Welcome!

This site collects stories from people with experience of Sony's customer services. It was inspired by the continuing tales in this thread on RLLMUK, from which some stories are taken.

If you have a similar story, please get in touch! We hope that collecting these stories will help Sony to realise that their awful approach to digital accounts, customer service and denial of standard rights is hurting their business. None of the major video games news sites seem to be interested for some reason!

Note that we will not take anonymous submissions, and submitters remain responsible for the factual accuracy of their stories.

Friday 23 January 2015

I bought six games and only five work

This epic saga is also captured on a separate site at http://sonyfail.blogspot.co.uk/

I bought my son the Lego Vita 8 gig memory pack from Argos a few weeks back when it was in the sale. It has the 8 gig card and a voucher code for 6 Lego PSP games -  Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Batman 1 & 2, Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter.

Went to the redeem voucher screen on my vita and redeemed the code. All appeared to go through OK (well, it came up with a few connection errors but that’s not unusual for the PSN) but I quickly saw an error screen for Harry Potter before it disappeared. Invalid code or something.

Anyway, went to the transaction screen and 5 PSP games are queued for download. Apart from Harry Potter.

I start them downloading anyway and they all download fine.  But HP ain't on the list.  Next day I try the code again (in case it was a glitch). Nope, just shows the 5 I have already downloaded.  I search for HP on the store and it’s on there. It only has the ‘buy now’ option for £11.99.

So, with a drink in hand I decide to ring up the helpline. 55 minutes later I get through to someone. Give them credit, they were quite helpful and friendly but in a nutshell ...
“That shouldn’t happen, if the code is invalid it should be invalid for all the games, not one out of the six”
“Our system shows that you have downloaded POTC OK but it's in Russian”.
Rigghttt. I tell her over the phone that its not (I start the game while she’s on the phone to make sure).

She can't work out why HP won’t download and she’ll have to escalate it.  Could I take a picture of the screen that’s asking me to pay for it and she gives me a reference for the call to go to ‘stage 2’ or whatever. I make sure I read the reference number back twice to confirm.

She gives me an email address to send it to. I send an email to them with a picture of the screen and also a picture of the voucher code as well to cover all the bases.

18/1/2015

They reply “Unfortunately the reference number you have quoted is incorrect”

I reply “This is the number I was given, if you can't trace it, cant you use my PSN ID? If not, can you please ring me?” I give them my number.

20/1/2015

They reply “Thank you for your email. We are looking forward to hearing from you”

I reply “I have already replied, please see the email chain”
22/1/2015

They reply “thanks for your email, can see you are having some problems with your account. Unfortunately, the voucher code you have provided is not for the UK Region. Therefore, you will be unable to redeem this on a UK account.”

I reply “Suggest you recheck the situation and if it's not valid, how come I managed to download 5 out of the 6 games?” I also say that if they want, they can credit my PSN id with £11.99 so I can buy it directly.

24/1/2015

Thanks for your e-mail about your PlayStation Vita (PS Vita).

I'm sorry to hear that you've experienced an issue with you PS Vita. From the information you've provided, you may be able to rectify your consoles issue by attempting to place you console into Safe Mode. Safe mode is a start-up mode for your system that helps with solving problems. In this mode, only a few system functions are available.

In order to to start your system in safe mode simply follow the instructions in the link provided below:

[link removed]

I hope this helps, but if you have any other questions please contact PlayStation Support using the contact details below or by replying to this e-mail."

Does the Sony helpline have a safe mode?

26/1/2105

To follow your file, we have to ask you to contact first the game publisher, explain your problem and if they can not help, please ask them to provide you a file number so we can check with them later, this is mandatory for the concerned service which takes care of this type of demand.

Before calling us, please try to
  • Re-install the game.
  • Launch the download from a computer.
  • Try safe mode and rebuild database (no data loss)

We won't be able to call you.

I've replied ripping apart all their suggestions 'Cordially'

27/1/2015

Thanks for your e-mail about your PlayStation Vita.

I apologize because of your situation.

I can see from your e-mail that you’re still having problems with your voucher. Unfortunately I’ll need more details before escalate your case to another level.

Therefore I’d be grateful if you’d contact PlayStation Support using the contact details below.

Sorry and thank you for your understanding
28/1/2015

Thanks for your e-mail. I’m sorry that you’ve had a problem with downloading Harry Potter for the PS Vita.

I have read through the previous E-mail and because we are unable to assist you through the E-mail and therefore require you to call us. We are an inbound contact centre and do not offer outbound calls so i apologize for the inconvenience this is causing you but if you would like this problem resolved i suggest you call us so we can assist you further.

I hope this helps, but if you have any other questions please contact PlayStation Support using the contact details below or by replying to this e-mail.

Trying to work out what good it will do to ring up the general number when they have told me they can't help and raised it what I presume to be second tier?


I won't bore everyone by copy and pasting the last 3 replies I've had from them but they are adamant that I need to ring them as 'they need to check a few details'.

I've asked them what they want to know as there is no point ringing the general number (and waiting for an hour to speak to someone) where I presume that the script readers on the front line wont be able to deal with matters that are 'at the next stage'.

Of course, I'm presuming that Sony have a tier system of escalating issues.


Let's recap

They have told me that my voucher was not compatible with my account. Yep, the one that I downloaded 5 out of the 6 games with. They have said I have to contact the game publisher. I've also been through about 5 different people in my emails, each of which either don't read the previous emails, understand the problem, or are just trolling.
Thanks for your e-mail about PlayStation.

We understand one of the games is missing from the pack and we are looking into the matter for you. One of our team will be in touch with you shortly to discuss it with you further.
Hmmmm.

Wonder if this is linked to a ranty blog I did yesterday and tweeted to various Playstation executives.