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Man's PSN account banned for life after being hacked - Sony can't unban
- Thread starter Mugatu
- Start date
Apex_Predator
Neo Member
Sucks for this dude. He's definitely taking it a lot better than I would have had my account been compromised, especially after spending all of that hard earned money on those digital games. I almost once got my XBL account hacked, but luckily, I didn't. Honestly, though, it seems like it's his fault. I know that he doesn't go into the details, but seeing as he says that he no longer has his PS3 and thanks the PS community manager it seems like he just sold his PS3 and left his account on it. I'm not sure if that's the case, but if it is, it's totally on him.
Omnipunctual Godot
Gold Member
Sony needs two-step verification. It should have been implemented years ago.
Damn, I have 8 systems activated. Every new user is an activation? 5 of them are from my PS3.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Physical will always rule over digital for reasons like this. When it comes to online anything NOTHING is safe and secure.
To hell with this digital future, I can get up and change a disc without being winded.
To hell with this digital future, I can get up and change a disc without being winded.
your knowledge goes beyond Steam man <3
The Elite
BOSS
Seems like this makes a ton of sense for anything other than the primary registered consoles.
With the way you still cant change your name I believe it. They probably have some kind of archaic database system where they can only ban an account by removing it completely and if they return it then it corrupts the whole database. I'm not sure Sony knows how to manage servers and systems that well.
It is possible to get an account unbanned, if you search on google you can find a few cases of people successfully doing it. From what I can tell its a huge pain in the ass and you have to escalate your case to higher levels at sony which can takes days or weeks of phone tag. Most people give up and opt to have their purchases transferred to a new ID but of course you lose all your saves, friends and trophies. Sonys online service leaves a lot to be desired and needs a huge overhaul, especially considering they now charge for it. I also fear Nintendo is following in the sony footsteps as well due to the way nnid currently works but who knows maybe their backend is flexible.
It cannot be that. I refuse to believe that whoever designed the system did that. Or the team that ok'd the release build didn't make them change it to a GUID long before release.
Its got to be something more complicated than that...right?
stargateheaven
Member
I doent get why this would be irreversible. do banned accounts just get deleted completely off the database??
Interfectum
Member
I think it may not be the unique key but I do think they probably used our PSN usernames as unique identifiers in certain circumstances. They are scared of breaking a bunch of shit by letting us change our name. There is literally no other explanation other than they are too lazy to build a web form.
I can't believe that it's been 8 years and Sony still can't figure out how to do gamertag changes, which makes stories like this one easier to believe.
Interfectum
Member
I'd love to see what kind of crazy database structure they've cobbled together behind the scenes. I bet it's a clusterfuck built on top of a clusterfuck.
Think about it, it has to "load" achievements with a loading percentage bar. Mere kilobytes of string data needs a progress bar for the user to sit through. lol
The Real Napsta
Member
Time to start buying physical huh?
RedRooster
Member
Knowing their design, it probabaly uses plain text words to show the account status. Grace Chen banned his account and mis-typed "banned", and now the record is lost in the database forever because nobody knows how to view the tables. Uh oh.
nullpoynter
Member
Microsoft should take advantage of this situation and set the guy up with a free Xbox One. They could spin it by saying their network is more secure, etc.
I have a sneaking suspicion the database isn't built on SQL at all. A no SQL based solution might have been used, like MongoDb. I've not really used them myself so wouldn't like to hazard a guess at why they'd go that route.
If it's based on normal relational SQL and they actually did base anything constraint wise on a plain text based field, or if they don't simply mark records as deleted as oppose to actually deleting them they need firing out of a cannon.
If it's based on normal relational SQL and they actually did base anything constraint wise on a plain text based field, or if they don't simply mark records as deleted as oppose to actually deleting them they need firing out of a cannon.
RPGCrazied
Member
That's why I buy only retail discs for most of my games. Sure I'll buy the occasional indie title $20 and under digitally but thats about it.
I'm not going to support an all digital future.
I'm not going to support an all digital future.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
At this point I'm very leery about Sony and account security, as well as their policies and management.
They seem to have a very haphazard set of policies, poorly understood by different departments. In my experience so far their representatives commonly say tons of things are "impossible" and sometimes actively try to get people to go away - this happened to me once when I needed a refund for a subscription service that charged my card after I had unsubscribed. (and showed as unsubscribed in the system.)
Various layers of reps told me the situation had no solution, or it didn't exist, or it never happened. At one point they began sending emails basically telling me to go away. Then magically a refund appeared a month later, with no further email contact from Sony to confirm it happened.
They seem to have a very haphazard set of policies, poorly understood by different departments. In my experience so far their representatives commonly say tons of things are "impossible" and sometimes actively try to get people to go away - this happened to me once when I needed a refund for a subscription service that charged my card after I had unsubscribed. (and showed as unsubscribed in the system.)
Various layers of reps told me the situation had no solution, or it didn't exist, or it never happened. At one point they began sending emails basically telling me to go away. Then magically a refund appeared a month later, with no further email contact from Sony to confirm it happened.
or just say, "hey, we can unban" since that's dumb as heck.
