Feel ripped off by Microsoft!

I know nothing about x-box. But that does sound like quite a headache. So if someone is selling fraudulant points it's the end user who's punished? I would think the points should of been "rejected" and him just out of the point money. All these gadgets have an angle to benefit their wallets.

I am not an Xbox user but I have been in Computer Support for much of my life, so this interested me. The reason why a console is banned, rather than an account, ought logically to be because the firmware has been modified, the box has been opened or some action of that nature has been taken. Just dealing illegally in 'points' or buying accounts ought to involve the accounts rather than the hardware/firmware. However, this appears NOT to be the case because I find several instances in the Xbox Forum where consoles are stated to have "been permanently banned from access to Xbox LIVE due to involvement in the purchase, sale, theft, or transfer of Xbox LIVE account(s). This conduct was discovered by an investigation into the activity occurring on the console." I think that this is harsh, to say the least! I have been reading (or trying to read) the Code of Conduct and Terms of Use: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Legal/CodeOfConduct http://www.xbox.com/en-US/Legal/LiveTOU They are NOT the sort of document which a 16 year old would be at all likely to read in full - even this 72yo who IS fairly used to reading such stuff is having trouble identifying the exact reasons for a console ban! I also looked at some of the posts here: http://forums.xbox.com/xbox_forums/xbox_support/f/2366.aspx (which was a lot more helpful) Although there seems to be no (legal) way of "unbanning" a console (it is now simply a rather expensive door-stop), you should be aware that the hard disk in it is not included in the ban and MAY be transferred to a new console, so any data he had on it will not be lost. I am sorry for your son, of course, but he DID do something illegal according to the Terms of Use and, since he is not unintelligent, he probably had half an inkling that what he was doing was risky, to say the least. It was an expensive mistake to make but, hopefully, he will learn by it when/if he gets a new box (which I hope he does)!