[Mackdanny]

Hello Community, I have a nice little story to tell you all, and after that, if it offends you that I MANAGED to win a war with sony while other people like graf and such have yet to win their war (dont meantion EGOhot, GTFO with that dude) then I dont blame you. But you see, this is a story of how the little guy was able to stick it to the big guy.


A few weeks ago back in early May, I noticed my Assassin's Creed 2 digital version was due to expire. The weird thing is it was due to expire June 7th, 2012 at 4AM, exactly one year from June 8th 2012 4AM, the day I had bought it. I had obtained this for a nice asking price of $9.99 from the PSN store as part of the "Summer PSN sale 2011" (Note: 2012's version of the Summer PSN Store begins this coming Tuesday.) With that said, it should be clear that this sale is not bound by PSN+ terms, it was completely PSNwide. Being that I thought it was a good game, I went for it. Hey, a copy of Assassin's Creed 2 Deluxe Edition (which is basically the PC version) on PSN for $10? Hell yeah!!!

Now, since I had noticed that the game had an expiration date, naturally I called Sony, err, SCEA to be exact. I told them the game had an expiration date, yadda yadda, and the rep told me it may be a DRM measure by the publisher (i.e Ubisoft) to see if the system with the content was the originator or not (aka was I in possession of a gameshared digital game?) and that If when it expired, it should do a "checK" and then load if it worked. i've never heard of such a measure but thought nothing of it. My PSN+ was set to expire before it anyway and I had no money due to being unemployed at thet time to do anything about it. Finally the big day came.

When the 8th rolled by, I tried to run the game, and to no avail, but i figured it had to do with me not having internet. So I waited till my first paycheck since I had just gotten a job. Once my internet was back on, I tried again, but once again to no avail. It was time to call Sony. I had told them that the game had stopped working, that it mysteriously disapeared from my download list, AND the store had no visual indicator that I had purchased it.... HOWEVER, it did note that I had the DLC items still. While trying to get to the bottom of this, Sony decided to ask me questions because they wee stumped. Among some of them was "did you buy the game on your primary account or from another account you have on your unit?" I thought it was a rather stupid question, I mean I DID say I bought it. After much deliberation the best the rep could do for me was issue me a refund for $9.99.

Well, thats fine and all, IF the game still was $9.99, instead of $19.99. Furthermore, what good would repurchasing it do if I already had the DLC, because by buying it, I'd be getting the DLC again. I tried to fight getting the refund, for those reasons, but it had become perfectly clear that the reps were of limited means. About 3 days into it I had gotten a refund denial email, which I anticipated, so I tried again and explained the situation, trying to use the denial as leverage. Again I tried fighting the refund this rep tried throwing at me, hell it denied once already.


So after the usual Spiel of "3-7 business days for a refund" I got denial WITHIN 24 hours. Did these jackoffs even read the reasoning or what? I knew then it was time to stop playing around. I escalated to a supervisor on my next call thru. The supervisor knew what he was talking about, he didnt say it was my OR Ubisoft's fault, he knew the reps could never have the means to handle this request; finally I had gotten to the right person. So I had to speak to someone of a different tier, a network specialist, and this man was my only gateway to him. However being the weekend the guy had been out for the weekend. I was to get a call within two days.

Nothing! No CALL.... So naturally I called again to escalate. Rep tried to throw that refund at me again, and said if the supervisor/Network guy got back to me within reasonable time, he could intercept my request for a refund (what request? she put it through without my consent) and resolve the issue for sure. This refund request had a higher chance of going through due to the scripting, and the fact that the refund department would actually read it thoroughly and investigate since its basically the third time in a little while I've called about the issue. Hell one rep even had to ask me for my transaction number, AND I PULLED IT UP. This refund wuld credit me $9.99 and take away the DLC items. Since the supervisor/network guy never called back the request beat him to the punch and I had $9.99 sitting in my wallet and the DLC items deactivated from my download list. Great, just great. I wasnt gonna shell out another $10 for a game I had technically purchased already, So with one final call, the gloves had come off. I had asked them, for a supervisor and said "look pal, nothing against you but you cant help me, its not in your job description to help me ith this issue, I have already come to terms on that, just get me a supervisor." Within minutes a supervisor had come on and I advised him to read my notes and said, "look man, I dont care what your TOS says, you guys cant keep me running around in circles, and this issue must be resolved." So finally he had told me a network guy was in. I had gotten on the phone with the network guy, my target was in range.

So I had asked him to read my notes and asked him "please, take your $9.99 back and just reactivate my game, and return the DLC that came with it." He advised me that its not something he could do..... BUT.... what he could do works just as well. Since the items were still on my unit, just with no license, he would give me the extra $10 since there was really no other way, and it was the least they could do. So there I was, with a $19.99 credit on my PSN, and i purchased the game once again, and everything finally started working again. the DLC, the game, all of it. It was over, all over. The man noted that it had nothing to do with PSN+, nothing on my side, nothing on Ubisoft's side, which means that DRM theory was BS (which my friend had the game too, he had no expiration date, it was just me affected, assuming anyway.) The man, on behalf of SCEA admitted that they had wronged me, and there I was, on my way. After all that he was able to also, restore a South Park episode I had lost due to hardware issues on my video download list, something I thought wouldnt happen. He also put my Mortal Kombat movie back on my download list, since I told him it may be impossible to back it up since it was impossible to copy files over 4GB to a FAT32 drive; I'm planning on upgrading my drive to a 1TB. This guy, had worked with me throughout everything. There was one more order of business, I needed this guy's direct line, because aint no way in hell I'm going through all these headaches again should something happen.


So thats my story, the story of how the little guy was able to stick it to the big guy. Strangely, I dont blame them, call it relief or insanity, but i don't. I'm just glad I got my game working, but they should really be more careful with their network issues, this isnt something that looks good at all.

STAFF: you may front page if you'd like, wasn't what I was going for but, if you must, it's ok.

[mcmrc1]

nice story.. in such big company one hand dont know.what the other hand is doing...but this has nothing to do with the jailbreaking fight other devs are on

[Firebuble]

that is a bureaucratic problem, not a legal problem, its not the same

[GregoryRasputin]

Originally Posted by Mackdanny STAFF: you may front page if you'd like, wasn't what I was going for but, if you must, it's ok.

ummmmm

[Mackdanny]

Originally Posted by GregoryRasputin ummmmm

o.o you mean I had the ability ALL this time? I thought I needed to be a supermod like you and hellsing9

[carldenning]

Originally Posted by Mackdanny o.o you mean I had the ability ALL this time? I thought I needed to be a supermod like you and hellsing9

think he on about the staff bit on your post . as u are a staff too , suppose u could of pm gr and asked him instead of asking staff in the post lol

[hellooldchap42]

Do you think the same thing would work with the FREE games they gave us when PSN shut down for two months? Cause one or two of my games have that too.

[jennys]

@Mackdanny

Due to outsourcing support and a general lack of understanding how products work you're generally left with some dude across the world reading how to answer you from a script and are bound to such scripts. Support can be horrible and it's policy to try to give the customer a run-around when it comes to refunds and replacements. The digital distribution models (which in their own right suck balls, but that's another entire post) is also different then physical goods and if poorly implemented can lead to a headache on both sides of the phone.I'm not saying that's exactly what happened in your case, but it can be applied to most tech/billing calls.

I go through doodoo like you explained all of the time and sadly have grown accustomed to the entire process no matter who you contact.

Logitech is by far the best company I've ever worked with regarding returns and Kodak is so-so. Sony, Sharp and Samsung are horrid.

[Annelies]

Originally Posted by GregoryRasputin ummmmm

My cover is blown.