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Wow. So Playstation's customer service really is abysmal.

mechphree

Member
Edit : The chargeback came from a game I purchased through my sprint phone service. I've purchased 3 games through paying with my phone number in the past, but for whatever reason sprint denied the charge which made my account suspended.

Edit 2: The reason why I still have access to my account is because it wasn't a regular charge back through a bank..it was through Sprint phone service. I've purchased several games using my phone number before but Sprint denied one game which caused my account to be charged back then suspended...If it was a typical charge back i'm fully aware my account would be banned forever.

My account was suspended due to a charge back. I went through the process of getting the PSN codes and paying the debt back.

I was informed by their customer service after I paid the charge back off my account would be activated back again within 24 hours. I was told this repeatedly by the agent and I'd have nothing to worry about.

This was on a Friday. Now fast forward 24 hours and my account is still suspended. I attempted to ring up CS again but they were closed. So I took my chances at the chat which I'll include the transcript of it.

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:42:16 PM): Hello, My name is Camilo how may I assist you today? j

Me (6/25/2016, 7:43:17 PM): Hi Camilo, i'm trying to figure out why my account is still suspended after I'

Me (6/25/2016, 7:43:22 PM): I've waited the 24 hours

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:43:54 PM): I’m really sorry to hear that you are having issues with your PSN account. I’ll be more than happy to assist you and I will search a solution with this specific issue today, in order to help you, Could you please be so kind to provide me your online ID?
Me (6/25/2016, 7:44:06 PM): mechphre

Me (6/25/2016, 7:44:09 PM): mechphree *

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:45:28 PM): Thank you. One moment while I access your account.
Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:45:41 PM): Thanks for waiting, I was checking your account and I found on your Transaction History that you have a debt charge of $60 This happened when the bank or card owner, have removed the charges and we are not able to get the payment for content purchased on the PSN account.

Me (6/25/2016, 7:46:07 PM): Ok i've already re-paid the $60 Charge back and it's been over 24 hours.

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:47:04 PM): I see, did the previous agent provided you a reference number?

Me (6/25/2016, 7:47:38 PM): No he did not. He just stated within 24 hours my account would be back active after I paid...and it still isn't :(

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:50:32 PM): I was able to find it, the reference number of that case is 11952851. Usually takes a 24 hours period from Monday to Thursday, but since this request was sent on Friday, the account will be reactivated on Monday, that's because our billing Department is closed during weekends. I do apologize for this inconvenience, But we can assure you that your account will be reactivated on monday without any delay. Is there anything else I can assist you with today?

Me (6/25/2016, 7:51:16 PM): Wow. I wish that would have been stated to me because I expected to play on my account this weekend before I went and paid the money for yesterday.

Me (6/25/2016, 7:51:27 PM): Otherwise I could have just did it on Monday

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:54:32 PM): I'm really sorry Marlon, I will provide the previous agent the respective feedback so this can't happen again. We will make sure to reactivate the account On Monday Morning.

Me (6/25/2016, 7:55:02 PM): Going from 24 hours to 72 hours is a pretty big jump in time when I was told it would be within 24 hours repeatedly. I am pretty dissatisfied with that. What can you do to rectify this situation or make it better for me?

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:57:19 PM): Unfortunately since a banned account can only be reactivated by our Billing department. There is nothing we can do.

Me (6/25/2016, 7:58:50 PM): Well I understand that you can't do anything to move the unban faster, but what can you do for the inconvenience I had to go through because your agent told me 24 hours when it would really be 72

Me (6/25/2016, 7:59:40 PM): i'm not trying to be difficult, I just would like something in return for the inconvenience since now I have to wait a few more days

Camilo (6/25/2016, 8:00:18 PM): I am truly sorry if we are unable to fulfill your request today. We have provided the available options for this situation. Unfortunately I will need to discontinue our chat at this moment, it has been a pleasure assisting you. Have a nice day, thanks for contacting PlayStation chat support.


And she/he ended the chat. Now full disclosure I actually work as a CS representative for a company I won't say the name of...but let's just say in these type of situations we would actually try to do something for the customer instead of just words.

I wasn't asking for a year of PS plus service or a free game or something crazy like that. I just wished their agents would be better trained in dealing with there customers and building expectations.

