Sony Bricked my system, then banned my PSN, and I lost access to all my digital games

l88bastard

l88bastard

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So I posted before about how my PS4 worked perfectly until a recent mandatory PSN update bricked it and Sony said it was out of the 1 year warranty so it would cost $149 to repair.

So I mulled my options for two weeks, deciding what I wanted to do. A week into that I got an automatic renewal charge for PSN on my paypal account. I have no idea how or why my paypal account was used for the automatic renewal, but I declined the payment and had the charges reversed because (1) I did not authorize that (2) my PS4 was broken and I had not used PS+ in over a week (3) I did not intend to renew PS+ as the experience of the bricked PS4 and poor Sony customer service soured me.

However, I do have about $500 worth of digital games that I paid for and own for the PS4 and I do enjoy playing their single player campaigns....so today I went and picked up a brand new PS4 from gamestop because they offered me $200 trade in for my bricked PS4.

So I bring the new PS4 home, hook it up and then go to sign into my PSN account and it would not sign in. I tried password recovery and that did not work....so I went to chat support and they told me my PSN account was BANNED for declining the renewal charges for PS+.

I told them I no longer wanted PS+ and choose not to renew it. However, I did want access to play the digital copies of games that I rightfully own and they told me NO. They said I can not have access to my digital library unless I pay them $49.99 to renew PS+

I asked to speak with a supervisor and they told me the same...so all my digital copies of GTA V, Drakes Remastered, NHL16, etc, etc, etc, etc are all not accessible to me until I pay $49.99 for PS+! I find this business practice from Sony to be unethical and a very disgusting Strong Arm tactic. Its one thing to take away PS+ freebee games, but to deny me access to MY LIBRARY THAT I PAID FOR!!! WOW!

I am completely disgusted....so I boxed the brand new $429 Limited Edition COD BLOPS III PS4 that I just bought back up and returned it to gamestop.

I have an XBONE and am not sure if MS does this type of stuff the same way these days, but back in the red ring days I remember MS treating me very, very well. So I am done with Sony and PS4....they can choke on all the digital copies of my games that I can no longer play even though I own. When there is a class action lawsuit I will be the first to sign up.....

Sooo pissed off right now!
 
Sony will use whatever payment method you have attached at the time for automatic renewal. So that means you must have had your Paypal account set up as a payment method on your Sony account. A lot of companies will automatically ban your account for doing a charge back, including MS. What you should have done is tried to call Sony and explain your situation. If you mentioned a charge back during that call the rep would tell you that doing so would mean your account would be banned. I know your previous experience with Sony support pissed you off (rightly so) but you really should have called them first. What they did is perfectly legal and within their rights(for some reason).
 
Hate to say this but your screwed you didn't buy those games you bought a license for that game that they can revoke if they want to for any reason including not having a valid account
 
isn't PS+ totally optional?...why is that a requirement to get back your account?...I used PS+ for around 8 weeks with the free trial but never renewed it
 
polonyc2 said:
isn't PS+ totally optional?...why is that a requirement to get back your account?...I used PS+ for around 8 weeks with the free trial but never renewed it
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Because of the charge back he did. Sony wants the money he charged back before they'll give him his account back.
 
Right from the psn terms of service that no one reads

All intellectual property rights subsisting in PSN First Party Services, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with PSN First Party Services, the Online ID and access to content and hardware used in connection with PSN First Party Services (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SNEI and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this Agreement's terms,...

Upon termination of this Agreement, Your Account, or license to any Property, You will immediately cease use of the Property and delete or destroy copies of the Property.

Your chargeback terminated the account
 
Derangel said:
Because of the charge back he did. Sony wants the money he charged back before they'll give him his account back.
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if Sony has documentation that he called in regarding his bricked PS4 they should give him a break...it's not like he was taking advantage of the chargeback and logging in and playing any games
 
polonyc2 said:
if Sony has documentation that he called in regarding his bricked PS4 they should give him a break...it's not like he was taking advantage of the chargeback and logging in and playing any games
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EXACTLY THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Romale23 said:
Right from the psn terms of service that no one reads

All intellectual property rights subsisting in PSN First Party Services, including all software, data, and content subsisting in or used in connection with PSN First Party Services, the Online ID and access to content and hardware used in connection with PSN First Party Services (collectively defined as "Property"), belong to SNEI and its licensors. This license and all use or access to Property is expressly conditioned on your compliance with this Agreement's terms,...

