I have a limited knowledge when a government agency is willing to take interest into a conflict between consumer and a seller (firm, company...etc). This doesn't mean it will involve courts that will force a company to do something, pay money or even close down; it could be just simple change in company policy. There are 5 major categories that I know of (these are very very general so take them as a grain of salt) that a government agency will poke its hands into the mess between consumers and a company or a group of company:
#1 Health and Public safety concern. Say, somebody is using rotten meat and cardboard to make some sort of vegetarian meat (it happened in Canada I think) and people get sick because of it. Selling toys with lead-based paint or any thing that can be unsafe for use. Even something with a warning on and consumers have full knowledge of the danger when using it (ex: alcohol, smoking...etc).
#2 Anti-trust, economic inefficiency, unfair competition...etc. Monopoly of some sort. Every company has a certain amount of power (read: monopoly) on their products. Once this power exceed a certain degree that will cause consumer to pay more than what they should, when the company is getting more money than they should at the expense of consumer utility (it's an economic term that is comparable to happiness) and create an unfair barrier of entry that prevents other companies from joining the market. Say, if Blizzard starts buying off all the MMO companies around and increase all the monthly payment of ALL MMO and strong arm new companies from entering the MMO market - that's an anti-trust issue.
#3 Frauds. Selling bad deals to consumers, tell them to agree something they do not have full knowledge of, false advertising, misleading terms of agreement/contract/advertising, unreasonable demands, hidden fees, change of policy/contract/terms without informing the clients...etc. Basically, pretty much anything that prevent a consumer to know what he or she is actually paying or getting into. If any someone can nail SE, it will probably in this area.
Note This is a touchy area since you need to prove that SE had unjustly prevent you from using the service and they are gaining profits by denying you the service. Say, a company selling MMO games for $20 a box with a monthly fee of $5, but they only have a small server that can only sustain 500 people (and they don't have money to expand the service). They decided to ban a bunch of people for no reason just to reduce the load on the server. That would be fraud regardless of their TOS/EULA...etc.
#4 Liability or who's responsible for what? This is where you get a bunch of pretty ridiculous lawsuits but some of them work. In general, it covers defective products, poor quality products and inadequate warning when using the product or services. Pretty much if you are getting unexpected results from the product and you are unhappy with it. Someone can sue SE for poor customer service if he or she can prove that good customer service is a package included into the product they buy (like you are promised with good customer service when buying FFXI). It's not a clear-cut area though since many companies get away with this by shifting the responsible to the consumers. Say, you get banned because they think you are RMT, you couldn't prove otherwise and the company does not wish to spend more resources in helping you resolve the issue because it's not part of the package they sold to you.
NOTE: I think, if the FFXI game box you bought is not usable, you can return it to SE for a refund (if you get banned). If they refuse, it's possible to sue SE based on the fact that you purchased the FFXI game (the box, not the monthly fee) and you did not receive as advertised on the box even when you meet all the requirements, unless SE stated explicitly on the box that the product is not usable if SE deny you of the monthly service.
#5 Privacy. Sometimes you get businesses that can be fairly invasive into your personal life such as debt collector calling you in the middle of the night or security company watching how many times you go to the rest room per day without telling you...etc.
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Most companies protect themselves from those issues by shifting the responsibilities on to the consumers and let them agree to certain terms of a contract of some sort (EULA, TOS, private policy...etc). Combine with the fact that you are buying something with little value ($12 a month) so suing the company is not an appealing option since your compensation is not going to be enough to cover the lawyer cost and many lawyers won't be interested in such issue unless they are doing it for fame. This is where activist groups like EFF jump in.
Once an activist group jump in, it's like having a Union to argue for your wages. They will provide anything from advices, counseling to negotiations with the company improving consumer experience and even support of lawsuits for a large group of consumers. They are a lot more effective than 1 person. Imagine all the guys that were banned by SE teaming up to sue SE. They aren't perfect but they will give you better leverage on the table.
Groups like BBB creates bad press for the company since they act like review sites. Most companies respond very very quickly to issue like "Many consumers left unhappy!" when that appear on the news. Whenever you try to buy a game or watch a movie, you will attempt to look for a review of the game. If it's a bad review there is a very good chance that you won't watch the movie or buy the game. BBB is like the review site for investors and other businesses. Bad review prevent investors. Since this give an image that the company is not good overall (esp if it's a pure service company). They aren't just afraid of losing customers but rather they afraid of losing investments. Good sales generates good profit and good profits invite more investments which will allow the company to generate more money in the future.
For example, FFXI has 500k users and SE banned 10k of them for unknown reasons. These people get pissed and say that they won't be buying FFXIV when it comes out. These people go to a consumer activist group and get themselves heard. Naturally, 10k people isn't a lot compare to 490k but since these 10k people are heard, future consumers will be wary of buying FFXIV just because they 'heard' that SE has very bad consumer service and you might lose your account for no reason at all. If future consumers are wary of purchasing, current and future investors will also be wary of investments. This often drive down stocks in the short terms (very very bad for a company).
It's even worse when you have consumers as your enemies. For example, if half of alla's frequent visitors were banned for no reason. Some one new or is returning to FFXI or just wanting to know if they should play FFXIV or not came asking for advice. If he or she gets something like "Don't play this game, SE has very bad customer service...etc" or "Go play Megaten or Starwars"...etc. It will be very very bad for SE
Edited, Jul 31st 2009 4:29pm by kenki
Edited, Jul 31st 2009 4:30pm by kenki