Between August 29 and September 9, some XBox 360 Live users received a nasty surprise in the form of a ban from the gaming service.  New software that Microsoft was using to assist in finding tampered consoles erroneously issued the bans.

Microsoft says that a very small percentage of users were affected and that the problem has now been corrected and they should be able to log in with no difficulty.  In addition, they are being given three months of free Live and 1600 Microsoft Points to make up for the error.  Gamers who were affected only need to log in; Microsoft already knows who you are.  They have also stated that they will no longer be using that particular software.

Game on, accidental ban-ees.