Ouch! Sony got hit with a fined $3.5 Million for misleading Aussie customers!

Taken from IGN: Sony Fined $3.5 Million for Misleading Australian Consumers

Sony Europe (which controls Sony's operations in Australia) has been fined $3.5 Million AUD for misleading Australian consumers over its refund policy.

The company has been ordered to pay this amount in penalties for "making false and misleading representations" regarding Australian Consumer Law rights. You can read the full release from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission here.

The court case that led to this settlement involved a series of consumers who contacted Sony over a game they deemed faulty. They were refused refunds for two reasons: the game was purchased digitally and it had been 14 days since they made the purchase. These responses from Sony do not align with Australian consumer law, so the case went to court. Another breach of ACL came as Sony told a consumer that it could not provide a refund "unless the game developer authorized it" and told another that the refund would have to be issued using digital currency only usable on the PlayStation Store.

"Consumer guarantee rights do not expire after ad digital product has been downloaded and certainly do not disappear after 14 days or any other arbitrary date claimed by a game store or developer,” reads a statement from Rod Sims, chair of the ACCC. "What Sony told these consumers was false and does not reflect the consumer guarantee rights afforded to Australian consumers."

According to the release from the ACCC, Sony Europe's terms of service implied that users "did not have consumer guarantee rights regarding the quality, functionality, completeness, accuracy or performance of their purchased digital games" between October 2017 and May 2019.

One thing I do know about Australia's policy is, never refuse the customers refund. Nintendo found out the hard way.

lol :P

Digital games on consoles has the strictest DRM yet these bastards(Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft) love to make refunds difficult.

You stole my thread, I made the original one a year ago lol.

Delete/lock mine if you want to.

That's Sony for you, for the gamers.

Good I dont care if it is Sony or MS any company that mislead consumer should pay for it.

Hopefully they also get fined for misleading people by passing off a 9.2 TFOPS console as a 10.28 one.

@davillain- said:

@i_p_daily said:

You stole my thread, I made the original one a year ago lol.

What does that meme even mean?

I posted the OG story last year when the ACCC were taking Sony to court, and I posted my thread of this a couple of minutes after you did, save the bad news stories for lems to do, we can take the piss out of Sony/cows better than you lol.

Coffee out the nose, thank you very little.

lololol :P

yeah i should get a refund on my pro because days gone crashed it. but i hardly doubt if i call sony and tell them that they would care. this was my first digital copy of a game and i had bad luck with it.

this is why i like disc better.

Indeed. Refunds have become a norm in PC gaming and it's about time it does too on consoles.

3.5 is chump change. That’s not even a slap on the wrist.

LOL shots fired.

Have you seen the latest patent? if true i'm not surprised they haven't shown the console yet.

Nah, they didn't outright lied/misled with that. They are just not revealing the base numbers. On the other hand 'Dynamic 4K gaming and entertainment' and 'True 4K' are a much bigger lies. There wasn't even a disclaimer or fine print about those.

@goldenelementxl: they prob made more by refusing refunds

Damn, that things going to sound like a vacuum everytime it starts to heat up.

Seriously, how difficult is it to refund people's money. Doesn't make sense.

PlayStation's return policy is less than stellar and, at the end of the day, they need to respect local laws.

---

But, I do wonder what would qualify "a major fault" for a digital game?

I stopped buying playstations when they told me after I was hacked and stolen from (on my ps3) that my refund was a ‘one time thing’. I have never shared my account info or given out my password - I barely even played the thing. They tried to say I did and that I should be more careful and my refund was a ‘good will gesture’. Excuse me? I did some googling and discovered others who were randomly hacked in a similar manner and sony said the same thing to them. So if we’re hacked again we’re shit out of luck?

Eff that noise. If sony is that stubborn and can’t even admit their security sucks that’s one thing, but to try and blame their CUSTOMERS for their issues takes it too far for me. I don’t care if their security has increased - I was insulted.

Shame they weren’t sued for more.

This thread shall go down in history as the @daredevils2k triggering thread!

@daredevils2k where are you?

That's it PS5 pre-order cancelled!

Should be more.

@Juub1990:

So where are the proof that the machine is 9.2TF been passed as 10.28 one?

Please don't deflect post a link from DF or Sony or credible source that state the PS5 is 9.2TF and been passed as 10.28 TF.

@i_p_daily:

That patent if for Dev kits which can be usually stacked,not for the console you are a fool if you believe the PS5 will have six fans.😂

@tormentos: It’s a joke. Everyone got it except for you.

I thought you were baiting him. 😁

Damn,the cows who put sales and Sony’s profit before power,games and features will be distraught

HAH

That's what I also thought hence that "10.28" gave it away😂🤣

this is for the players

After Sony faked review scores for lou2, the lack of ps5 info, multiple delayed games and tumbling profits...now this.

Ouch.

Help us PS5. Your our only hope.

I went all digital at the start of this gen and I never experience faulty digital game before...but at the same time, I do a lot of gaming research before I put money on pre-ordering digital.

@sealionact: ‘After Sony faked review scores for lou2’

Where’s this story?

The reviewers already have an embargo for the 12th and reviewers are currently playing TLOU2 now as we speak. What sealionact is referring to are the 5 stars rating reviews on PSN. It's also the same for Cyberpunk 2077 but then again, those 5 stars are based on pre-orders in the matter of speaking.

@davillain-: I’ve heard about this. Sony allows you to rate a title you haven’t played yet as a bizarre preorder perk from their store.

Metacritic does it too. They’ve even removed low scores from Death Stranding. Wonder who asked them to do that? A certain advertiser perhaps?

Sony also coming in strong with the double-standards...lol.

@dagubot said:

Sony also coming in strong with the double-standards...lol.

Anyone who believes these faceless mega corporations care about anything other than their bottom line is a fool. They don't give two sh*s about any of the social issues.

The CSR department in majority of the company comes under the CMO and their budget from the marketing budget.

Well, I know from stories if your PSN account gets hacked and your credit card on file is used to buy stuff like say a couple thousand dollars in microtransactions, Sony won't reverse charges, will only give back PSN credit, meaning user is still in dept at interest, and having credit card company reverse charges means Sony will wipe account clear, user loses rights to digitally owned games, trophies. Considering they won't even let victims of fraud have their money back, I doubt they'd give users refunds if they didn't have to.

@Juub1990:

Sure you were.😂😂

Why wouldn't I when the joke was very obvious? You're the only idiot who didn't get it.

Everyone got it except him...lmao.

@davillain-: 14 days after your purchase for a refund doesn't seem unfair, how long does Australia allow for refunds? So I could buy a game, beat it after a few weeks and ask for a refund? I've got to be missing something here.

3.5 million didn't deserve a thread. Lems scared as usual. Is a RTX 2080 Super a good card?

That is the reason why the system has only 9.2tflops. All their budget went into Aussie customers.

If the game doesn't work correctly (game freezes, corrupting saves, etc) then you're entitled to a refund. Also Steam got the same fine so there are games on Steam that don't work properly as there is on EVERY platform, so to say its never happened shows you don't understand what a fault is.

@Juub1990:

Seriously considering your posting history? No you were,and you were one of those talking shit about the variable clocks.😊

And I also shat on the "gameplay" vids of the XSX' presentation. You should know by now I'll talk shit about anything that's easy to target.

I'd up-sticks and move to Australia if it weren't for that wildlife. They don't seem to take shit lol.