Ex Post Facto Consumer Contract Changes

[Consumer]

I'm looking for advice regarding a contract that I, as a consumer, entered into with an internet based company, headquartered in Berkeley, CA. San Mateo County.

The contract is for use of the company's website and internet games located. The company is called Skotos Technologies Inc, and a copy of the Terms of Service contract (relatively short) can be found on their website for any who care to review more in depth. The company recently introduced a new regulation prohibiting subscribers from purchasing multiple accounts in order to benefit a single consumer by accumulating what amounts to "company points". This regulation has, to the best of my knowledge, never been written and currently remains unwritten, and so consumers were never informed of it until the company decided to terminate the accounts of customers because of it. This seems like a case where the company has put in a new regulation and is applying the new (still unwritten) rules to specific individuals who have previously taken part in that activity.

My questions essentially come down to:
1) Can the company legally take money from the consumers and then terminate the contract and the consumer's access to the product and keep the unused portion of money, even if it is written into the contract?
2) Is there any reasonable argument against the termination clause being executed in an arbitrary manner, as a means to enforce unpublished company policy, without giving the consumer any means of knowing the company's stance?
3) What course of action does the consumer have to recover the portion of money which was paid and not used; or (preferrably) argue for service to be resumed? Is this a matter that there is any chance of successfully arguing in court, if the consumer is interested in hiring a lawyer?
4) Is there anything else of which the consumer might need to be aware?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

 

[tpajet]

Well, let's start with provision 20 of their terms of service:

"20. Amendment. Skotos may amend the Terms in its sole discretion at any time by posting revised Terms on the Site, and you agree to regularly review the Terms."

The bold is mine, and that is not the complete section, but it's the relevant part. So this in itself pretty much blows your whole argument out of the water. They are saying that they can change the terms at anytime, and that you are responsible to periodically review the terms. Granted I would say they should send an email notice when there's a change, but they are not obligated to do so.

As far as money back look at provision 19 - long story short, no.

 

[Consumer]

Thanks for the answer.

One thing I'm still not clear on, provision 20 gives them the right to amend at any time, however, they did not amend the Terms or if they did, they did not publish them on that or any other publicly accessible page. I understand that they can make any changes they want (and that it's the customer's job to keep up with those amendments) but they do have to publish those changes somewhere, don't they? If they make unwritten/unpublished changes and the customers are looking at the place where they reasonably expect those changes to be and see no changes; and, there is no other form of notification of any amendments, is it not arguable by the customers to presume there have been no changes?

 

[tpajet]

I'm assuming they did so in the terms you pointed out above. As long as they make the changes there, then it's legal by their terms.

 

[Darsha05]

Consumer I am with you on this one! From what I read above the reposting of section 20 is very clear...they have the right to amend the color of the sky...but when they sell you blue and it turns green without written consent...it is they who violated their contract to their "customer" for lack of better term. I would definitely question this but do your homework to ensure that it didn't slip through the cracks somehow that they did post but left up for the contractual amount of time to consumers who knows they may only need to leave it up for consumers for 12 minutes and 7 seconds...kwim...check their verbiage to see what their amendment contract states...hope this helps...