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[AtomskEater]

It's been my experience that cancelling autorenew and/or setting subscriptions to cancel is the only way to be rid of them. I once had a hassle getting out of one of those "random item boxes a month" subscriptions even after several emails. My card expired and I thought "fine, I just won't update it and that'll be the end of it." Nope, somehow they started charging to the new card. Had to keep sending emails like every day until they finally turned my stuff off.

Sucks ass but you have to be really vigilant in protecting your money. Companies kind of hope that you'll forget or be too lazy to turn things off properly, Sony should have definitely offered a one time exception to refund you, though.

 

[Caayn]

Not how it is though - you buy an auto-renewal product using a PayPal address, then that PayPal address is presumably gonna be charged for something that auto-renews. Removing payment details from settings is just for future purchases. I don't know how things work internally with Sony but:

1. If someone gave me a payment method and told me to auto-renew, which they did, I'd continue with that method until they told me to stop. Has OP instructed Sony at any point to not auto-renew?
2. The way to stop the auto-renewal process is by unticking "auto-renew" in the menu, as is explained really obviously when you sign up or if you just google it.

Why are people trying to make this sound so sinister?

I'm not trying to make it sound sinister.

If I remove my payment details from service X it means that I want to stop recurring and future payments. The fact that Sony still thinks that they're allowed to withdraw money from your account even after you've removed your payment details from them is crazy and not a thing that people should defend. (Yes, also for other services) I find it crazy that removing your payment methods doesn't also invalidate any previous consent given.

The only exception being if you've agreed to pay for at least X time. Like a yearly contract with monthly payments for example.

There is a record of basically every transaction you've ever completed by credit or debit card with the retailer. Every single time you use your card in a store a retailer receipt with your full card details is created. This is not shocking, surprising or disturbing in the slightest.

That record usually, and should, contains different data than the data needed to create a new transaction.

 

[Zafir]

No it doesn't, you would know if it would because my posts would amount to

Which they don't.

I'm not the only the only person to explain this and others appear to be understanding what we've all explained without any issues.

Yet you continue to be rather an ass instead of trying to enlighten us.

I think we're coming to an impasse because apparently Paypal have two set ups through authorised payments. One set up just allows a company to charge when ever you make an order or a sub charge is happening, this is the setup which Origin, Steam etc use. Subscriptions are done on their system and not Paypal's. You remove your paypal account from Origin, they won't charge you for the Origin Access subscription, because they can't.

I haven't subscribed to PS+ through Paypal. I assumed it was like that since you attach your paypal account to the account in much the same way. However, I can only assume they set their subscriptions up through Paypal instead of using their own system and charging through the above method.

In which case I wish they used the above option.

 

[JP]

Yet you continue to be an ass instead of trying to enlighten us.

I think we're coming to an impasse because apparently Paypal have two set ups through authorised payments. One set up just allows a company to charge when ever you make an order, this is the setup which Origin, Steam etc use. Subscriptions are done on their system and not Paypal's. You remove your paypal account from Origin, they won't charge you for the Origin Access subscription, because they can't.

I haven't subscribed to PS+ through Paypal. I assumed it was like that since you attach your paypal account to the account in much the same way. However, I can only assume they set their subscriptions up through Paypal instead of using their own system and charging through the above method.

In which case I wish they used the above option.

I know, if only I was more constructive and elected to call you names instead.

 

[Rain City Gamer]

It seems like these types of threads always want to pass blame to the company when the customer is clearly at fault.

Such is the planet we currently live on. It's always someone else's fault.

 

[Rellik]

It's been my experience that cancelling autorenew and/or setting subscriptions to cancel is the only way to be rid of them.

Well... Yeah. You sign an agreement to say that they can keep taking money from you unless you give them notice (by stopping auto-renew). Just removing payment details isn't good enough notice. It does not cancel the agreement. Plus most companies, including Sony, give you advanced warning and then a further notice by email when you're closing in on that auto-renew period.

Don't ignore all the warnings.

Don't try to run away from your financial commitments by removing details.

Always triple check the auto-renew option.