It would have been perfectly fine if the CS agent told me the same thing over the phone. At least then I would have adjusted my expectations accordingly. I've never had any issues with PlayStation besides this and I even brought a PS plus subscription in anticipation of my playing again. So much for that. :( I know first world problems but I really wanted to get back into Bloodborne this weekend, oh well lol.
 
That sucks OP I called them for the first time last week because I bought A realm reborn and the next day it was 50% off. The guy was awesome and gave me ten bucks back.
 
They have to have a full business day elapse to let the charge clear. The agent could have been clearer but Sony isn't in the wrong here.
 
Why did you charge back? Isn't that usually a permanent?
Also you seem super entitled in that chat.
 
I dunno man, seems kinda edge case to me - the first rep could have been more clear about end-of-week transactions potentially being delayed till Monday, but that isn't really surprising.

The second guy seemed pretty decent tbh - aside from how he phrased the "dude, take the hint, can't do anything for you - now you're just wasting our time" bit at the end.
 
Maybe it's just me but I... don't see the issue with this particular case? I'm not the biggest fan of PS customer service either but billing departments not being open on weekends isn't a huge surprise. You had to wait regardless of knowledge or not.

So, I'm not sure what you were expecting.
 
Main issue with ps suppport is that some departments are in separate countries and ran by different divisions which in turn have different rules depending on which state or country they are in....some countries its illegal to refuse a refund on a digital game (if its a buggy mess) but depending on where you call from and what time of day you either have an easy time or its a shitfest.

Ms seem to be better setup as they keep files on all customers who call up...sony do keep files but they are not shared if you are speaking with a different area...very frustrating
 
It's pretty normal to be honest, requesting a chargeback means that you've declared that's end of the line for you. You should never request a chargeback without exploring all other avenues prior to doing that, usually you would only need to request a chargeback because the company is doing something that they should't be doing and you've tried to deal with them reasonably.

EDIT:
A quick link to Wiki, many companies will just lock you out as soon as they receive a chargeback request. It may not be nice but it really is you who has initiated the "not nice" via the chargeback request.
 
Wait, so you are complaining about a manual process not happening on weekends, which was only necessary because you had to charge back one of your payments?

Seriously now, there have been a couple of threads about PSN service being shitty (and most of them were right), but this is your fault in the first place, combined with unrealistic expectations.
 
Yeah, I had a REALLY bad experience with them last time I had the misfortune of having to call them.

An update for the Vita a few years ago stopped the system from working and when they released a fix for it in the next update it didn't work for my system.

When I called them, they said I was the only person that the update didn't fix the issue (which wasn't true just doing a quick search online) and they wanted to charge me over $100 to ship it in and get it repaired for a problem THEIR BROKEN UPDATE caused.

Thankfully there was a workaround I found online that I was able to use and get my system working again, but it really soured me on Sony for a good while.
 
I don't know what you were expecting, honestly. The 1st rep should have told you that it takes 1 business day to unlock your account but it seems like an honest mistake (maybe he was fairly new?).
The 2nd rep did his job perfectly. You tried a little too hard IMO.
 
I wasn't asking for a year of PS plus service or a free game or something crazy like that.

it sure sounds like you wanted free shit

Me (6/25/2016, 7:55:02 PM): Going from 24 hours to 72 hours is a pretty big jump in time when I was told it would be within 24 hours repeatedly. I am pretty dissatisfied with that. What can you do to rectify this situation or make it better for me?

Me (6/25/2016, 7:58:50 PM): Well I understand that you can't do anything to move the unban faster, but what can you do for the inconvenience I had to go through because your agent told me 24 hours when it would really be 72

Me (6/25/2016, 7:59:40 PM): i'm not trying to be difficult, I just would like something in return for the inconvenience since now I have to wait a few more days

I just wished their agents would be better trained in dealing with there customers and building expectations.

well you seemed to have got your wish so what are you complaining about?

Camilo (6/25/2016, 7:54:32 PM): I'm really sorry Marlon, I will provide the previous agent the respective feedback so this can't happen again. We will make sure to reactivate the account On Monday Morning.

so what did you really want?
 
