'I woke up to $500 in charges on my credit card': PlayStation bans gamer for getting scammed, he makes parent company fly him to California

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Ally Perry • Writer and Editor
Apr 23, 2024 12:00 PM EDT

If we were to ask gamers about how they would describe many gaming companies, 'good customer service' would not always be at the top of the list. One of the downsides of having video games as an interest is that the relationship between distributor and consumer is not always the most friendly, and many gamers have faced some unfortunate consequences because of this.

This is what happened to a disgruntled Redditor a few years back, after his PlayStation account got hacked and somebody racked up a $500 making purchases on it. When he turned to customer support for help, they tried to argue he had made the purchases himself—then banned his account when he attempted a chargeback.

It just so happened that this savvy customer was also a developer, and so he decided to apply for a job at the company in California where he had a conference so they would cover his flight costs. It's fair to say he got his money back, and then some.

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  • 01
    L "They ended up offering me a job"
    via JESHOOTS.COM
  • 02
    r/pettyrevenge u/PaulTR88.1d PlayStation banned my account after someone fraudulently spent ~$500 from my credit card, so I got Sony to fly me to California
    via PaulTR88
  • 03
    So this all took place a little over 5 years ago. I had a PlayStation account and a PS4, but I didn't have 2FA set up (whoops). Anywho, one morning I woke up to $500 in charges to the PlayStation Network on my credit card for that account. I ended up contacting PlayStation Support to explain the situation, and they proceeded to try and gaslight me by saying that I must have legitimately purchased what was a slew of PS3 games (I never owned a PS3), and that I must have shared my password with who
    via PaulTR88
  • 04
    As for a bit of background on me, I'm a software developer in the middle of the US, and 5 years ago the market was ridiculous. I had plans to go to a conference in California a couple months after all of this and was going to buy my own plane ticket, so I had the idea of applying to a job with Sony in their San Jose tech office so I could get them to fly me out for my conference on their dime. Long story short there, I heard back from a recruiter, the phone screen went well, and I was flown to m
    via PaulTR88
  • 05
    bigbysemotivefinger 1d That they did all that and then just the cherry on top. low-balled you is
    via bigbysemotivefinger
  • 06
    indyK1ng 1d Game industry pay is notoriously low - there's enough people who think making games is a dream job every year that they don't have to pay as much.
    via indyK1ng
  • 07
    Paul TR88 OP. 1d It was actually for something with Android device cameras, but they mentioned the low pay multiple times during the interview and how Sony basically treated non-Japan offices as second class citizens. It was all around kind of weird. If I remember correctly, there were some articles a few months later about Sony increasing US salaries to be competitive in the US tech market.
    via PaulTR88
  • 08
    il_soup 1d One of my accounts had gotten fraudulently charged $200 and when I realized it I couldn't get ahold of the PlayStation support yet because it was hours before they opened so I got in touch with bank first and got the money back, I had to get ahold of support still for a few other things with the account and they told me they'd issue a refund I told them "no need my banks done it" and they said "oh no we'll do it and then you call them and give them this code and they'll reverse theirs
    via il_soup
  • 09
    THE_DUDE0903 1d Haha, my father pulled something off similar, he lives in a different city since he got transferred, he visits monthly but air tickets have recently gotten expensive our country, so he mostly schedules an interview and flies here, his job's high paying like yours, so even if the interviews go well he has a very legible reason to decline. Works out well for us, we save close to to 300-400 dollars a month :D.
    via THE_DUDE0903
  • 10
    Europalox 1d Yeah, sony is a sucker for not issuing refunds. They removed Cyberpunk from their store after it's launch not because it was a crashing mess of a game on PS4 and PS4 pro but because CDPR decided to offer a no questions asked refund and sony got |
    via Europalox
  • 11
    Verydumbname69 1d How'd they manage to schedule the interview so conveniently in time for your conference?
    via Verydumbname69
  • 12
    wellsfargothrowaway 1d I mean, for an in person interview cross country they generally ask for your schedule. 51 PaulTR88 OP ⚫ 1d Enough time in advance and I had mentioned that I was planning to be there for the conference, so wanted to combine the trips. Conference was Wednesday+Thursday, so went in for a Friday interview since on-sites are just one day.
    via wellsfargothrowaway
  • 13
    lazykratos 1d Sony did this to me too 7 years ago, looks like they haven't changed. I was on a trip to Germany and my PlayStation account got hacked and some hacker purchased like 4 games on my credit card. I call up Sony and they accuse me of lying to them even though the IP addresses are clearly different and I had proof I wasn't even in the country at the time. They then proceed to file paperwork to my credit card company which literally proved nothing except that somebody has made these purc
    via lazykratos
  • 14
    Crkhd3 23h Good on you they deserve it. Last year I bought a PS5 digital edition from PS Direct and it ended up being faulty and broke in a little less than 2 months. They voided their manufacturer warranty by saying I tampered with it which is/was total My petty revenge was to keep sending it back and forth to their Texas center from California for a couple months in an effort to waste just a little bit of their companies money on all the shipping costs by sending me empty boxes and me sending
    via Crkhd3
  • 15
    CrazyShinobi 1d ... So some of you are way too young to remember this. But the PlayStation Network got hacked, thousands of people had charges on their accounts and Sony's response? If you dispute the charges we will ban your account and you will lose access to everything you bought. Granted they quickly went back on this, but yeah, Sony, and M$, and well everyone.
    via CrazyShinobi
  • 16
    DnWeava 1d Stories like this, plus having my own Xbox account hacked in the past is why I only buy physical games. I don't trust any company to protect my digital accounts.
    via DnWeava
  • 17
    Toblogan 1d Yeah well they did the same to me. Except my account had over $2000 worth of games and add-ons. I purchased just about all my stuff from the PlayStation store. My nephew charged $350 on my debit card and of course I cancelled it. But now I've been locked out for about 4 years now until I pay them $350. I haven't touched my PlayStation since. They can go rocks...
    via Toblogan
  • 18
    Zercomnexus 1d I actually had the SAME experience in many ways. 70$ cost on my account, changed pw, account name and page now in another language, changed security question to what was my middle school in Russian!!... So I charged it back. They disabled my account that had been active for like... Ten years. Oh, and NONE of this sent me an email to show that changes were made to my account btw. Great security sony. Called in, first two times they cant do anything about it unless I pay the charge
    via Zercomnexus
  • 19
    Starkiller_303 22h I was really hoping this story ended with: "They offered me the job and I looked at them with steel in my eyes and said, 'I won't work with anyone who doesn't have a sense of Morality in business', then left a copy of my unresolved customer ticket on the table and walked out."
    via Starkiller_303
  • 20
    FredPolitics 1d Fraud claims wildly favor the merchant because of how federal legislation works. If it was an account takeover like you described, they probably came out ahead and your bank lost the money.
    via FredPolitics

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Tags

gamer developers credit card revenge california reddit story petty revenge banned scam Reddit job interview money
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