Sony's Refund Policy

Back in June Sony did a decent sale on PSN and I came out of it with a lot of games. One of the games I have bought was Minecraft The Story Mode, at least that was what I thought I did buy. It turned out that I have bought the "Adventure Pass" and if you are too dumb like me you would mistake it for the "Season Pass". Even worse, the "Adventure Pass" turned out to be a pack of the last three episodes and to play them I need to buy all of the previous episodes individually or buy the "Season Pass" instead. I felt cheated once I found out and went to Sony demanding them to refund my 4$, which is not much as you can see.

In stead of describing what happened between me and Sony I think that it is best to copy my discussion with them in all of its glory.

Sony: I understand. I will go ahead a check some details in your account. I promise I will do my best to make the refund possible this time for you.

Me: Great!

Me: Thanks

Sony: Thank you so much for waiting, after reviewing your account details and history, I was able to find that the refund you are requesting cannot be considered since it’s outside the time frame allowed and once that happens, we are unable to process a refund.

Sony: In this case, believe me that I totally understand your position; but unfortunately, we are unable to process a refund for this content. I am very sorry for any inconveniences this may cause.

Me: I have not downloaded and I don't want it

Sony: I am so sorry for any inconveniences this may cause, I wish I could help you better. I was researching in my system what other options we have to try to help you, but I was unable to do more. Because of the restrictions outlined in the PlayStation Terms of Service, all purchases made on the PS store are final. My most sincere apologies for this.

Me: I thought that it is a season pass

Sony: I truly understand your concern, but Due to the restrictions outlined in the PlayStation Terms of Service, all sales are final upon completion. I really wish I could help you with your request, however a refund is not eligible in this case. You may find more information about our terms and conditions by checking this website, section: “WALLET”:

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/network/legal/terms-of-service/

Me: This is not right man

Me: Who would pack the last three episodes and leave the earlier ones?

Sony: Believe me that my intention is to help you as much as I can, and I do place myself in your position, unfortunately as per PlayStation Network terms of service we are unable to proceed with a refund in this case as all sales made are final. I am afraid my hands are tied in this case, I have checked what other options we have but we have exhausted them, as per policies a refund can’t be granted.

Me: I'm okay with my purchases being final but the store wasn't clear enough

Me: If you want to apply this rule then you should make sure that the costumer gets what he wants

Sony: I absolutely agree and understand your point of view *my_name* if there was any other option we can offered to you believe me we would already proceed with it, however a refund cannot be processed

Now I'm pretty sure that most of you are like me, where you at one time have found yourself trying to figure out which version of the same game you want to buy because you are not sure which of them includes what are you are looking for. And if you are like me, then I'm pretty sure that one day you will make a mistake by buying one of their offerings which includes a misleading title and when you're about to return it Sony will say nope purchases are final!

Yeah, it's best not to buy digital from them if you can help it. or just be ok with losing the money you spend

It does suck, but man even Steam has a time limit on refunds. I got Grow Up refunded when it first came out by PS support because it wouldn't load for me and I immediately contacted support when I learned it was a widespread issue.

Sony's refund policy (nonexistent)

I got Mortal Kombat X refunded by them, but that was due to a weird circumstance where the game remained locked for several days after the game was released. Oddly, I retained my license, the lock was removed and I was/still am able to play the game, but I was given my $60 back for the pre-order. If I recall, Mortal Kombat X had a lot of weird stuff going on around it at the time of release but I think that was mostly on PC. I certainly didn't expect what I got out of that.

I don't understand the point of this thread. Seems like you screwed up and wanted Sony to refund something well outside the refund window. On top of that, the description for the Adventure Pass is pretty clear. "The Adventure Pass includes access to download episodes six, seven, and eight, as they become available". Thats the very first line. Don't get me wrong, Sony's customer service has been atrocious any time I've ever used it but this seems to be all on you for not reading what you were buying.

A refund of what? A license to a game? May I remind you that what you are "buying", you are not actually buying, but merely licensing. And I assume when the product was discounted + then expecting a refund when item was no longer discounted. Maybe do your research next time, about the product, and otherwise; and for the future I suggest you avoid digital altogether. Also, crying about a $4 purchase is ridiculous.