 

[rpmurphy]

So uh, what happens if your credit card information expires, or you cancel the card? Do they just lock out your PSN account until you put in new payment information, send out collections on you, or (the sanest option) just not renew?

 

[JP]

So uh, what happens if your credit card information expires, or you cancel the card? Do they just lock out your PSN account until you put in new payment information, send out collections on you, or (the sanest option) just not renew?

I'd assume that would be the same as if you use a points card.

I've been a member since day one and always use points cards and approaching the end of one year they emailed me in advance of it ending advising that I'd lose access to Plus games while unsubscribed and that I'd lose my cloud saves.

It did also say that I'd regain use of my Plus games once I'd resubscribed again.

 

[firelogic]

While that's the right way to do it, if someone made this mistake I'm pretty sure Microsoft would have refunded it, point still stands that Sonys customer support is severely lacking in comparison. Microsoft is usually "the customer is always right', Sony is usually "ToS, bitch".

It's not Sony. It's the luck of the draw. If he talked to someone else, he would have gotten a refund. It's laughable to say that Sony's (or any other company's) customer service is terrible across the board. It's not.

 

[Metzhara]

I came on hoping to agree here but... yeah, this one is on the consumer. Sure, Sony could make that sort of thing much more user friendly but it's not impossible to do.

While my last call with Sony Customer Service yielded the result I was looking for, it wasn't without it's problems and an outright douche of a customer service rep who seemed at times indifferent and at others irritated with the idea that I had a problem.
Mind you, don't treat ME like an ass because I'm asking where my brand new console keeps the barcode as it's not in the place of the last one and you're just responding with, "right there on the back."
Yes, you're right, it's on the back... and then upside down and under the lip where it's most inconvenient to see. As someone who has been on the other end, you have to be aware you know this as common knowledge so just help them out with, "It's on the back in an awkward place... you see that lap? It's under that." And my nice demeanor doesn't change after 5 minutes of your snark into counter-snark.

Man. Eff that guy.

 

[The Hamburglar]

Fuck Sony. The amount of times I've disabled auto renewal of ps plus and today I see an email that says thank you for your purchase. At first I panicked and thought I was hacked. Nope fucking auto renewal of plus.

 

[13ruce]

IIRC, using PayPal to add funds to your wallet, and using PayPal to pay for your PS+ subscription are two separate things.

All you did by removing your payment details was stopping using PayPal for your wallet, while the 'agreement' for the periodic subscription service was still in effect.

That option never should be turned on automaticly at all it's a shady thing to do it should be turned off by default.

 

[ViciousDS]

I don't understand how it got taken out without payment information...........

Unless you forgot to cancel the subscription/agreement actually in your PayPal settings.

 

[rpmurphy]

I'd assume that would be the same as if you use a points card.

I've been a member since day one and always use points cards and approaching the end of one year they emailed me in advance of it ending advising that I'd lose access to Plus games while unsubscribed and that I'd lose my cloud saves.

It did also say that I'd regain use of my Plus games once I'd resubscribed again.

That's the thing though, this whole setup doesn't make much sense to me. What is a common scenario is that people subscribe to PS+ with a credit/debit card which will eventually expire, and the billing system will have to look up that updated card information. People may move and their billing address itself may change as well, which would also potentially invalidate any existing card information that the original payment was made with. So if checking for valid billing information (or having a fallback) is part of the renewal process anyway, why not just NOT renew if there is no longer any billing information? I mean, clearly it's both technically feasible and consumer-friendly to do it this way.

 

[thebigmachine]

I don't understand how it got taken out without payment information...........

Unless you forgot to cancel the subscription/agreement actually in your PayPal settings.

A lot of people have pointed this out earlier and I agree with it as well. Makes sense that's what happened.

 

[JP]

That's the thing though, this whole setup doesn't make much sense to me. What is a common scenario is that people subscribe to PS+ with a credit/debit card which will eventually expire, and the billing system will have to look up that updated card information. People may move and their billing address itself may change as well, which would also potentially invalidate any existing card information that the original payment was made with. So if checking for valid billing information (or having a fallback) is part of the renewal process anyway, why not just NOT renew if there is no longer any billing information? I mean, clearly it's both technically feasible and consumer-friendly to do it this way.

