It’s not fucked up at all. Doing a charge back for what you did is basically stealing. You kept the game and got your money back.
If it didn’t work and there were no refunds, then what the hell else do you do? There was stealing, but it wasn’t this guy.
I honestly can’t remember the exact situation, but I believe it was related to mistakenly buying something that was an add-on or dlc for a game I didn’t own, thinking it was a bundle with the game AND the add-on. It may even have been my fault, though it was certainly misleading.
But it was about $13 on an account that has spent literally thousands. They blocked my account and I couldn’t connect to their network with my ps4/ps5 until I bought ~$13 in PlayStation store credit and added it to my account.
Great way to treat a loyal customer. It’s almost like they know very well that they have all the power in this dynamic, and that I wasn’t going to give up thousands of dollars in games over 13 bucks.
When they get a customer locked in like that, they know they can get away with anything, and they do.
You can call it what you want, but it’s not unethical. I’m not even sure what they did would even be legal in Europe
I only kept the game, because they have no mechanism for returning it. I didn’t want the game.
You’re also ignoring the power dynamic here. The consumer has zero power in situations like this. A charge back is one of the few tools we have to try to avoid being taken advantage by corporations.
What, am I going to sue Sony Computer Entertainment, and best them in court? Or is it more likely that they’re aware that they hold all of the power in this dynamic?
Any “power dynamic” is not the point. You bought something and then tried to circumvent it to get your money back while keeping the content.
Does Sony’s refund policy suck? Yep, it does.
Is what you did essentially stealing? Also yes.
Doing chargebacks is a common scam btw. People will buy something, get the item or service, then do a charge back to get their money back, with the bank/provider doing it and then putting the burden on the retailer to prove that the person got what they paid for, which is often impossible.
Think about it like buying something on eBay, getting it, then asking ebay for your money back saying that you never received the item.
