Sony refused to refund me for an add-on I never received

[Burritoprime]

10 minutes ago, kevao97 said:

Did you buy from an official store or from a third party? The code is authenticated at the time of purchase. how could someone use a code that has just been authenticated and is in yours not their hands? was it an online transaction?

I bought it from Americanas, I went to the store like I always used to, everything was the same, like I said before most likely a duplicate serial number, that happens, I read a bunch of people complaining about the same thing across different countries, tbh I didn't have the time to pursue it further since it was Christmas and we were on vacation and everything is always so busy during that time of the year so I just took it as a loss and left at that.

[You]

5 hours ago, Stevieboy said:

I'm fairly certain Sony will blanket refuse every refund request the first time, and only if you refute it will they actually make a decision on it and maybe refund you.

 

I've had three refunds from Sony, two of which took nearly a month to settle.

You have to be very persistent and just keep harassing them basically. Well that's what I did anyway and it worked. Eventually they will just want rid of you and then give you the refund.

[Fubuki]

3 hours ago, MrHealthy said:

 

Sony will instantly ban your account if you do a charge back. Thus losing all the game already paid for.

Yea I know, that's the point. Since it will be Sony vs your bank and not Sony vs you. Sony will have no choice but to give a refund to you for a product that you paid for but didn't receive. Same thing happened to me back in 2020. I bought a game on the ps app store but it wasn't on my download list. Called Sony and they told me to go fuck myself. Did a reversal transaction on my bank. Sony suspended me, called Sony again. They gave me a full refund and unsuspended me. Since my claim to my bank was legit and Sony didn't have a rightful reason to not give me a refund. 

[GUDGER666]

Doesn't seem right, how can they take your money and not give you what you paid for. Support was always bad but it has now become an absolute fu***ng joke! I contacted them last month about not been able to add one of the monthly Essential PS Plus games to my library. Chat said they couldn't do anything so will raise the issue to a higher team who will contact me... 4 weeks later they contacted me and said they can't help as its no longer an Essentials game and that i should've contacted them sooner... Seriously?

[luckyegg]

6 hours ago, boorish_brute said:

I think they refund you iff you have not downloaded or used the product purchased within the first 14 days. Since this is DLC, so not sure how that works. Playstation customer care is horrible to get through, but you can try your luck by chatting with another agent.

i agree with the no download and 14 days as i had to get refunded at times. as for microtransactions there is not a download button so its prolly complicated.

[theSpirae]

2 hours ago, The Titan said:

Yea I know, that's the point. Since it will be Sony vs your bank and not Sony vs you. Sony will have no choice but to give a refund to you for a product that you paid for but didn't receive. Same thing happened to me back in 2020. I bought a game on the ps app store but it wasn't on my download list. Called Sony and they told me to go fuck myself. Did a reversal transaction on my bank. Sony suspended me, called Sony again. They gave me a full refund and unsuspended me. Since my claim to my bank was legit and Sony didn't have a rightful reason to not give me a refund. 

You do realise the bank can, and in the US very likely will, side with you and approve your chargeback, however, there's no guarantee Sony will not ban your account permanently. No matter the refund outcome. They can ban you for whatever reasons they want.

 

If your claim with your bank is legit, you don't get a refund from Sony but from your bank. Sony wouldn't provide any refund until the chargeback with the bank was settled.

[Fubuki]

1 hour ago, theSpirae said:

You do realise the bank can, and in the US very likely will, side with you and approve your chargeback, however, there's no guarantee Sony will not ban your account permanently. No matter the refund outcome. They can ban you for whatever reasons they want.

 

If your claim with your bank is legit, you don't get a refund from Sony but from your bank. Sony wouldn't provide any refund until the chargeback with the bank was settled.

Well in my case, I was not banned. I only got suspended. Doing a chargeback results in a suspension but yea, if all else fails that can be a last option. Worse case scenario he will only be back to square one. Unless he had prior bans. It might be a perma banned. Imagine getting a ban all because of cod points. 