Because the OP elected to set up a different type of payment with PayPal that doiesn't work in that way.

When you set it up with PayPal it does tell you that with the type of payments they set up that you actually need to deactivate it in your PayPal account. The same with the Plus subscription, when you set it up it instructs you that you have to unsubscribe in your PlayStation account, neither of which they did.

It's not actually feasible with the method that they selected because that's not how the method that they chose works. I think the issue is that the OP set up both of these agreements without really understanding what they were setting up, even though it does tell you this before you set both of them up.

It happens, though, we all make mistakes at some point.

 

[Fisty]

Ive never had any issues with Sony customer service, as long as I can prove it's their fault they seem fine with refunding stuff.

 

[Caayn]

Because the OP elected to set up a different type of payment with PayPal that doiesn't work in that way.

When you set it up with PayPal it does tell you that with the type of payments they set up that you actually need to deactivate it in your PayPal account. The same with the Plus subscription, when you set it up it instructs you that you have to unsubscribe in your PlayStation account, neither of which they did.

It's not actually feasible with the method that they selected because that's not how the method that they chose works. I think the issue is that the OP set up both of these agreements without really understanding what they were setting up, even though it does tell you this before you set both of them up.

It happens, though, we all make mistakes at some point.

It's perfectly feasible. The PayPal API has support for cancelling subscription agreements such as PS+ payments.

What Sony could've, and should've imo, done is to cancel any such agreement the moment that the user removes their payment information from their account. There's nothing stopping Sony from implementing that.

 

[Grady]

I went through a similar thing with xbox360. At the time I didn't even know auto renewal was a thing. But this was a strange one for me. At the time my credit card was expired and they sort of renewed my membership without being able I to charge my card. My membership stopped working one day and I went to use a 3 month membership I was given, but my membership gift card wouldn't work and it said to call Microsoft support. I called and was told I was cut off of Xbox live because I owed them 60 bucks, that my card was denied and I had been using Xbox for free the last 2 months. I was told I had to pay 60 bucks to get my remaining 10 months and was not eligible to use the gift cards until after that 9 months ran out. Sounds confusing, and it was. I was pissed. How was it my fault my card was expired yet you let me keep live without telling me. Fucking odd.

 

[AtomskEater]

Well... Yeah. You sign an agreement to say that they can keep taking money from you unless you give them notice (by stopping auto-renew). Just removing payment details isn't good enough notice. It does not cancel the agreement. Plus most companies, including Sony, give you advanced warning and then a further notice by email when you're closing in on that auto-renew period.

Don't ignore all the warnings.

Don't try to run away from your financial commitments by removing details.

Always triple check the auto-renew option.

Well, in my case the website made it impossible to get in and change renew status since it didn't recognize my account details, didn't send password reset emails, but I still got charged and got regular emails from them. I tried to do it the lazy way at first because it was a PITA to do it the right way.

 

[JP]

It's perfectly feasible. The PayPal API has support for cancelling subscription agreements such as PS+ payments.

What Sony could've, and should've imo, is to cancel any such agreement the moment that the user removes their payment information from their account. There's nothing stopping Sony from implementing that.

As people keep explaining, PayPal offers more than one type of payment and the one that was used here doesn't offer that option and informs you of this when you set it up. It tells you that you need to cancel it in your account.

If they'd used a different type of payment then it would be feasible, but that isn't what they did so they had to cancel it themselves, as they agreed to do when they set it up.

 

[Caayn]

As people keep explaining, PayPal offers more than one type of payment and the one that was used here doesn't offer that option and informs you of this when you set it up. It tells you that you need to cancel it in your account.

If they'd used a different type of payment then it would be feasible, but that isn't what they did so they had to cancel it themselves, as they agreed to do when they set it up.

So you're telling me the PayPal API documentation is lying and I can't actually cancel recurring payment? Sure.