BeatResetsTheWorld
Banned
Ehh, if the ID is a primary key in the database I can understand not being able to change it, unless, by ID you mean your username and not some internal id number
OrlanisWorks
Banned
If Sony won't work to investigate and unban him, that's terrible customer service and they deserve some burning.
That's ridiculous, they should be able to unban his account. I'm almost positive I've read of similar cases on the official support forums of people having it reversed. That is after having to bitch and moan to anyone and everyone they could. I'd keep trying to fight it because I can't even imagine losing all of that.
J-tight was pretty awesome on The Tester. Hopefully he can get this all sorted.
J-tight was pretty awesome on The Tester. Hopefully he can get this all sorted.
omnislayer
Member
This really does seem like a gameshare ban. If so sony has made their stance on the issue clear, gameshare= permanent ban.
Rogue Agent
Banned
Anyways, I feel terrible for the guy. I really hope this gets enough attention that Sony is forced to do something.
I am starting to lean this way too. He mentioned it in his video too.
Digital issues are so hard to work out with Sony CS. I hope things get worked out for this guy.
Activision:
Sony:
^This guy with an attitude when it was Sony's problem in the first place.
Activision:
Sony:
^This guy with an attitude when it was Sony's problem in the first place.
Spookyboogy
Neo Member
They need to completely refund him then for the games he purchased/pre-orded.
ComputerBlue
Member
That's some bullshit. I think he should keep calling and calling until they remove that ban, I wouldn't stop harassing them and if it came down to an eventual unresolved issue, I'd probably quit gaming on Sony platforms.
Tidus_Great
Banned
If you invest in digital content you deserve what you get. Sony can never take my physical discs. therefore I've protected myself. Digital gamers are at the mercy of their overlords 
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
damn that sucks. Sony wtf?
wtf does that supposed to mean?
If you invest in digital content you deserve what you get. Sony can never take my physical discs. therefore I've protected myself. Digital gamers are at the mercy of their overlords
wtf does that supposed to mean?
ComputerBlue
Member
That's an extremely unfair punishment. Regardless if you go digital or physical you don't deserve that if you did nothing wrong.
I'm assuming though that he was game sharing and gave his password up to the wrong person, either that or his friend did.
Derpcrawler
Member
Most funny thing is that for such things to be fixed you are pretty much required to make enough noise for NeoGaf 10+ page thread, with spam @yosp, be an MvP or some other shit. What plebs like 99% of us supposed to do to fight the system in similar situation? I remember at least 3 threads on NeoGaf with similar ban issues in last year. Each time for it to be fixed it would require multiple Sony MVPs, managers and other people on Neogaf to provide help and some contact with anyone other than clueless support drones in Sony.
With Blizzard or XBL it takes an email, maybe a phone call at most if billing is involved to resolve anything. To be fair though, I had much better experience with Sony support (Europe/EMEA), but I only had simple issues like refunding broken games (i.e. russian/polish only version of Diablo 3 on PS3 when on store page it stated that it had english), I dread if anything more seriously happens to my account which was created in 2006, when PSN was in Beta with open early registration.
With Blizzard or XBL it takes an email, maybe a phone call at most if billing is involved to resolve anything. To be fair though, I had much better experience with Sony support (Europe/EMEA), but I only had simple issues like refunding broken games (i.e. russian/polish only version of Diablo 3 on PS3 when on store page it stated that it had english), I dread if anything more seriously happens to my account which was created in 2006, when PSN was in Beta with open early registration.
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
He sold his PS3. How can you sell your account and still use it on PS4?
Altered Juice
Member
damn that sucks. should have went physical
Weltall Zero
Member
If you had devoted half a second to think about which of the two might be (i.e. which of the two a PSN user would care about at all), you could have saved the effort of typing that post
. Or do you really think users were calling Sony's support to have their generated, invisible (to them) database ID changed?
ShinMaruku
Member
You leave the account activated onto the PS3 so that all the downloaded PS3 and PSN games can continue to be played. So you can up the value of the sale by saying "includes 100 games valued at $1000 dollars" or whatnot.
I have seen in done on Craigslist and ebay every now and again. And it's a sound strategy if you are OK with walking away from that account or are willing to take on the risk. Kind of like selling a MMO character/account when you are done with the game.
As to PS4, you can simply use the account to log onto PS4. Accounts allow up to 2 PS3s and separately a PS4 to be activated. It does not mean you need to own all those machines.
Storm Raider
Banned
I couldn't last 30 seconds in that video... That trophy level...
That hurts. RIP.
That hurts. RIP.
dark_chris
Member
Yep.
If shit like this can happen, yeah the digital future doesn't look good. Guy loses all his games for that? Come on now. That's bs on Sony's part and they ought to fix this - either refund or find a way to un ban this.
I'm so glad I went with physical games
ScriptedReality
Member
Main reason I refuse to go full digital. They could give me two terabytes for games. Nope. Gimme that disc.
family_guy
Member
Sucks but the games aren't lost though as long as he's playing on the primary console right? He may never be able to download them again but they should still be playable as another user.
If gamesharing was the issue then there would be a shitload more of cases happening. But there aren't.