Microsoft in more hot water

[Unstoppable]

Class action lawsuit coming? I asked one of my family members and they told me that doing this is clearly against U.S. law and fraud. You cannot ship a product with a 30% sucess rate, fake tests, and not expect to pay the piper.

 

http://kotaku.com/347519/the-truth-behind-...d-ring-of-death

 

Also i've been researching Micro$oft a bit more out of coincidence. They seriously need help it's like they're obssesed with shady business practices.

 

They truly need a total overhaul of their leadership. Which probably won't happen with Bill at the helm.

 

It's just stupid though that they're taking a billion dollar hit for not wanting to spend more money (which they have enough) and time (which they really should have done) to delay the console and find the right people.

 

Which the only reason why it was rush is to get the jump on Sony. Which Sony has already recovered considering it's selling more it's first year AND selling well in Japan which 360 is not.

 

The thing I don't get is this isn't their first console, it's their second. Didn't they learn anything from Xbox? Well enough MS bashing, they still do some good things. However this clearly shows that they were up to no good.

[sparhawk]

Well, it's a business decisions. If you cheat N people, and only N-X sue you, you might come off better, so it's worth the risk. It's not moral business, but when did morale have anything to do with big business? Currently we are suffering a similar issue here in Germany with pricks from Texas. They don't care about people, they only care about shareholders.

[Unstoppable]

Yea but the U.S. has laws against this. It's not going to be the 1st time Microsoft goes to court neither. They also want the HD-DVD/Blur-Ray war to fail so they can monopolize the downloads. That's not going to happen because NPD just released some data where Blu-Ray bitch slapped HD-DVD since Warner went with Blue Ray.

 

They never stop really. It all goes back to Bill Gates too. That fucker wants to win so bad he will do anything to get it not caring about who or what he hurts. I won't be surprised if he's hit by the biggest Karma truck the planet has ever seen. LOL

 

So what type of business are you in? I've dealt with people from Texas. There can be all kinds of people but unfortunately you're stuck with the bad. I do have contacts in various business here in Florida. Talking people high up so just interested in knowing what your business is about .

Edited January 23, 2008 by Unstoppable

[sparhawk]

Yea but the U.S. has laws against this. It's not going to be the 1st time Microsoft goes to court neither.

 

Of course not. After all, why would you follow some law, if all you ever get is a wrist slap if you break it? While on the other hand you have a big gain by breaking it.

 

So what type of business are you in? I've dealt with people from Texas. There can be all kinds of people but unfortunately you're stuck with the bad. I do have contacts in various business here in Florida. Talking people high up so just interested in knowing what your business is about .

 

Well, it's not my business really, but it can still affect me.

 

What happend is the following. People get a loan from the bank to buy a house or other real estates. When you do this, there will be an entry in the cadastral register so you can not just sell the house and keep the money. This has been practiced since a hundred years now, and so far no problems arose, even though there was a lways a gap in the law. The problem is that the entry in the register is supposed to cover the loan. But the loan and the registration are two different things, which are not legally connected. So now some banks got the idea that they can sell the registration to money sharks. The claim that they only do this with lonas which didn't get billed, because they don't want to get their hands dirty by recovering the money via forced auctions (which would be a normal procedure in such a case, but gives a company a bad reputation). So they sell this registration to those sharks, and they of coruse have no problems doing the auctions. Now the problem is, in order to make it more interesting to the "investors" they not only sell corrupted loans (which would be disputable but still understandable) but they also throw in some well paid loans to give them more profit. This means, you pay your loan as you are supposed to, and suddenly somebody comes along and forces you to pay off some bigger money (because of course they also want to earn some extra with it) and if you can't (which is usually the case), the simply sell your house on an auction. This means that you are basically bancrupt afterwards, because you still have to pay back the loan, or the difference between the auction and what you already paid back, plus the extra costs for the auction and legal actions. There was a report in the news only a few days agao, and apparently this bank already sold about 50000 such registrations because they wanted to beautify their files.

What really annoys me, is that I also have such a loan with that bank. Not exactly the same bank, but the same holding company, so this can easily hit me as well.

 

The main investment comes from Texas, and they created about twenty fake companies to cover the trakcs, so you can't even sue them. Well, suing doesn't help much anyway, because the problem is that there is this gap in the law, which makes it legal.

[Unstoppable]

Are there any applicable laws in the U.S.? Sounds like a huge laundering of money that the F.B.I. and perhaps international authorities will be happy to help.

 

Dam those who exploit those loop holes eh. I'm gonna talk to a friend and let you know what I find.

Edited January 23, 2008 by Unstoppable

[sparhawk]

Dont know about the U.S. but I doubt that there are any laws against it. After all, they are just buying some stuff (loans in that case) and selling them. It's not really unlawfull, it's just immoral, because they don't care about the people involved. But that's capitalism...

