The game “Fortnite” faced a millionaire fine after receiving allegations of hitting children. The sanction came from the Federal Trade Commission (US body that aims at consumer protection) for a particular detail: the Epic games broke an important rule and misled users.
The fine was found to be quite high, as they will have to pay $520 million for violating the privacy protection of Players.
Understand the case involving Epic Games
“Fortnite” is a free and highly addictive game developed by Epic games. With this, the company manages to make an outstanding profit. However, this isn’t the first time the game has been sued. The first took place in 2019 in Canada; and, believe me, the trial took place on charges of creating a heavy addiction on purpose.
However, this time, the processes implies that the platform tricked players into making purchases without their knowledge. The practice would have materialized using a counter-intuitive one-button configuration option.
This caused inconvenience to the player, causing the player to accidentally click the button and make the purchase in an unwanted way.
The button also appeared at times so that anyone playing the game would think the game had entered standby mode or a loading screen.
Some parents reported only seeing the allegations come to the credit cardthis is because purchases on the platform do not require age confirmation or approval from minors managers.
After examining the situation, it was decided to impose a fine in the total amount of 245 million US dollars to reimburse customers.
Combining all the families who claimed to have experienced the disorder adds up to a total of hundreds of millions of dollars that Epic Games has earned.
Are you entitled to a refund?
To be eligible for a refund, you must meet the following requirements:
- players who were billed when they had no desire to buy between 2017 and September 2022;
- parents whose children made unauthorized purchases between January 2017 and November 2018;
- players who ended up getting blocked for disputing charges for purchases they shouldn’t have acquired.
Either way, the FTC will be sending emails to those who have been the victim of unwanted charges by Epic Games and indicates that until then customers receiving emails wait until they get in touch.
Also, be wary of messages that may seem harmful, such as those asking for a refund, as they are scams.
