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Forums - Sony Discussion - A PSN User's account got hacked, $600 lost, and Sony apparently, can't help.

Bman54 said:
"Additionally, Kadjar was advised that if he were to speak to his credit card company and request a chargeback, he would have his PSN account banned, losing all his purchases, trophies, etc… Which is something Sony has been known to do,according to a few reports on its forums."

I can vouch for this. I used to do that game sharing thing, where you logged into someone else's account and download their games for use on your own profile, and I let people do it to mine. Stupid idea, I know. He then bought about $100 worth of stuff. Got refunded through the credit card company, and now my old account is banned. I thiiiink my purchases still worked, but I lost all my trophies, and that certainly sucked.

Well that's not the same thing at all. Sharing your account with someone and having someone illegally gain access are totally different things. I can understand Sony's response in your case because as far as Sony is concerned you share your account you takes your chances. If you get ripped off by someone you know then you get them to pay you back and you remove your account from their console. You don't get the credit card company to reverse the transactions.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

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Wow, so many people here didn't even read the full article. Saying "Go to the bank!" even when Sony says he would have his account basically deleted doesn't help him.



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The_Sony_Girl1 said:
Wow, so many people here didn't even read the full article. Saying "Go to the bank!" even when Sony says he would have his account basically deleted doesn't help him.

Yeah, that's because everyone here saying listen to Sony over your bank, has skewed priorities.  I ensure my account is safe, before I worry about my leisure activity.  Finances > Games.

And I said before, there is no judge, jury or court out there who'd expect you to get Sony's 'permission' to ensure your bank account is secure.  That's not reasonable, at all.  That's a shitty message to be telling gamer's, but I highly doubt it would stand up to legal scrutiny.



jlmurph2 said:
Angelus said:

What is it with gamers always looking for the console manufacturers to get them their money back?


Contact your damn bank

 

 Sony threatened the guy basically saying "If you escalate this to your bank, we will permaban you." 

 

Probably because Sony was initially suspisious of the situation. If a case is legit it would be illegal, in most countries, for Sony to permaban an account where a fradulent transaction occurred from unauthorised access to the account.

However if Sony is wont to permaban accounts where transactions are reversed via the credit card company then it's good to know that you have to go through Sony customer support in these situations. I guess it might be possible for a game to be bought and downloaded and then for the person to contact their credit carc company and get the transaction reversed, but for the game to remain accessible. If it is possible to do that then it probably is reasonable for Sony to permaban accounts where transactions have been reversed without Sony's agreement. Thinking of these situations as refunds, you take your goods back to the store to get a refund, you don't contact your credit card company or bank to reverse a payment. If a game was illegally obtained then it's not a proper refund situation, but given there are no physical goods involved it is not really possible for Sony to know whether a transaction was legit or not without investigating. And you don't want people to bypass that investigation.



“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."

Jimi Hendrix

 

binary solo said:
Bman54 said:
"Additionally, Kadjar was advised that if he were to speak to his credit card company and request a chargeback, he would have his PSN account banned, losing all his purchases, trophies, etc… Which is something Sony has been known to do,according to a few reports on its forums."

I can vouch for this. I used to do that game sharing thing, where you logged into someone else's account and download their games for use on your own profile, and I let people do it to mine. Stupid idea, I know. He then bought about $100 worth of stuff. Got refunded through the credit card company, and now my old account is banned. I thiiiink my purchases still worked, but I lost all my trophies, and that certainly sucked.

Well that's not the same thing at all. Sharing your account with someone and having someone illegally gain access are totally different things. I can understand Sony's response in your case because as far as Sony is concerned you share your account you takes your chances. If you get ripped off by someone you know then you get them to pay you back and you remove your account from their console. You don't get the credit card company to reverse the transactions.

I'm not comparing the actual cases. All I was doing was confirming their policy about if the only way to get your money back is having the credit card company give you a chargeback, then yes, they will just ban your account. That's what happened to me. Sony doesn't care how the money was charged to your account fraudulently. If you need a chargeback, then your account is getting banned.



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Captain_Yuri said:

It is impossible for him to have a European friend? I have lots of European friends. Where the IP Address is from does not prove a thing.

Its not impossible but when Sony themselves are saying that his credentials have been compromised, I am pretty sure its legit... And I don't get whats so hard to understand about this... Sony themselves have investigated the sitution and came to the conclusion that it is indeed was unauthorized transaction and Sony has access to all the accounts so if they deactivate the games and refund the money, it should be as simple as that...

lol, yep Sony knows if an IP Address belongs to a friend of his. A "Sony investigation" does not prove a thing either. But either way it really is the guys fault for either falling for a social engineering trick or having a weak password.



Hiku said:
Bman54 said:

I'm not comparing the actual cases. All I was doing was confirming their policy about if the only way to get your money back is having the credit card company give you a chargeback, then yes, they will just ban your account. That's what happened to me. Sony doesn't care how the money was charged to your account fraudulently. If you need a chargeback, then your account is getting banned.

I'm trying to wrap my head around this policy though. Why would they ban your account if your bank refunds you?
I feel like I'm missing something obvious here. But why does it concern them that you got refunded by your bank?