[wltrsjcwvita]

It sounds made up, but I have genuinely had a game buy itself on my console before. Got in contact with Sony (which luckily got you through to a human at the time) and of course they had to verify things like "yeah you bought this on your own console, so you haven't been hacked". Luckily, it was a PS Plus game that I already owned, so I was able to use that as an excuse, but they still didn't want to give me my money back. Last ditch effort I asked to speak to a higher-up (mfw asking to speak to the manager) and I got a call back the next day from said higher-up literally just saying that I'm getting my money back, no arguments necessary. Sometimes you've just gotta be persistent.

 

[AJ_-_808]

8 hours ago, Lonemankane said:

 I mean they have it to the point where you can't even try out a game abit then refund it you need to make sure you never downloaded it. It is bs but yeah what can you do.

 

Blame the developer for not having a demo?  Read up on it? Watch YouTube reviews?  I mean.. you know the psn store isn't a rental store, right?

 

Imagine how much abuse would happen if Sony just greenlit every refund, no questions asked.  Buy and download a game, claim you don't like it, get a refund, but the game remains on your console (it doesn't delete itself)

 

For the record, I've had 2 or 3 refunds by Sony without any issues.

 

 

As for the CoD points, I'd imagine it's on the punlisher to verify it hasn't been spent in-game? As far as Sony would be aware, in game currency was redeemed 

Edited September 23, 2022 by AJ_-_808

[FallenKingdom]

12 hours ago, mcnichoj said:

Bought bullshit COD points. Never showed up. Bought them a second time and then they finally showed up. Contact Activision and they wasted a bunch of my time just to tell me to contact PlayStation. Contact PlayStation, they say they can't do anything about it. So now I'm out $40.

I've been taking so many monetary related L's lately and it's all so tiresome. Not sure how much longer I can keep going on.

I think every CoD game states somewhere, be it the ToS or some small window, that points are non-refundable.

 

In terms of refunds for games, Sony will entertain your reason and you can actually talk to a human. My experience speaks to this. So, I bought the FC4/5 deluxe editions and one them gives you FC3 for free which I had bought only a couple days earlier; I get on with support to tell what happened and the guy on the phone, was really nice, refunded me immediately the price of FC3 remastered.

 

Overall, buying something like instantaneous dlc points is a much more difficult item to refund on Sony's end for many reasons. Sucks to sucks.

Edited September 23, 2022 by FallenKingdom

[MrHealthy]

8 hours ago, The Titan said:

Yea I know, that's the point. Since it will be Sony vs your bank and not Sony vs you. Sony will have no choice but to give a refund to you for a product that you paid for but didn't receive. Same thing happened to me back in 2020. I bought a game on the ps app store but it wasn't on my download list. Called Sony and they told me to go fuck myself. Did a reversal transaction on my bank. Sony suspended me, called Sony again. They gave me a full refund and unsuspended me. Since my claim to my bank was legit and Sony didn't have a rightful reason to not give me a refund. 

 

You are very lucky then. Every other person I have ever seen do a charge back have either been perma banned or they were only able to get the account back if they bought PSN cards and gave them to support to pay for the chargeback.

[DaivRules]

7 minutes ago, MrHealthy said:

if they bought PSN cards and gave them to support to pay for the chargeback.

 

What? How on earth would Sony account for this? The person would be forced to repay for the same game and then someone on Support just overlooks this transgression against Sony?

Something about that part of the story doesn't stack up. Although instant retaliation against first time chargebacks also doesn't stack up. Banning the financial account with the chargeback, sure why trust the same credit card that already authorized a chargeback without trying to resolve things directly with Sony, but whole profiles? I know there's stories out there, but I'm suspicious of the circumstances.
 

[MrHealthy]

1 hour ago, DaivRules said:

 

What? How on earth would Sony account for this? The person would be forced to repay for the same game and then someone on Support just overlooks this transgression against Sony?