 

Don't know if you know german, but here is a link to an article which describes it: http://www.carl-auer.de/blog/kasper/vorsicht-sparkasse/

 

The texan company is Lone Star, and they created 21 companies here in germany (all named something with Westend) to cover their interests. It's really nice to see the report, where some financial manager explains to you with a friendly smile that everything is legal while he is destroying your life.

[Unstoppable]

What's the full name of the company, there are a lot of lone stars in Texas. It's called the lone star state after all. Are they Loan Star, Lone Star, Lone Star LLC. Give me their full name.

 

http://www.finalternatives.com/node/3255

 

Is that the guy?

Edited January 23, 2008 by Unstoppable

[Unstoppable]

Oh yeah one more question. This isn't the same loop hole that Uwe Bowell use to use to finance his movies right? I heard that hole got shut down.

[sparhawk]

The full name seems to be Lone Star Funds. Also in league with them is Hudson Advisors, which seem to handle the forced auctions and the dirty work. Other names involved are:

LSF Irish Holdings V Limited, which is part of Lone Star Funds and also seems to be involved with the Deutsche Bank as a letterbox company.

 

http://www.bankmitarbeiter.de/html/lone-star.html

[Unstoppable]

Well it's not yet daytime here in the states but i'll let ya know if I find any helpful info for ya in a couple days.

Edited January 23, 2008 by Unstoppable

[Ombrenuit]

Considering people are free to replace their Xbox's or get them repaired per Microsoft (for free, am I correct?), I'm fairly certain (considering the conglomerate Microsoft is), they have their bases covered on this one and it will get thrown out of court.

Edited January 24, 2008 by Ombrenuit

[jdude]

I don't know about that. It certainly presents some major issues with their business practice which may actually affect their stock prices due to their unethical behavior. Too bad their basically a monopoly

 

This would be a VERY interesting case to do a report on for one of my business classes

[Ombrenuit]

I don't know about that. It certainly presents some major issues with their business practice which may actually affect their stock prices due to their unethical behavior. Too bad their basically a monopoly

 

This would be a VERY interesting case to do a report on for one of my business classes

 

Oh you're in business too? I just transfered into the business college this term.

[Unstoppable]

Well I tried to talk to some guy but he's so addicted to WoW he's gone. Anyway best of wishes to ya. Nothing I can do really. I suggest talking to the government so they close the loop hole asap.

[jdude]

Oh you're in business too? I just transfered into the business college this term.

 

yea I love business It's really useful when you start getting into the upper level courses. You will learn to be really good at doing presentations and public speaking. However the lower level courses like 2nd and 1st year seem almost pointless, but they are actually a good foundation for your 3rd and 4th year levels. I'm actually excited about going into the masters program after I'm done my degree!

[Ombrenuit]

Well I tried to talk to some guy but he's so addicted to WoW he's gone. Anyway best of wishes to ya. Nothing I can do really. I suggest talking to the government so they close the loop hole asap.

 

Well as for whether or not this business practice is illegal, I don't believe they're doing anything illegal. You can ship a product that fails 30% of the time if you want, but it isn't going to help your business. And as for the government stepping it, I'd rather they not. I don't really advocate the government regulating everything under the sun. Things will balance themselves out--its the law of economics.

[jdude]

Well actually, it just occurred to me that Microsoft DID compensate all the customers who had a failing system. This is a fairly good recovery from a PR stance, and they didn't have this making headlines on CNN or anything big like that. Also good PR. They must have a kick ass PR department

[Komag]

Also I seriously doubt that "30%" figure is really true. It was "a lot" of systems, but I don't think 1 in every 3 systems has failed.

[jdude]

Yea, as much as I'd like to believe it. I refuse to acknowledge this as the actual TRUE story until I see it on a academic/scholarly website or on a news station on tv or the radio. The internet is still full of half-truths and lies which we seem to periodically forget.

[Unstoppable]

There's a rumor at Kotaku that there is 10 million $ worth of Xbox 360's sitting at Eb Games Austrailia warehouse which Micro$oft refuses to fix.

[SplaTtzZ]

There's a rumor at Kotaku that there is 10 million $ worth of Xbox 360's sitting at Eb Games Austrailia warehouse which Micro$oft refuses to fix.

 

Hehe, 3 of those consoles are mine. EB offered an extended warranty on top of microsoft's, where they immediately replaced a faulty console for a brand new one. I'm on my 4th 360 now, i have no idea whether those other ones could be repaired or not; but judging by the quality of microsoft's complaint department I'm glad i didn't wait the 2 weeks to find out.

 

I don't know about that. It certainly presents some major issues with their business practice which may actually affect their stock prices due to their unethical behavior.

 

It may nor may not affect their stock, but it won't be affected because of ethics. In my experience 'ethical business' is a contradictory term.