PlayStation Support is the worst

I know everyone knows this but my experience today was...well the stakes are low (I accidentally purchased the same piece of DLC twice for a total wasting of $4) but their whole system is infuriating. Like many companies they have buried their "contact us" on their support page. Unlike most companies they have no way to send a ticket via email or a webform. You need to call or have a livechat. Let's see how their livechat system works:

AND EVEN MORE INFURIATING, AFTER THIS (which ends with "is there anything else I can help you with today" as if they even made an attempt to help in the first place) THEY HAVE THE NERVE TO ADD THIS SURVEY

DID YOU RESOLVE MY ISSUE BY TELLING ME TO TRY BACK LATER? HOW WAS MY EXPERIENCE OF NOT EVEN GETTING TO TALK TO ANYONE ABOUT MY ISSUE?

It's like it's designed just to make customers angry.

LET ME SUBMIT A FORM!!!!!!

The way Sony's customer service seems to be purposefully byzantine, frustrating and unhelpful is one of those reasons I just dislike them as a company.

yeah, that's super frustrating.

i've only interacted with their support once- and truthfully it was ok. my ps5 controller was starting to get drift, so i googled warranty replacement, was brought to a form that allowed me to issue my own RMA and i had a new controller within 5 days (did have to pay to ship it to them, though).

but yeah, interacting with chat bots is the worst.

@mellotronrules: I once had a situation where they double charged me for something through no fault of mine. I called to get it resolved. The rep told me that they wouldn't do anything but I should issue a chargeback via my credit card. I did. They banned my account (which means you lose all your digital games.) Then I called about that and they said they would unban it if I reversed the chargeback. I did. Eventually they reversed the charge on their own.

This all took like 3+ hours of my life and left me unable to play most of my games for a day or two and pretty freaked out about having more or less bricked my PlayStation (I could still play disc games but not go online with them so it wasn't bricked but significantly less useful) and lost a large collection of digital games.

In the end it worked out but if their customer rep had just said "give it a couple days and the charge will be reversed by the system) like a NORMAL company that could have been avoided.

I had a run-in with them recently because I was curious about getting a refund on Returnal. I originally bought it to play co-op with a friend and upon unlocking co-op we found it to be non-functional, everything we tried to get it to work just ended up not working out. It was pretty low bar to entry of just claiming the game was somewhat broken but I tried anyway.

Apparently if you at any point download the game even if you can't get something to work unless it was Cyberpunk, or any game that was reported they were taking refunds on, you aren't getting a refund. Needless to say I'm just done buying digital from Sony until their return policies are actually modern enough to warrant purchasing through them again.

@meestero: Yeah. That's one of their insane rules. I ended up calling after this and they dinged me with it this time too even though it wasn't true (I hadn't downloaded the DLC I had downloaded something else with the same name) AND it shouldn't matter if it was. My issue was not that I accidentally purchased something or even that it didn't work but that I purchased the same thing twice by accident. Even if I used that thing I should still get a refund.

They also did not help me with my other issue which is that Trine 2 has somehow become a PS+ game for me even though I BOUGHT it in 2017. They're just like "restore licenses, I don't know what you want from us." How about that your system accurately reflects the things I've paid you money for. I have to call back again about that.

The lady I spoke to was very nice but obviously didn't actually understand their system well. I get it, she's just some lady in India working a job to put food on her table, I'm not mad at her. But she asked me whether I had PS4 or PS5 and I said both and then she asked which I purchased Trine 2 for even though we'd already established that I bought it in 2017. I wanted to be like "I bought it for PS5. I'm psychic." But I tried to be polite. None of this is her fault.

Overall the call lasted an hour, half of it on hold, and resolved nothing. That is, of course, what they want. I knew I had to make this call a couple weeks ago but I put it off because I KNEW it would be torture and probably accomplish nothing and I was right.

Even if I had gotten my piddly $4 refund it would have been a pyrrhic victory because an hour call means I'm working for half of minimum wage.

This is what they want. To make customer service so excruciating that you don't even bother.

Meanwhile when Amazon sent me an empty box instead of an SSD that call lasted 10 minutes and they happily replaced it without asking for any proof whatsoever. I just told them "I didn't get my product" and got it replaced, even though an SSD is something you could actually steal and resell.

Sony had hard proof that I was telling the truth and wouldn't do anything for me.

And I'm a Playstation Stars level 4 user, which means I get their BEST customer service. That means they tell you "Thank you for being a PlayStation Stars Level 4 User and spending lots of money with us. We still won't do anything to help you, but we appreciate your business."

THANKS!

My friend and I have this long running joke because one time he basically lost his mind on the phone with a Comcast rep while I was in the room. Anyway, he shouted "I've had it with your entire bullshit byzantine process!" and now we use that all the time during less than ideal customer service interactions, and I believe yours is the first one in a bit that has really felt justified (although this seems less intentionally complicated and more just complicated due to good old fashion terrible customer service user experience).

@sethmode: I don't go off on customer reps because I know it's not their fault. They don't set the policy and when they do screw up it's generally because they are poorly trained on a bad system not because they aren't trying.

But this is absolutely intentionally complicated and broken. Sony has decided that it saves money by dissuading people from using their customer service and not issuing reasonable refunds. That's a business decision. It's why they don't have a web entry form. Microsoft lets you request refunds from a web portal. You just select the content you want to refund, say why, and generally if you meet the requirements you will get the refund right there no muss no fuss. Steam is even easier. Sony makes its process a huge pain and understaffs it so that the next time someone wants a $5 refund they think "Why bother?" And they don't have to pay the customer service reps either.

