Sony ended the chat because I complained

A chat transcript:

There is a difference between "can't" and "won't" which Sony need to learn.

I have no PS4 but I now have an expensive copy of AC: Unity

Taken from NeoGAF at http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=151818581&postcount=422 ...

My PSN account was also hacked and in the end I got the exact same formletter as shown at this post.  Thankfully I managed to go in and change my password and remove my credit card before the hijacker changed it and lock me out.

The hijacker had attached his PS4 to my account, removing my PS3, and bought the digital collectors edition of Assassins Creed Unity.  My account is Swedish and I was in the US at the time so I sent an email to them rather than calling, I could not find a number to call anyway.  After several days I got a reply stating I needed to call in because they could not handle this via email.  After more than an hour in the telephone queue on an international call very early in the morning I finally got a person to explain my situation to.

Since I did not have a PS4 at the time the guy on the phone said this was obvious fraud and they would refund me and remove the PS4 which made me happy.  After a couple of more days I got an email that I needed to send them my PS3 serial number. Not very easy to get since my PS3 was in Sweden and I was still in California.

I did send them my serial number once I'd got it and got a new reply with the formletter that they would not refund me the money.  I obviously complained but got a new mail back informing that this was a final decision and there was nothing I could do to get the money back!

I still have no PS4 but I do have very expensive version of Assassins Creed.

Sony PSN support and theft protection is absolutely horrible and I would strongly advice everyone to not have a credit card in their account.  I wonder how many of these cases happen every year.  Sony obviously gets a percentage on everything sold so they even earn money on these thefts, perhaps they care more about that then their reputation.  You would think that with the recent couple of years of Sony hacks they would be more sensitive about more bad will about their online services but apparently no.

I bought an extended warranty for my PS4 but when it broke Sony wouldn't repair it

A lengthy piece over at Bleeding Cool.

I heard my wife stirring and she ended up waking up and running downstairs in a panic thinking our house was on fire because she smelled the burning plastic smell. I told her I was pretty sure it came from the PlayStation 4, and she asked me if it was smoky in the house or if her eyes were messing with her since she just woke up. She confirmed our suspicions – it smelled smoky when she went upstairs, turned on the lights up there, and the smoke was fairly thick. Obviously, I was quick to contact Sony about this issue.

After setting up a service, now being a year and 3 months after my purchase date, but still well within my three year extended warranty, I waited a week for my shipping box that never came. I contacted Sony again to get an update on the situation where I was informed that I was NOT under warranty anymore and that my $60 extended warranty only covered my then second console despite what I was told. I got off the online chat and called Sony support directly where I was put on hold for quite a while until I was eventually informed that they would NOT cover the PS4 unless I paid for the service. All of this, despite the fact that it had the potential to burn my house down if I wasn't around to notice the smell and unplug it. I immediately traded in my console as a broken, defective system (lessening my trade value) and put my money towards some upcoming Xbox One releases.

Sony think that security of your PSN account is entirely your responsibility - do they also think that making sure your PS4 isn't dangerous internally and doesn't burn down your house is also your responsibility?  Maybe they want everyone to open their consoles to check they're safe ... which of course will invalidate the warranty.

I accidently bought PS3 DLC instead of PS4 DLC, and Sony won't swap the licences over

More of the stunning customer service we've all come to expect from Sony here.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1009180

In a nutshell: bloke's daughter buys DLC, but acidentally buys the PS3 version instead of the PS4 one on Sony's awful web store. Asks Sony if they can swap it the right one - 'Computer says no!'

Now I know that this is customer error, but any right thinking company would just revoke the license to the PS3 DLC and give them the PS4 license instead (given that they're the same price). A tiny gesture of goodwill that would cost them nothing and help prevent driving customers into the hands of competitors. But this is Sony.

A hacker stole $600 from my credit card, and Sony told me they will refund $150 at most

From Reddit:

On the morning of the 26th of February, I received an e-mail saying that the e-mail address associated with my PSN account has been changed. Having requested no such change, I began to panic and checked to see what was up. Sure enough, I could not log in to my account. It seems that someone else had managed to get in and lock the door behind them. I immediately hopped over to my bank account website and found that a total of $570 had been spent on FIFA points in FIFA '15.