 

[joecanada]

I went through a similar thing with xbox360. At the time I didn't even know auto renewal was a thing. But this was a strange one for me. At the time my credit card was expired and they sort of renewed my membership without being able I to charge my card. My membership stopped working one day and I went to use a 3 month membership I was given, but my membership gift card wouldn't work and it said to call Microsoft support. I called and was told I was cut off of Xbox live because I owed them 60 bucks, that my card was denied and I had been using Xbox for free the last 2 months. I was told I had to pay 60 bucks to get my remaining 10 months and was not eligible to use the gift cards until after that 9 months ran out. Sounds confusing, and it was. I was pissed. How was it my fault my card was expired yet you let me keep live without telling me. Fucking odd.

I'm not surprised basically if a company has a way to dupe you into keeping a sub they will, update terms of service = Auto renew .
Card expired - you owe us
Remove payment options - we save our own.
PSN update = Auto renew on . Lol I'm not sure about that one but wouldn't be surprised.

I'm amazed people put up with it. I just use PSN cards now. Live? As per my previous post I cancelled years ago .
It's pretty obviously not designed for customer convenience, those who want to pay automatically have no problems in this day.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

I can't agree with this. I preordered FFXIV: Stormblood on PSN before getting my gaming PC and obviously I wanted to cancel and rebuy this on PC. When I live-chatted with them I worked my way through 2 reps and spoke with a manager. It's clearly against their policy to refund digital purchases, my man Juan gave me a full refund of my $60.

Juan, whoever, wherever you are. I love you.

 

[JP]

So you're telling me the PayPal API documentation is lying and I can't actually cancel recurring payment? Sure.

No.

EDIT:
I probably should add as well that if you frequent the PayPal Community Help forum you'll see that there are people who do seem to have issues with this particular type of payment and just don't seem to understand that it's their responsibility to cancel it themselves.

People say pretty much the same things that have been said on here and the responses are the same too. It actually looks like some people have lost quite a bit of money due to setting up this type of payment without understanding that they do have to cancel it rather than just inform the third party. ��

 

[Deleted member 325805]

Yesterday I contacted Jim Ryan who is the CEO of Sony telling him of my trouble and how I thought the policy was unfair and too strictly enforced and I have just recieved an email from Sony support granting me a full refund to my Paypal account.

Hi Steven,

I've been passed your details following your recent contact with Jim Ryan.

I understand you've requested a refund for a recent subscription auto renewal.

The information we've previously provided regarding our cancellation policy for subscription renewals is correct, however, I can see that you haven't used the subscription yet so I have refunded the purchase price back to your PayPal account as a gesture of goodwill. This amount should show in your available balance within 48 hours.

I hope this helps, but if you need anything else, just let me know by replying to this e-mail.

Thanks,

 

[DeviantBoi]

Shame you wasted your "gesture of goodwill" on that.

I used it for The Witness cause it gave me motion sickness.

Screwed me when I wanted a refund for No Man's Sky.

 

[Deleted member 325805]

Shame you wasted your "gesture of goodwill" on that.

I used it for The Witness cause it gave me motion sickness.

Screwed me when I wanted a refund for No Man's Sky.

Honestly, it's unlikely I will ever use their store for anything again, I do 99% of my gaming on PC and use my PS4 solely for exclusives which are rarely multiplayer focused. I'm perfectly happy with the outcome, I just wish I didn't have to email the CEO to get it sorted, this is a customer support level 1 job, not his.

 

[Bananajama]

This is why I always use cards/pre-paid options.

I don't want payment options linked

 

[heringer]

In Brazil, they refuse to even touch your PS4 if it was legally bought in US or another country. It's against the law here, but they don't care. It's also incredibly silly since the PS4 they "officially" sell here is imported anyway.

 

[FlashFlooder]

Obviously OP screwed up and is 100% to blame here, acting like Sony owe him/her something is also not doing him/her any favors... but he/she is not wrong that Sony's customer support is horrible.

 

[Lightning]

Sony's customer service has been excellent everytime I have needed them. They've always seemed reasonable when dealing with me so I've got no complaints.