Thieves of a feather flock together! Microsoft and Best Buy have teamed up to slam unwary buyers with bills for unrequested and unauthorized MSN services.
Happy holiday greetings from B. Gates?
I received a $65.85 Microsoft bill this October for 3 months of MSN services. It was sent because my checking account declined MS's attempts at automatically withdrawing the money.
Totally confused, and a little frightened by this, I placed a call to MS customer service to find out why I was being billed for a service I did not request, use, or authorize.
The MS service rep said the MSN service was related to a computer purchase and the 12 month free trial period was up, therefore the bill, which I had to pay. The call was ended abruptly on the note that I refuse to pay for unauthorized services.
The root of the evil: I bought a Compaq Presario computer package from Best Buy in March. They sent my debit card number to MS. My use of a debit card is why the money could not be taken out of my account, since I had not given them my PIN or checking account number to authorize the withdrawals. Thank God I did not use a credit card.
The Best Buy salesperson never mentioned anything concerning signing up for free MSN, nor was I given a "scanned" MSN CD to load.
In researching online, I found quite a few other people who have had the same thing happen to them, and at least one individual won his lawsuit.
So for now I do not intend to pay the bill. Microsoft is going to get a letter demanding a copy of a signed authorization, including all necessary information, required to withdraw money from my checking account.
(Stay tuned to see whether Bill and his cohorts at Best Buy refuse to let me starve them out of house and home this holiday season...)
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