I most certainly did not want Outlast

From AaronionRings on Eurogamer:

They essentially stole money from me by charging me for a game without my consent. My account hadn't been compromised, I'm the only one with access to both it and my console. I got an email receipt as soon as they did this and I contacted customer support within minutes to get them to refund me because I most certainly did not want Outlast and I was not willing to let them just pocket the £16.

I had to guide one person to do her job and she became rude and unwilling to help after disappearing for 10 minutes, I got someone higher up in customer support to phone me and he was rude and yelled down the phone about how PSN is infallible and how no issues of any sort can occur because they're all accounted for. He didn't let me get a word in until I insisted on being able to speak and then he outright called me a liar without using the direct words before hanging up on me. I've nothing to gain by being rude and customer support tends to only go well if you're nice so I was polite throughout. I don't get how a company like this can have such hostile customer support.

They only offered any type of compensation when they realised I wasn't going away after contacting the director of public relations (or something like that). Their apology was not to offer me a refund it was ... sending me a code for 1 month of PS Plus. Oh and they sent me a used code. Brilliant. When I sent an email about that ... no reply. My 2 follow ups, a week or so apart likewise received no reply.

About 8 months or so later I receive an email from customer support offering £10 credit as a goodwill gesture for what I had to put up with and the person who sent it just needed to phone me to confirm my details. She phoned me and surprised me by being very polite and actually putting the credit on my account. I'm convinced she was an intern made to go through old emails noone else wanted to touch.

This took around a year total to get anything sorted and I didn't even get the desired result. Simply the best one I was able to get in the end. That's unacceptable. They're an awful company if your issue isn't directly covered by a warranty and will avoid responsibility if they think they can get away with it. It's not just the UK support either, I've read a heck of a lot of similar stories from the US.

As an extra note, the only reason I didn't issue a chargeback is because I knew they'd ban my PSN account and I'd lose access to my other purchases.

We all had issues with Sony's customer service (a compilation post)

With the increased exposure due to the Watchdog programme, people all over the Internet have been commenting on the stories, adding to the initial stories from RLLMUK.  These comments generally fall into four categories:

• I got a refund so I'm all right Jack
• Something irrelevant since they haven't read the situation properly
• Backing up Sony because of some sense of company loyalty
• Other horror stories

Here are some examples of the last of these.

Agent_Llama on Eurogamer:

My other half bought a game from PSN and, somehow, they managed to charge him 12 times for it. Refused to refund it, even though it's technically impossible to buy a game more than once on PSN. Eventually managed to wrangle vouchers out of them to use on PSN, but they flat refused to refund the excess charges.

wibbl on Eurogamer:

I have been trying to chase up 10 quid that I am owed for a PayPal promotion they were running throughout March that has never been honoured. PayPal actually refunded the money I was owed, but Sony then responded to this by banning my account.

I'm now embroiled in a tedious support saga trying to both get my account re-enabled and my tenner back.

All because two multinational corporations are incapable of running a simple promotion, and both are more interested in pointing the finger at each other than actually protecting their customers.

CliffPromise:

I was the victim of fraud on PSN. £34 in FIFA points that had been bought abroad. I had to chase them for months to get it back.

loadstone007:

I bought a DLC on the wrong store, which doesn't match the version of the game I have. This means I can't use that DLC - and Sony refused to refund me. I don't get it - I'm unable to use the DLC and it was made in error. They can block the license for that DLC on my system, so why not give me my money back? I spent $10 in vain.

redcrayon

Back in October, I used the 'add £50 via paypal and we'll give you £10 extra credit' promotion. After adding the money, PSN didn't credit me. I then contacted Paypal, who blamed Sony, and then Sony, who first claimed the promotion wasn't valid (it was, it had been emailed to me earlier that week) and then blamed Paypal. It took me a total of 9 emails to five different people to get the bottom of it, and even then only after I forwarded them a copy of their own promotional email, then the receipt from my paypal transaction. It was only a tenner, but even so, their immediate answer being 'not pur fault!' when I've just given them £50 and spent hundreds with them on my PSN account over the years was disgusting. My advice is to avoid any Sony/Paypal promotions like the plague.

berelain

Sony have terrible customer service; I was on the receiving end of it after my original 'fat' PS3 had the yellow light of death, and the refurbished one they replaced it with had the same yellow light within 24 hours of me receiving it, and the refurbished one the replaced that one with also yellow lighted within another week. It took a few hours of phone calls and a lot of frustration before they eventually agreed to send me a newer model PS3 instead of another refurbished 'fat' one, which clearly had a problem. That replacement is still going strong.

psaunder

Had similar issue here in Australia. Accidently purchased a PS Vita game on the master account, instead of my kids account , so had to purchase it again (not sure which way around) , either way I asked for a refund of the game I couldn't use. After a few emails, they stopped responding to me. Pathetic customer service.

beck1110

I bought the monthly plus games through the PS Plus section of the PlayStation website and was charged for one of the games due to a mistake of their pricing. I spent weeks getting in contact with Sony and got nowhere, it was only after I contacted several gaming journalist websites and watchdogs that I very suddenly and randomly got a refund.

I was appalled at Sony's lack of customer service and lack of process for complaints. Each member of staff had a different answer and method to deal with my complaint. It took on average 4 days for an email to be responded to and nearly an hour to get through to a real person on the phone. Every one of their staff admitted the problem was with their website but would not issue a refund or even a credit voucher as it was against their policy.

Rpt81

Back when they gave out the 10% code for the Christmas outage, I accidentally ordered (via the web store) PS3 DLC where I actually wanted the PS4 version. Rang up, not expecting any joy, and was told that there was nothing that could be done about it, even though I hadn't actually downloaded the content at all.

PoliteElliot on Gamespot

In my experience Sony customer service was terrible! Purchases were made on my account fraudulently and I contacted Sony via their website. I reside in Norway and I had to email 3 different customer support addresses, all supplied by Sony, and each time I was asked to try another address! Eventually, unbelievably, I was asked to contact a Film company!!??

"Thank you for contacting Nordisk Film Distribution AS – Official distributor for Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. We will return with more information to you as soon as we receive it from SCEE."

And I never heard anything from them after this ...

Eventually I just gave up - congratulations Sony, cutting down your support costs by making it so ineffective your dissatisfied customers give up. If it was as difficult to make purchases as it is to get customer service Sony would make very little money.

Sony will take your money if you don't spend it quickly enough

If you leave money in your wallet for too long (we think it's two years - used to be one) with your account unused, Sony help themselves to it anyway.

From their (old, may now be changed) T&Cs:

Please understand that the Sony Online Network wallet is not a bank account and we are not operating as a bank. You will not be entitled to a refund for any unused funds, except where expressly provided by these Conditions or by applicable law.

 And:

Wallet funds must be used within 24 months of purchase.

Sony renewed my PSN subscription even though auto-renew was turned off

Sony helped themselves to $17.99 of the $50.00 I had in my wallet which was actually to pay for another year; they took out just 3 months even though I have auto renew turned OFF.

Although its not disastrous ($5 loss) don't assume the auto renew OFF is OK.  It means they will take the funds if they are in your wallet but won't take from a card. I searched high and low on the site and can't see the option to not touch your wallet. It even says I have no subscriptions.

So in 3 months I will have to top up the $50.00 and purchase the year sub before they take the 3 months again.