Because it takes money from them? Pretty obvious lol



Hiku said:
Captain_Yuri said:

Well he can to a certain extent cause firstly, which asshole friend would do such a thing and secondly, the way that the transaction worked screams unauthorized access because buying $600 worth of games in such a short time is very unnatural. Save file and buying games are different things cause sure, a person can delete a save file but buying $600 worth of games in such a short time doesn't make any sense... And sure, there are scammers everywhere but the issue isn't about scamming... The issue is their policies cause even if what he said turned out to be true (which it is), there is hardly anything he could do about it cause according to Sony themselves, if something like this happens, he is limited to only these things:

  1. They can only refund up to $150.

  2. I can dispute the charges with my bank, but that will result in my account being banned.

  3. I cannot unban my account, and will thus lose my purchases ("but you only have the Last of Us and some of our free games, so it's not a big deal")

  4. Whomever hacked my account deactivated my PS4, and activated their own. Customer support will only permit one activation every 6 months. I'm locked out of logging into my own account on my PS4 for six months.

Which is why they are idiots because even if they concluded that what he is saying true, he would be limited to those things in terms of getting any issues resolved. And yes, he might be getting a refund now but clearly, the only reason Sony is now revising their policies and probably giving him a refund is because this exploded all over the internet, if it didn't, they wouldn't have which is proven by how they acted before this got spread. Now I understand the whole scamming and investigating and thats fine cause no Company should give a refund without investigating it first when it comes to situtions like this but the fact that they acted soo poorly before it got spread shows just how terrible their customer service really is when it comes to this kind of a sitution which is what my issue is

Asshole friend? I didn't say it was a friend. People also share with strangers, or semi-strangers as well. There are always topics on Gamefaqs on account sharing when some new game comes out. I have an aquaintance who account shared with one of his Twitch followers. That went well for a few months, until that guy apparently did pretty much what this guy did here, and started spending money on games. Luckily in his case, he didn't have a credit card registered to the account, so it was only what he had left in the wallet. But it was still money spent that he didn't want to spend.
And like I've said before, it's very obvious that this $600 transaction was done against the original account holders will. That however does not equal unauthorized access to his account. Just like in my example with Share Play. You give someone authorized access to your console, but they suddenly start deleting your save files instead of just playing. The deletion of the files was obviously done against your will. But not the access to the account.

As for "the only reason he got refunded now was probably because it exploaded on the internet" that may be true, but aren't you leaning a bit too much in only one direction now when it comes to what you chose to believe? It may just as well be that it was sped up, and his case was put as a priority, because it caught the news. Not that they wouldn't reach the same conclusion a week later.
All I've said here boils down to one thing: To make a qualified decision after an investigation.
And why would they continue an investigation, as stated in the original article, if those were the only outcomes? There would be no point. So obviously, things could change depending on what they found. Those all sound like the options he had at the moment he contacted support. Because if they continue the investigation, obviously one of the goals would be to restore his account so that he has access to it again. Not to ban the account.

Furthermore, when it comes to customer support, you can get vastly different responses and level of help based on who you talk to. And this isn't neccisarily because of how their policies are written, but can be because of how that particular customer service person interprits those policies for the given situation.

The bottom line is, there was still an ongoing investigation. Which would be pointless if the only possible outcomes were the options he was presented originally, before the investigation continued.

I highly doubt people actually share their passwords with strangers specially when you have your credit card tied to your account and if they do, that is the next level of being dumb but I doubt such a thing would happen. But fine, I will agree that in this perticular sitution, it can be considered unauthorized transaction not that it could be proven either ways

Well its not that hard to believe the victim cause even after it got spread, Sony didn't deny their idiotic policies on the matter which obviously means its true so I doubt I am leaning in one direction at all because its Sony's policies. Could it have ended up by him getting a refund anyway? Sure but thats just going into speculation. The fact of the matter is that this is what their policies state hence why they wouldn't have give him a full refund if it didn't blow up. You can defend them all you like but that is exactly what Sony's policies are and its one of the worst policies I have ever heard. And heres the thing, again, its about their policies and companies have policies for a reason and that is to follow them... Sony said that if what the dude was saying turns out to be true, his resolution out of all of this would result in those very limited things so I don't see whats so hard to understand about it. And its funny that you are telling me that I lean towards one side while you are doing the same even though there are quite a number of things against the side you are leaning towards

Yes, you do get vastly different responses but this should have not been a response at all. The best response should have been that "we will investigate the sitution and based on the investigation, we will give you a full refund if what we find out matches what you are saying to be true (or something along those lines)" and not saying that even after the investigation reveals what he is saying is true, he will be limited to those terrible resolutions...

And the bottom line is that Sony's customer service is terrible when it comes to this sort of a sitution with their policies which they will hopefully revise and not make it so idiotic. Their policies stated that the best outcome for him would have been those terrible choices instead of saying that he would get a full refund if all things resulted in his statements being true.



                  

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I still don't believe that Sony was hacked. This is the case of carelessness of a user who didn't take precautions and now wants Sony to fit the bill for his/her mistakes.

I wouldn't be surprised if the user leaked this as "hacked" to make Sony look even worse with their security issues. Something ain't right in the bayou here.



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I bet this is another smear capaign against sony, they have no proof if he really got hacked or not. It could be a friend of his buying stuff and then looking what sony does exploiting their boundries to making them look bad