Something about that part of the story doesn't stack up. Although instant retaliation against first time chargebacks also doesn't stack up. Banning the financial account with the chargeback, sure why trust the same credit card that already authorized a chargeback without trying to resolve things directly with Sony, but whole profiles? I know there's stories out there, but I'm suspicious of the circumstances.
 

 

Companies get hit with a fee ranging from $20-$100 every time they get hit with a charge back. Once a user does this the company often considers it an end to any business relation with that customer.

 

And yes you would have to repay for the game to get your account back. Sony considers your account in debt. If you pay off the debt they will forgive you for the charge back. It ain't fair but its what they do.

[DaivRules]

I'm well aware of what chargebacks are, I was in retail management for 16 years. And I also know what merchant agreements are and they, while not explicitly, pretty much forbid what you're describing.

 

17 minutes ago, MrHealthy said:

And yes you would have to repay for the game to get your account back. Sony considers your account in debt. If you pay off the debt they will forgive you for the charge back. It ain't fair but its what they do.

 

What I'm questing is the actual accounting and process that Sony would have to engineer for this process to take place to balance their books. Not conceptually, actually. This isn't some mom and pop shop with a paper notepad tracking inventory and people's transactions and IDs of forbidden customers hung on the wall.

It doesn't matter, there will always be stories of things like people getting banned after just one fill-in-the-blank. People should remain skeptical. And a non-response from a vendor to deliver paid-for goods is absolutely something I would consider a chargeback for, as that's exactly a scenario it's designed for.
 

[BeautifulTorment]

30 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

I'm well aware of what chargebacks are, I was in retail management for 16 years. And I also know what merchant agreements are and they, while not explicitly, pretty much forbid what you're describing.

 

 

What I'm questing is the actual accounting and process that Sony would have to engineer for this process to take place to balance their books. Not conceptually, actually. This isn't some mom and pop shop with a paper notepad tracking inventory and people's transactions and IDs of forbidden customers hung on the wall.

It doesn't matter, there will always be stories of things like people getting banned after just one fill-in-the-blank. People should remain skeptical. And a non-response from a vendor to deliver paid-for goods is absolutely something I would consider a chargeback for, as that's exactly a scenario it's designed for.
 

If you do a chargeback, Sony bans you until you repay whatever was charged back. I've seen it happen, unsure what detail you're hung up on..

[DaivRules]

15 minutes ago, BeautifulTorment said:

If you do a chargeback, Sony bans you until you repay whatever was charged back. I've seen it happen, unsure what detail you're hung up on..

The “Trust me bro” part, and that no other companies as large or even close to as large as Sony have a ‘ban on first changeback, but customer support will totally let you redeem PSN credit and have all the other stuff you’ve paid for over the years back’ part. 
 

 

 

[GUDGER666]

8 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

The “Trust me bro” part, and that no other companies as large or even close to as large as Sony have a ‘ban on first changeback, but customer support will totally let you redeem PSN credit and have all the other stuff you’ve paid for over the years back’ part. 
 

 

 

My friend did a chargeback and his account was instantly banned, from what I've seen this always happens. And unless you pay it back your account stays banned. My friend never paid it back so never got his account back. 

[MrHealthy]

17 minutes ago, DaivRules said:

The “Trust me bro” part, and that no other companies as large or even close to as large as Sony have a ‘ban on first changeback, but customer support will totally let you redeem PSN credit and have all the other stuff you’ve paid for over the years back’ part. 
 

 

 

 

They literally have a support page telling you that they do this:

 

https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/support/account/psn-suspension-account-debt/

[Fubuki]

6 hours ago, MrHealthy said:

 

You are very lucky then. Every other person I have ever seen do a charge back have either been perma banned or they were only able to get the account back if they bought PSN cards and gave them to support to pay for the chargeback.

