MSN.
Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, and Best Buy, the largest consumer electronics chain, were partners in a pact dating back to 1999 to promote Microsoft's money-losing MSN Internet access service.
"We haven't yet received the complaint and therefore have no comment," a Microsoft spokesman said. Best Buy officials were not immediately available for comment.
Plaintiff Samuel Kim said he unwittingly became a victim in February after making a purchase at a Best Buy store in Los Angeles with his debit card.
At checkout, a store employee scanned Kim's debit card and, without any explanation to him, scanned a trial MSN compact disc and placed it in his shopping bag, the lawsuit said.
When Kim asked why the compact disc had been scanned, the employee allegedly said it was to keep track of inventory.
But Best Buy apparently sent Kim's debit card information to Microsoft, which activated an MSN service account in his name without telling him, the lawsuit said.
Kim did not use the compact disc but discovered after receiving his bank statement that Microsoft had deducted a monthly service charge from his account, the suit said. He has not been unable to get a full refund from either company, his attorney Anthony Lee of San Francisco told Reuters.
The lawsuit asks a judge to stop the alleged scam and demands a refund for affected Best Buy customers.
"The ability of companies to charge people and actually take money from them without their knowledge is an interesting development and one that we are seeing more often, particularly through debit cards," San Francisco attorney Eric Gibbs, who also represents Kim, said.
Best Buy's shares fell sharply last October when it warned that it could lose its contract to market MSN, which provided advertising money and profit sharing to Best Buy, a major retailer of Microsoft products.
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