Recently, Sony had a promotion on the Playstation Store wherein if you spent $100 or more by a certain date, you would receive $15 back in store credit. They've run this promotion previously and I don't recall there being any problems but it didn't work out that way this time around.
Life sometimes gets in the way of important things like gaming and I'm forced to admit that I'll sometimes go weeks at a time without turning on one or more of my games systems. When participating in the most recent promotion I failed to notice that it required watching for a message containing the redemption code for $15 on the consoles' messaging system. I'm not into online multi-player, so I don't have much use for the internal messaging system, nor did I think Sony would it as the sole means to tell me my redemption code was waiting and it would expire on March 31.
Now, virtually every other activity involving money or even zero sums, such as game purchases or adding funds to the PSN wallet, causes an email to be sent to my specified address. If Sony had notified me by email the redemption code was waiting and I had a looming deadline, I could have taken a few minutes to fire up the Vita or PS4 long enough to deal with it, even if I'd have to wistfully then shut it off for lack gaming time. No, in this instance Sony did not send an email and I only discovered the message with the redemption code when I turned on my vita on April 2, two days after the code had expired.
I spent a good deal of time waiting for a chat session with a PSN representative and the response I got was essentially, "You should have read the fine print, sucker. Sucks to be you." If this had been a face to face encounter with a live human I'm not sure if I would have been able to rest the urge to violence.
This is BS on Sony's part in multiple ways. First, why such a short time period, less than a month, to redeem the code before it expired? What's the rush? Second, why the dependence on the console messaging system and no email? Yet Sony has no problem sending me documentation of every transaction, no matter how minor, not to mention at least two ads every week. They have no problem sending email when there is a legal obligation or when trying to get me to buy more stuff.
I cannot help thinking this is entirely intentional on their part. Much as many companies offer rebates with maximal hassle factors to avoid paying out whenever possible, I have no doubt that some valued Sony employee structured this in hopes of screwing people out of the promised store credit. That is what really makes furious about all of this. The appearance of intent to deny payment to customers acting in good faith.
It wasn't a huge amount of money and it was spread across a considerable number of games in the then flash sale, so each game cost me an extra dollar or so more than originally calculated in light of the promotion. OTOH, I spent more than I would have otherwise because the game that put me past the $100 requirement was priced a bit higher than I'd normally go for, just to get across that line.
If this was just Sony being stupid I'd be irritated. But the feeling that this was the intended result has me feeling a need to take action. Just what I cannot say yet but something will come to me. Raising this in a public forum like CAG is a start.
Life sometimes gets in the way of important things like gaming and I'm forced to admit that I'll sometimes go weeks at a time without turning on one or more of my games systems. When participating in the most recent promotion I failed to notice that it required watching for a message containing the redemption code for $15 on the consoles' messaging system. I'm not into online multi-player, so I don't have much use for the internal messaging system, nor did I think Sony would it as the sole means to tell me my redemption code was waiting and it would expire on March 31.
Now, virtually every other activity involving money or even zero sums, such as game purchases or adding funds to the PSN wallet, causes an email to be sent to my specified address. If Sony had notified me by email the redemption code was waiting and I had a looming deadline, I could have taken a few minutes to fire up the Vita or PS4 long enough to deal with it, even if I'd have to wistfully then shut it off for lack gaming time. No, in this instance Sony did not send an email and I only discovered the message with the redemption code when I turned on my vita on April 2, two days after the code had expired.
I spent a good deal of time waiting for a chat session with a PSN representative and the response I got was essentially, "You should have read the fine print, sucker. Sucks to be you." If this had been a face to face encounter with a live human I'm not sure if I would have been able to rest the urge to violence.
This is BS on Sony's part in multiple ways. First, why such a short time period, less than a month, to redeem the code before it expired? What's the rush? Second, why the dependence on the console messaging system and no email? Yet Sony has no problem sending me documentation of every transaction, no matter how minor, not to mention at least two ads every week. They have no problem sending email when there is a legal obligation or when trying to get me to buy more stuff.
I cannot help thinking this is entirely intentional on their part. Much as many companies offer rebates with maximal hassle factors to avoid paying out whenever possible, I have no doubt that some valued Sony employee structured this in hopes of screwing people out of the promised store credit. That is what really makes furious about all of this. The appearance of intent to deny payment to customers acting in good faith.
It wasn't a huge amount of money and it was spread across a considerable number of games in the then flash sale, so each game cost me an extra dollar or so more than originally calculated in light of the promotion. OTOH, I spent more than I would have otherwise because the game that put me past the $100 requirement was priced a bit higher than I'd normally go for, just to get across that line.
If this was just Sony being stupid I'd be irritated. But the feeling that this was the intended result has me feeling a need to take action. Just what I cannot say yet but something will come to me. Raising this in a public forum like CAG is a start.
ed up, you trusted us!"