I mean, sure, the rep probably should have told you the process only happens on weekdays but it's hard to have a lot of sympathy for you here considering you did a chargeback and then went ahead and tried to get something out of it for the "inconvience."
 
Wait, so you are complaining about a manual process not happening on weekends, which was only necessary because you had to charge back one of your payments?

Seriously now, there have been a couple of threads about PSN service being shitty (and most of them were right), but this is your fault in the first place, combined with unrealistic expectations.

I didn't charge back my account. I purchased about 4 games through Sprint phone service, and Sprint accepted 4 of those but a week or two later declined one game. This is what made my account suspended...

I didn't purposely try to buy some games and charge them back ...
 
made mistake, called CS demanding free stuff, billing dept close til monday.

I'm surprised you can still go on, OP.
 
One Friday afternoon I was calling Sony about my PS3, which had its blu-ray diode stop working. Things were going okay as I was talking to the representative and discussing repair options. Then, I guess what happened is it reached the end of Sony's business hours and the lady just hung up on me. She didn't say, "Sorry, but we have to end this" and she didn't give me a case number to pick back up later. Right in the middle of while I was talking to her she just hung up. I had to start the whole process over on Monday.

I've had repairs done from Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony. Sony was absolutely the worst to deal with.
 
sorry OP but this is such a typical post.

you had a payment glitch through an unusual payment method and now the whole service "sucks".

I'm not saying they don't suck but cmon.
 
It was your fault.

Your account will be back on Monday.

Ok, the other agent forgot to tell you about their business hours, this new agent will communicate your complain.

Other than that, I don't see anything wrong here.

I'd just wait patiently... I mean, that's how businesses work. In the end, it was not their system glitching, it was your account not paying on time.

I know it's a pain but I really don't see how customer service is "abysmal" here.
 
Looking at the chat, looks like the customer service rep handled it well enough to me. It certainly seemed like they would make it right by Monday.

Then OP went into asshole-mode.
 
Now full disclosure I actually work as a CS representative for a company I won't say the name of...but let's just say in these type of situations we would actually try to do something for the customer instead of just words.

Nice try, Microsoft

For real though, if the people with the credentials to do anything are off on the weekend, then yes it sucks, but the CS rep did everything they actually could.
 
Yeah...Sony didn't do anything wrong here, other than the original rep leaving out the word "business," which is a pretty innocuous mistake. They didn't owe you anything.
 
While I can understand your frustration I feel it's pretty par for the course for such issues to only be processed during business days. This seems less "abysmal" and more like standard and satisfactory customer service. I mean it was your phone company's mistake! If it were me I would feel apologetic and grateful they were sorting out my phone company's screwup.
 
You sound like you are trying to scam them...its not their fault that you charge backed. take it up with your bank or phone company if you want something free...which you don't deserve.
 
Yup. Sony is doing everything they possibly can here. It's likely that either they are waiting for their bank to update still with it being a weekend or the billing team don't work weekends.

I don't know what more you want. What would you have done for yourself as a CS agent?

I've worked plenty of CS roles and this is par for the course. They don't owe you shit, a charge back happened, maybe it wasn't your fault but it still happened and so they locked your account.
 
I was expecting this to be a Comcast-like situation where they took your money and a week later it's still not re-activated or they changed your PSN ID to something offensive. I think if it isn't back on Monday you will have a better basis for calling it abysmal service, but even then it's kind of stretching it.

I don't really understand the mentality of people who expect something free for every little issue that pops up. It's nice when it happens but if you get pissed when it doesn't the issue is more with you than with them.
 
Whoa that OP - thats quite embarrassing how anyone doesnt think 24 hours doesnt mean business hours - i.e. sometime Monday...

ps3ud0 8)
 
I'm actually pretty impressed by their support.

I have a Region 2 main account and got Uncharted 4's Deluxe Edition as Region 1. So I completely blanked out and bought 1500 UC Coins from my own Region 2 store.

As expected they didn't work, so after touring the community and getting shot down, I did approach Sony's Customer Service and they refunded me. REFUNDED ME! (took 3-4 days)

$12.49 saved.
 
I guess they could have explicitly stated that it is business days if you didn't assume so but is the problem that they didn't give you something in compensation for the inconvenience?
 
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