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Judge Denies Microsoft Store Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit
By Anne Bucher
On Wednesday, Oct. 9, a California federal judge denied class certification for a class action lawsuit that accused Microsoft Corp. of collecting consumers’ personal information during credit card transactions in violation of California law, finding that the customers at Microsoft stores were not required to give that information as a condition for making a purchase.
U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson found that Microsoft presented sufficient evidence to show that its sales associates do not follow scripts when interacting with customers. Therefore, a request for personal identifying information could be phrased in different ways and take place at different points during a transaction. For this reason, Judge Wilson found that the proposed class did not meet the typicality and commonality requirements to justify proceeding as a class action lawsuit.
Plaintiff Pamela Gosoo initially filed the Microsoft store class action lawsuit in California state court in February, accusing Microsoft of violating the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act. She claimed that Microsoft’s retail stores violated California law by requesting and recording consumers’ personal identification information before completing a credit card transaction as a matter of company policy. In August, she told Judge Wilson that a class action lawsuit would be the only fair way to resolve the dispute.
According to Judge Wilson, the intent of the Song-Beverly Credit Card Act is to prevent sales associates from requesting personal identification information from consumers in such a way that a consumer would be led to believe that the information is required to complete a credit card transaction.
After Judge Wilson refused Microsoft’s motion to dismiss the class action lawsuit, the company asked the judge to deny class certification. Microsoft argued that each customer would have a different story because the company did not direct sales associates to follow a script or interact with customers the same way. Further, Microsoft argued, the collection of personal identification information is not a condition for a customer to pay with a credit card.
Although the company admitted that its employees are trained that collecting customers’ identifying information is “useful for various reasons,” they are informed that customers are not required to provide the information as a condition of making a credit card transaction.
In his decision not to certify the class action lawsuit, Judge Wilson agreed with Microsoft that the sales associates’ requests for personal information depended on their personal judgment and did not follow a script.
“Microsoft has presented abundant evidence that its sales associates follow no scripts in their interactions with customers, and that a request for PII (personal identification information) may be phrased differently, and occur early in the transaction, in the middle, near the end, or not at all, depending on numerous factors as well as the judgment of the sales associate,” Judge Wilson said.
Because Microsoft sufficiently argued that its sales associates did not follow a script, Judge Wilson found that a class action lawsuit would be inappropriate because individual consumers had different experiences during the transaction at the Microsoft stores.
“Individual questions about each customer’s transaction would substantially predominate over the common fact that each person visited a store, used a credit card and at some point during the transaction was asked for and provided PII (personal identification information),” Judge Wilson said.
The plaintiff is represented by Jason M. Wecetich and Dimitrios V. Korovilas of Wecetich & Korovilas LLP.
The Microsoft Store Data Collection Class Action Lawsuit is Pamela Gosoo v. Microsoft Corp., Case No. 2:13-cv-02043, in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
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