I only got a refund because the game never showed up on my download list. The person who told me what to do about this was a friend of mine where he was in the same issue. He got a full refund as well, if a game doesnt show up on ur download list after doing a chargeback then u gotta do something about it. However, thats just full games. OP has a DLC problem so Idk if it will 100% work.

[Lonemankane]

10 hours ago, AJ_-_808 said:

 

Blame the developer for not having a demo?  Read up on it? Watch YouTube reviews?  I mean.. you know the psn store isn't a rental store, right?

 

Imagine how much abuse would happen if Sony just greenlit every refund, no questions asked.  Buy and download a game, claim you don't like it, get a refund, but the game remains on your console (it doesn't delete itself)

 

For the record, I've had 2 or 3 refunds by Sony without any issues.

 

 

As for the CoD points, I'd imagine it's on the punlisher to verify it hasn't been spent in-game? As far as Sony would be aware, in game currency was redeemed 

I know but the way I view it is like this, they should take a page out of steams book and let people at most play 2 hours of the game and if they don't like it get a refund back for it that is how I view it. But I do understand where your coming from just saying as sometimes like for me a good example is Sniper Elite 4. People reviewed it and said it was ok and not much new that makes it as good as 3 or 2 and there was no demo for it per say so I ended up giving it a shot and I still liked it, infact I loved it and feel it has the best controls for all of the sniper elite series so far not played 5 so can't compare yet. Sometimes you need to play the game to give a better judgement call on it.

[The Alchemist]

Sony's refund policy (if you can call it that) for the PSN Store has always been notoriously bad. Thankfully I've never had to request a refund for anything from them, but it's just one more reason why I try my best to go physical whenever I can. Sony's customer support in general is among the very worst out there. I've had a single encounter with them a few years ago and it was enough to put me off for life.

 

With Xbox you can get a refund up to 2 weeks from purchase so long as you haven't racked up a lot of playtime on the game in question (think it's usually 2 hours or less, same with Steam). With PlayStation you can't get a refund if you've even begun to download the game. LOL

[AJ_-_808]

1 hour ago, Lonemankane said:

I know but the way I view it is like this, they should take a page out of steams book and let people at most play 2 hours of the game and if they don't like it get a refund back for it that is how I view it.

 

I'm not sure if 2 hours would work these days with the way things are going with the quick plat games. 

 

For games with actual substance, how do you prevent people from lying about a game, getting their refund, then simply continue playing said game? As far as I'm aware, once the game is downloaded, Sony can't deactivate/delete it - you can just keep playing it (this may only apply to offline games).  How do you prevent abuse? 

 

Could be just me, but if I buy something and end up not liking it, I just eat the loss- no one forced me to buy it, live & learn. Refunds should be for broken/faulty products 

[JediKnight_327]

4 hours ago, MrHealthy said:

 

They literally have a support page telling you that they do this:

 

https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/support/account/psn-suspension-account-debt/

 

Damn, that's such a dick move, they should be ashamed of themselves. I bet theres a good chance of getting this policy shut down (at least in the UK and EU) if enough people complain about it.

[Jelly Soup]

On 9/22/2022 at 5:42 PM, Stevieboy said:

Digital currency is indeed a difficult situation though as it's pretty much instantly "downloaded", and would be difficult to prove you hadn't received it.

 

It depends greatly on how individual developers handle purchases from outside of in-game shops. Cross-play games (Dauntless, Genshin, etc) tend to treat outside purchases as 'not downloaded' until your formally log into the game. Since transactions can be made on any or all of the platforms the cross-play game operates on. Closed games, ones that doesn't connect to other versions of itself (TROVE, ESO, Path of Exile...the majority of MMOs, actually), treat it like downloaded and installed DLC once the purchase is complete.

Edited September 24, 2022 by Jelly Soup

[Eraezr]

If Sony tried half the things I've read in this thread, in my country, they'd be screwed.