Upon termination of this Agreement, Your Account, or license to any Property, You will immediately cease use of the Property and delete or destroy copies of the Property.

Your chargeback terminated the account
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There is a right way and a wrong way to treat your customers. They have on record that my PS4 was bricked and my account was not accessed at all prior to the end of the PSN renewal period. They choose to not care.....so I in turn choose to return the brand new $429 PS4 I just bought and will take my business elsewhere. The cold copy of dying light laying on my nightstand and future prospect of Uncharted 4 mean nothing to me now. In the long run Sony will loose thousands from me and millions + from others in my same situation and I will do my best to help educate consumers on how much of a shit bag company they have become.

What kills me is PSN used to be free back in the PS3 days.....then they made PS+ a premium optional fee service and NOW they use that service to banhammer the living shit out of their longtime customers. I do not appreciate being called a deadbeat and denied access to my property, especially when it went down the way it did here.
 
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I get you being mad over this. But you returned your console, and gave away all the money you spent on the digital games. What you should have done was pay the $50 to get access to said games back, and not renewed after that. That's what I would of done. Because now you're just going to more than likely buy those same games again.
 
scojer said:
I get you being mad over this. But you returned your console, and gave away all the money you spent on the digital games. What you should have done was pay the $50 to get access to said games back, and not renewed after that. That's what I would of done. Because now you're just going to more than likely buy those same games again.
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Its not about a lowly $50 my man. Its the principal of the situation. You break my property with a bad software update, then charge me for a service that I cannot use and then ban me for refusing that charge which then denies me access to my property.

They can fine print TOS me all they want...but as far as I am concerned Sony can TOS MY SALAD.

CAVEAT EMPTOR EL SONY DIABLO
 
You got banned for doing a chargeback for a mistake that you made. Chargebacks are for unauthorized charges, not for people to use when they fuck up. You could have disabled auto renew and when you signed up for PSN it told you it was recurring. You could have turned off the auto renew from the website if you didn't have your console. You could have sucked up the charge like and adult as a $50 oops. Had you disabled auto renew your non PSN+ content would still be available, I've done this. But doing a chargeback is like calling your wife a bitch, then banging her sister and showing you wife a film of the money shot. You terminated the relationship.

Getting banned for chargebacks is fairly common among digital services, they don't want or need to support people that do stupid things.
 
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The principal of the situation I get. Throwing away "$500" worth of digital content, I do not get.
 
scojer said:
The principal of the situation I get. Throwing away "$500" worth of digital content, I do not get.
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"thrown away," yet only accessible by a working console (which he no longer owns).

I sold my 3DS a while ago, and there are about ~$150 of games on my Nintendo account. By some metrics, that $150 was tossed in the garbage.
 
jeremyshaw said:
"thrown away," yet only accessible by a working console (which he no longer owns).

I sold my 3DS a while ago, and there are about ~$150 of games on my Nintendo account. By some metrics, that $150 was tossed in the garbage.
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Little different here due to PSN games being tied to an account, not the hardware. Nintendo games belong to the hardware.
 
Ocellaris said:
You got banned for doing a chargeback for a mistake that you made. Chargebacks are for unauthorized charges, not for people to use when they fuck up. You could have disabled auto renew and when you signed up for PSN it told you it was recurring. You could have turned off the auto renew from the website if you didn't have your console. You could have sucked up the charge like and adult as a $50 oops. Had you disabled auto renew your non PSN+ content would still be available, I've done this. But doing a chargeback is like calling your wife a bitch, then banging her sister and showing you wife a film of the money shot. You terminated the relationship.

Getting banned for chargebacks is fairly common among digital services, they don't want or need to support people that do stupid things.
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My wifes sister is not hot at all so I totally would not fuck her.......I mean the offer was there....her sister did show me her tits one time at the table during the middle thanksgiving in front of EVERYONE....but it was less impressive than dry turkey.

I have been a member of PSN since its inception and as far as the membership for PS+ I never entered my paypal as a payment method for that....I did use paypal to pay for some games like months ago, but never for PSN+

Plus I FAIL to see your point. How exactly does PS+ tie into the digital property which I own? I actually owned much of my digital property even before PS+ was a thing if you wanna go back and factor in all my PS3 titles.....none of which I can access now. Block me for PS+ service fine...but block me from my actual paid in full property is a no no....I am gonna take them to court.
 
