Microsoft is facing a class action law suit that has been filed against the company with the plaintiff, Ryan Graves, claiming that the company double-bills its customers due to vague Xbox Live Subscription terms and policies.

In the case of Graves, he let his credit card that was on file with Microsoft expire, and didn’t update it. When his Xbox Live subscription expired, Microsoft had no way to charge a renewal fee for the subscription.  Later on down the road when Graves decided to renew his Xbox Live subscription, Microsoft charged him not only for a new one-year subscription, but also for the past year’s subscription.

When Graves questioned the Microsoft Xbox Live subscription policy he was told that it was not a mistake and he would get a two-year subscription, as the charges covered both the new one-year subscription and the automatic renewal of his previous subscription. He tried to explain to Microsoft that he only wanted a one-year subscription and did not want to pay for two years, but to no avail.

The lawsuit moves on, and over the years people have asked why we always use pre-paid, one-year Xbox Live Subscription cards. Besides the fact that they generally are cheaper when you find them on sale for a good price, using these keeps Microsoft from having your credit card number on file. We always use pre-paid cards for subscriptions and points; our reason was that we never liked the easy access to buy things when they had your credit card on file.  It now appears that we finally have another reason.

You can read the court filing here.