@giant_gamer: I have been burned before too. I buy things mostly digitally on PS4 and I'll say that the way they surface things is very misleading. Especially if you are browsing the store on PS4 and not a PC. Adventure games are in particular are wacky to buy on PS4. I had a similar issue with Life is Strange when it came out but just wound up buying the first episode a minutes after I realized that the season pass did not actually include the first episode. That seems very dishonest and they ought to make more of more an effort tell you if what you are buying is dependent on other items. Steam actually does a good job with situations like this.they label their DLC with unmistakable purple marks and then actually prevent you from buying it for yourself it you don't own the game. A lot of times on PSN, things like that are buried in a single sentence deep in the description text.

I think I actually made that same mistake but ended up just buying the season pass as well and chalking it up to a learning experience regarding reading their store pages a little more thorough.

I had to get a refund after a server hiccup landed me with multiple months of Plus when I only wanted one... they did refund me, but the way they acted, you'd they were doing me this massive once-in-a-lifetime never to be repeated favor, absolutely grinding the company to a halt and getting Kaz Hirai himself out of bed to personally fix the error. I've seen some dumb refund policies, but I've never been outright guilt-tripped before. I'd say it was just the agent I was speaking to, but every time I see a Sony chat log somebody posts, it's the same "Fine, we'll do it just this once, we guess..." spiel.

This is a two-way street, and I assure you, crying about refunding $4 when you're a multi-billion dollar company is considerably more ridiculous.

I'll never understand how game companies can get away with such terrible customer service. Yet they pretty much all do.

If Amazon ever seriously enters the game platform space, they will absolutely give the console makers a very rude awakening.

Spending $4 to learn a lesson about being super careful with digital purchases is a good deal! It probably even saved you a bunch of money in the long run.

@mems1224: the point is if they want to make the policy of making purchases final, then they should make it easy for you to get what you from the PS store. Because you always find yourself going to the item description to see what that item really is.

@lkpower brought a good point by mentioning Steam. Because Steam has a clear main game page (for every game) which lists the game buying options and its DLCs and as @lkpower have mentioned, in Steam the games are green colored while the DLCs are purple.

Of course if you are only buying one game then you won't make the mistake I did but if it is a sales period and you have got a lot of games on your cart then you'll probably would.

Can't beat the internet for astonishing absences of empathy.

There are loads of examples of Sony's bad refund policy and anti-consumer practices when it comes to their digital store but this isn't one of them. You didn't read what you were buying, waited ages and then demanded a refund, I don't see a problem with them saying no

People should be able to get a refund on anything they buy and never use or "open", no matter what the reason, no questions asked. They can tell OP never downloaded it. That information is available to them. They literally lose nothing, not even the bandwidth it took to download the game, and they gain good will. I'll never understand why people who play video games are such corporate apologists.

Why people buy much of anything from the PSN Store is beyond me. The store is terrible, the customer service and policies are terrible, the security and speed are terrible, and the prices are terrible (when physical copies - which are more valuable in every way except minor convenience in some cases - ALWAYS cost way less than digital direct from Sony, at release, they clearly have some issues with their understanding of economics and their customers).

Buying digital from Sony/MS at this point is silly if you care about cost, unless it's a season pass or some other thing you can't buy another way. I literally pay ~$35 for $60 new physical games at Best Buy with their rewardzone thing and their gamer's club discount (when counting the points one earns toward store credit, the 20% discount, and the $10 pre-order store credit you usually get, especially around this time of year).

Why would someone pay $60 for a temporary license to a game, when they can pay $35 (or $45 at most) for a physical copy that isn't temporary in many cases and retains value for resale or borrowing/giving to a friend? Is not putting in the disc THAT much of an issue? I usually play one game on a console at a time, so switching discs is almost insignificant. Not only that, but it's not a bad idea at all to consider that getting up to put in a new disc instead of continuously sitting for even longer is a good idea anyway, health-wise... moving and standing here and there is so much better for you than not taking those occasional breaks!

@saispag: I have wrote my excuse.

However, Sony have just said no and without any reason. Even though the whole process is all digital and can be done through their server without any losses from their end.