I contacted Sony Online Entertainment's customer support through e-mail at 12/21 05:54 AM after being referred to do so through their support staff by one of their representatives on the social networking site, Twitter after explaining my situation in regards to having a series of purchases I've made on their software game called Planetside 2 to be retroactively granted a certain bonus sale they had without announcement suddenly given out to all purchasing customers (minutes/hours after I have made my purchases) to have a 3x boost of in-game currency.
I asked in good faith if an exception could be made to the very slim time-line gap since I am an 6 year veteran of their games along with being a currently premium-paying player. Five days later, I received a response to my "Ticket" by a polite man named Charles who explained to me that there could be no retroactive grants because of a policy they have which can be found here:
Http://help. Station. Sony.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/31262I
I Ignored that this policy in question was for 2x "Station Cash" sales when my query was about the 3x "Station Cash" (which was also unannounced) and kindly asked for a refund instead as I referred to rights from the Swedish Distance and Doorstep Sales Act (knowing that SoE does not have a good reputation with refunds in the gaming community) since I am a lawful citizen of Sweden and Charles then told me he was unable to help me at his end because It would go against their policies so he kindly forwarded me to their Billing Manager, Lyman Tuttle whom I sent an email to at 12/27, explaining my situation and referring to the conversation I had with Charles including the ticket ID.
Over a week later, I was sent an automated response, quoting the same policy that Charles have brought up without the slightest hint of notice towards my petition for a refund.
I understand full and well from a billing perspective that my Retroactive Grant request may be out of hand but ignoring refund requests with very specific law references is just gravely unserious/illegal business practice.
The first contact support ID with Charles: #121221-000948
Second with Lyman, their billing manager: #121227-001034
After receiving the automatic answer from their billing manager's email with yet another policy quote, I decided to contact the BBB (which accredits their business) and after explaining my situation, they've contacted the business themselves in regards to my incident and I got a very quick prompt reply from yet another representative of the company whom goes by the name Matthew S. Garretson-Pugh, also exclaiming quotes from their policies at their website with no regard or notice towards the law I have repeatedly stated (nor the rights it gives me from the Distant and Doorsteps Sales Act that is designed to protect Swedish citizens from situations exactly like this one) with, and I quote: "This is not a legal matter and Mr. (My name) is not entitled to or eligible for a refund"
Shortly after, however, they yet again, very quickly replied to my response (where I clearly explained that if I'm in Sweden as a Swedish citizen and you sell a product/service to me, I got consumer laws protecting me here) saying that their End User License Agreement is "Legally binding" and that it goes above any judicial system. (Then a little something-something about them being in California with services in Europe, which apparently removes any consumer right laws outside their own region)
Minutes after that, BBB read their replied and administratively forced my complaint shut while referring me to the FTC (Sent them my story as well) and said that SoE will now be on their "Companys Reliability Report" while still having letting the business keep an A rating.
I find these kinds of business practices to be physically sickening and I would whole-heartedly prompt anyone to seek legal action against this "Company" whenever possible.
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