Your access to those PSN is ties to an account. That account got banned, so you can't sign in to get the games...

Also on PSN you update your payment method and it applies to everything. So it automatically charges your new payment method
 
Dude you must have set the auto payment. I would have eaten up the 50 since it would have been my fault. Same thing happened to me on PSN this year. So I just cancelled the auto renewal for next year.
 
Ocellaris said:
Your access to those PSN is ties to an account. That account got banned, so you can't sign in to get the games...

Also on PSN you update your payment method and it applies to everything. So it automatically charges your new payment method
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I get all that, however, sonys CSR service should be able to have a brain and make logical decisions fair to the consumer and sony. But that is not the case...in my experiences Sony's new stance with customer service is FUCK YOU.....and thats just not right.

Bottom line is, I should be able to play my digital games regardless of my account standings with PS+ I mean if I had the physical copies of the games I could enjoy their single player experiences, so why can't I play my digital games? I can play my steam and origin games all day long to my hearts content, on a million different PCs if I so choose...but my digital playstation games are being held ransom, over a service that I do not want, do not need and DID NOT USE. I told their CSR on our last convo about the console to cancel all of my PS+ shit....but they didn't do that....instead they billed my ass a week later for it.
 
l88bastard said:
I get all that, however, sonys CSR service should be able to have a brain and make logical decisions fair to the consumer and sony. But that is not the case...in my experiences Sony's new stance with customer service is FUCK YOU.....and thats just not right.

Bottom line is, I should be able to play my digital games regardless of my account standings with PS+ I mean if I had the physical copies of the games I could enjoy their single player experiences, so why can't I play my digital games? I can play my steam and origin games all day long to my hearts content, on a million different PCs if I so choose...but my digital playstation games are being held ransom, over a service that I do not want, do not need and DID NOT USE. I told their CSR on our last convo about the console to cancel all of my PS+ shit....but they didn't do that....instead they billed my ass a week later for it.
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Let's not blame CSRs for what is likely not their fault. The original CSR not canceling PS+ is their fault, but the stuff your account being banned is probably Sony policy. If that is the stated policy they'd risk losing their jobs unbanning your account without you paying.
 
Derangel said:
Let's not blame CSRs for what is likely not their fault. The original CSR not canceling PS+ is their fault, but the stuff your account being banned is probably Sony policy. If that is the stated policy they'd risk losing their jobs unbanning your account without you paying.
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I don't blame the CSRs...sony has given them absolutely ZERO leeway to do anything to make things right for the consumer. There is literally nothing the CSRs or supervisors can do for anything. They are tasked with frustrating and stonewalling and that is it.
 
polonyc2 said:
isn't PS+ totally optional?...why is that a requirement to get back your account?...I used PS+ for around 8 weeks with the free trial but never renewed it
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If you buy online content while having a ps+ subscription you get discounts. From sony's side it seems he tried to play the system with the charge back. Even if he did not they automatically assume that. So much for innocent until proven guilty.
 
M76 said:
If you buy online content while having a ps+ subscription you get discounts. From sony's side it seems he tried to play the system with the charge back. Even if he did not they automatically assume that. So much for innocent until proven guilty.
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All my digital games were games I paid FULL price for. Games like GTAV, NHL16, Drakes Remastered....I never even used any of their free games or PS+ promotions.


I did not try to "play" their system.

My PS4 was perfect, then I had to do a mandatory update so I could play NHL online. The update bricked my PS4. Sony CSRs were useless and their supervisors were even more useless, they refuse to help you escalate any further than their level and its obvious they are tasked to frustruate and stonewall the consumer into giving up. PSN broke my PS4 with a firmware update, then SONY refused to do anything except demand $149 repair fees...then a week later I see a $50 charge in my paypal account from Sony...it did not even say what it was for.....just bam $49.99 sony.....so I declined that BS....yes sir, for all I knew they leaked my financial info AGAIN and somebody was trying to graft from me....AGAIN.....so yes I made damn sure that was declined.

So today I bought a brand new replacement PS4 with the intention to play my digital library of PAID games (NOT FREE PS+ GAMES) in single player mode offline, but I could not recover my account and when I contacted CSR they informed me that my account was banned until I pay the renewal fee for PS+. Well I DO NOT WANT PS+ and my system broke before my subscription was up, which is documented...so there was no playing their system. My PS4 was long broken before my PS+ subscription expired a week later. Getting auto billed a PS+ renewal fee after having Sony Brick my PS4 was the final slap in the face!