PlayStation has operated a digital store for almost 20 years now. They know what they're doing. They choose to do it this way.

Gawwwd they really are the worst. I had a similar experience to you with getting my account banned. Someone hacked it and started buying stuff and I did a chargeback on a Fifa Deluxe purchase. Took me 2 weeks and numerous reps to get it back and in the end I had to pay to get it back. They at least gave me the money back as PSN wallet credit but it still basically cost me 200 bucks. I will forever resent them for this. Especially since Steam, Xbox, and even Nintendo completely blow them out of the water in that regard. They might be the #1 console but they will always be dead fuckin last, by a lap around the world, in customer service. Douchebags.

Oh no, their customer service is totally unacceptable as it appears to be one of the signs of ruining the PlayStation brand's reputation and I feel so sorry for your experience on this.

Sidenote: In my personal experience with gaming consoles, I rarely buy digital games and carefully choose what DLC to buy in general so I didn't experience these kinds of issues.

The only time I requested a refund from Sony was 2 years ago it was surprisingly pretty straight foward, I was able to send ticket at the time.

They still have an email help@ukplaystation.com but it's buried deep, they might be able to redirect you.

@spacemanspiff00: I forgot about the part where they made me buy PSN gift cards to pay them back for the chargeback like I was some naughty grade schooler caught stealing from the local candy shop. That part sucked too. In the end the money all worked out fine (I think I got to keep that PSN credit or something) but the whole experience was awful and entirely their fault. They double charged me. They told me to do the chargeback. They punished me for it. If they had just had their customer service rep say "I'll make a note in your file but this should get reversed within a week automatically" we would have had no issues.

@thepanzini: I'm in the US and they very notably do NOT have a USA email. Everyone who has investigated it has come up empty. There may be UK regulations that require them to have customer service by email. I'm just giving up here. It's not worth it for $4. I'm actually a lawyer by trade and something that lawyers have to tell prospective clients (or even current clients) all the time is "maybe you'll win in the end, but it won't be worth it." Some battles just aren't worth fighting. I've made mistakes when ordering stuff that have cost me $4 in the past, like accidentally ordering food I didn't realize had mushrooms on it or buying socks that cut off my circulation. Sometimes you just gotta let it go.

Just phone. Webchats are pointless

@sombre: It's no better, Sony has terrible strict rules about anything and if your problem has any nuance whatsoever you're just going to slam into a brick wall because the rep is just following their tech support scripts and you'll get shut down.

I once preordered and preloaded a game that had some issue where the preloaded versions wouldn't work but if you bought it after release it would. Getting this non-working version of a game refunded was a nightmare because Sony has it written in their rules that Refunds Are Not Allowed If you Download the product and no amount of calling is going to get through on that point.

If I recall it only worked over a webchat after I think the company was making official statements that they fucked up.

@bigsocrates: I feel the need to defend my friend (who does not come here, nor know that this website even exists, but my moral compass demands it!) just ever-so-briefly to say that he wasn't really yelling at the customer service person, just the situation, and he even apologized and gave them a great survey review despite not being remotely helpful, particularly after they both commiserated over how antiquated Comcast customer service can be (to a degree it made my friend concerned for the guy's job).

Anyway, just wanted to say that. I only have one true Playstation horror story, just them fighting me tooth and nail on refunding the digital copy of Ni No Kuni. I had enough space on the PS3 for it, but I didn't know at the time you essentially needed double the space...space to download and then space to install. I did eventually get a refund (I didn't want to upgrade the hard drive at the time), and I remember the process being clunky as hell to put in a ticket (wasn't easy to find but at least it was doable)...also they were largely unpleasant, making me feel like a nag and at times via inactivity and also like I was being interrogated (which is absurd for a digital item I hadn't even INSTALLED much less PLAYED), so it's wild to me how the usability of customer service is even WORSE.

Easily one of the worst companies to interact with short of Comcast.

The fact that it is possible for you to purchase the same thing twice is strange.

Granted, I have not interacted with the Sony storefront in sometime. Maybe there is something I am missing here.

However, on the MS side, if I click on an item in the store and I already own it, it says "You own this", or something like that. Outside of gifting, I do not think I can even purchase something twice if I tried. Sony does not do this?

@wardcleaver: The item was confusingly named so I had the item and a bundle that contained the item in my cart at the same time. The purchase was simultaneous.

@wardcleaver: While it never happened to me yet, its possible if you confuse a basic edition to a game with a deluxe, ultimate, so forth. Sometimes, especially with the PS5 interface, this can happen.

But yeah, Playstation support is the worst. The best you can do is get someone on the phone and hope for the best. Going through the online client is a joke.

@av_gamer: Yeah, anymore you have to remain hypervigilant about all of the grimy fucking deluxe-ish editions. It happened to me with something but I can't remember the specific game right now. Highly infuriating but at least with MS they are usually fairly amiable. Thankful it has never happened to me with Playstation.

I had a good experience once. I called to reset my password because I'd forgotten the year I'd used for my birthday when I signed up before I was 18. They confirmed the date was correct, but it was the wrong year. They were like "Maybe you used one of your parents' year of birth?" It wasn't either, but they were hinting at the range, so I was able to go through the online form guessing the year until I got it right.

They didn't have to help me, since I couldn't provide my own identifying information, but they were really reasonable about it and actually helped a lot.

@sethmode: I just recently had a Game Pass subscription renew at the wrong listed date, the app said it would be a week later than it actually was, and a phone call got that refund situated so fast that it hadn't had time to actually debit my account.

I can't help but feel that had a similar situation happen with PS+ I'd be talking back and forth with them for the next week.