I called up Sony customer support and requested that control of my account be returned to me, which they did. Sony was quite helpful, and the process was painless. I asked about having the fraudulent purchases revoked, and the Sony representative said that the charges could not be cancelled on his end, but I could cancel the charges at my bank by filing a fraudulent purchase claim and I should not be charged for those purchases.

Fair enough. I did as I was instructed and the total amount was returned to my bank account. I was hoping that would be the end of the story.

Today I found that my PSN account had been blocked or temporarily suspended. Upon calling customer support and speaking with two different people, I found that Sony is locking me out of my account until the full amount, $570, has been paid.

I explained that this was a fraudulent purchase made by someone who had hacked into my account. I had never given my username or password to anyone. They did not budge on their position, though. Sony is holding my account hostage until I pay their ransom.

I have been a member of PlayStation Network for years, and I have made hundreds of dollars of purchases over the PlayStation Network, and Sony is locking me out of all of the digital content that I have earned. The only other option I have is to start a new account, which essentially mean surrendering all of the digital content (including 300+ full games) that I have paid for over the years, not to mention my still-active PS+ membership. On top of that, opening a new account means resetting all of my save games, trophies, DLC.

I don't know what to do anymore. I have tried elevating this issue as high as I can, but Sony is still denying me access to the content that I have purchased from them. I just wanted to share my experience in case anyone else has been similarly extorted by one of the major corporations.
I am a graduate student who doesn't have an extra $600 to throw at this problem to make it go away. My PlayStation systems have been great comforts during my times of stress. I am devastated that these have been taken away from me by a company that I have supported for years.

[Note: being Reddit, this has been picked up by a couple of other website - see http://consumerist.com/2015/03/12/playstation-network-users-report-hacked-accounts-terrible-options-from-sony/ and http://www.bitterwallet.com/playstation-doesnt-do-much-for-you-if-youve-been-hacked/84008. The user got it resolved in the end, after weeks of complaining and discussions with the legal teams.  This is not something paying customers should have to go through!]

Someone else preordered a game and I can't cancel it

I don't even own a Playstation, I have a Sony TV and my 9 year old son has a PSVita on child account under my parent account.

In October last, I receive an email thanking me for my Purchase of Middle-Earth™: Shadow of Mordor™ Legion Edition (Full Game) £54.99 for the PlayStation, a game that is not even out, it's was not released for another 6 weeks, so a pre-order, I obviously did not make this purchase, so I logged straight into SEN, removed my payment details and update my password, then I immediately contacted SEN, by both email and telephone, I was told it would be sorted within 5 days, it took them almost 6 weeks to come back to tell me to go take a jump as they don't do refunds, case closed.

I then spent days and days trying to speak to someone who was able to communicate without the assistance of scripts, I tried social media, I even tried Sony UK but they completely disown SEN, not wanting to know. Eventually I was left with no choice but to contact my Bank and the upshot was that after investigating Visa confirmed I was protected as UK Consumer and they refunded me.

Fast forward to last week, account banned! At first I was not bothered as I only have the TV and I am content that after being treated like this I will never buy another Sony Product again, however I have now discovered that my Son has no access to the games he had downloaded via (Codes from Amazon) etc. So I telephone them (yet again) to basically be told Pay Up the £54.99 or lose the lot, talk about Blackmail and Bullying, I was calm and polite and asked the guy to transfer me to a someone who could hopefully help me, he refused and simply read from his script. I then said I was not satisfied and I wanted assistance to which he said he was then terminating the call, which he did.

I just can't fathom Sony's Business Plan, we are middle earning household, we've bought a number of Sony Products over the years, one being a new TV just a few months ago, I was genuinely going to buy another, I know it's easy to say that to add gravity to it but we were actually in Curry's last November looking at replacing our Main TV with a Sony and my wife said lets wait until this current issue with SEN is resolved at the time I was disappointed but now obviously not, what kind of business has a plan that alienates customers like this, with Bully Boy Tactics! No one wins!

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.