I am not complaining about the "free games." I am complaining about MY DIGITAL LIBRARY of NON-Free games that I bought. Games like GTA V, NHL16, Drakes Remastered....hell even the OLD remastered PS1 resident evil games are OFF limits to me. Its not about the $50 its about the principle of being forced to renew a service that I do not want, so that I can have access to property that I rightfully own and have already paid for...that is not right....thats just not right.

And for the record, I do not recall agreeing to automatic renewal but I assume they most likely slimily included the automatic renewal into some bs fine print TOS wall of text.
 
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Im trying to figure out why you spent $400+ on a new system vs getting the old one fixed for $150, that's really showing Sony there. And ya they banned you for fraudulently doing a charge back...

Ya the situation sucks, and Im sure in the long run Sony will be held for that fuck up with the updates and a year of PSN + is paid off with everything it includes.
 
Renswic said:
Im trying to figure out why you spent $400+ on a new system vs getting the old one fixed for $150, that's really showing Sony there. And ya they banned you for fraudulently doing a charge back...

Ya the situation sucks, and Im sure in the long run Sony will be held for that fuck up with the updates and a year of PSN + is paid off with everything it includes.
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Pay sony $150 to repair PS4 and get back somebodies refurb crap or trade in broken PS4 to Gamestop for $200 (if it wasn't broken they would have given me $250).

New PS4 = $350 -$200 trade in = $150 for brand new system. Hmm same price basically for a brand new system that you can have now....or you can wait 1-2 weeks for sony to send you somebodys refurbished PS4 back. I just so happened to step it up a notch and go for the BLOPSIII collectors edition which made it $429 instead of $350.

Fraud? Lmao. My PS4 was bricked by Sony and they told me to piss off, literally. Then a week later my PS+ subscription expired and SONY FUCKING CHARGED ME TO RENEW IT. Why the would I need or want to renew PS+ if my system is broken? I had no system to use that service for the last week of my subscription and ZERO use of PS+ after they bricked my system. The Fraud is Sony bricking my PS4 and then trying to charge me a fee to "fix it."
 
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l88bastard said:
Fraud? Lmao. My PS4 was bricked by Sony and they told me to piss off, literally. Then a week later my PS+ subscription expired and SONY FUCKING CHARGED ME TO RENEW IT. Why the would I need or want to renew PS+ if my system is broken? I had no system to use that service for the last week of my subscription and ZERO use of PS+ after they bricked my system. The Fraud is Sony bricking my PS4 and then trying to charge me a fee to "fix it."
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You signed up for a service, it renews wether your PS4 works or not, since you could use the service on other systems. And you bought another PS4 so the service would have been there for you had you not done a chargeback because if your own baby rage.

Also based on the other thread your PS4 was likely recoverable with another hard drive. Or just formatting the drive that was in there on a PC and then putting it back in the PS4.
 
l88bastard said:
And for the record, I do not recall agreeing to automatic renewal but I assume they most likely slimily included the automatic renewal into some bs fine print TOS wall of text.
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This is what was on the first screen when you signed up, it wasn't buried and Helen Keller could have figured it out:

"You will receive this PlayStation®Plus membership for 12 months. Unless you cancel your membership at least one day prior to the renewal date, this membership will automatically convert to a 12-month membership, and $49.99 will be automatically be deducted from your network wallet according to the Sony Entertainment Network (SEN) Terms of Service and User Agreement. See http://www.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/tosua. After conversion, your membership will automatically renew every 12 months for $49.99 until you cancel it. You may cancel your membership via the SEN account management tools, by contacting customer support at 877-971-7669 or through www.us.playstation.com. If you purchase this product, the auto top up setting in your SEN account will be turned “ON” to fund all SEN purchases using the credit card associated with your SEN account, if applicable.
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Ocellaris said:
This is what was on the first screen when you signed up, it wasn't buried and Helen Keller could have figured it out:
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For the last time...I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR AUTO RENEWAL

I had always renewed my PS+ subscription by buying the cards and putting in the codes. When my system died and Sonys CSR told me they would not do anything. I told them to CANCEL MY PS+ membership.

I never signed up for auto renewal, and if I did it had to have been a checkbox, prre-checked in the middle of a jumble TOS wall of text....and they just billed the last account that I used to purchase something on store.

Sony is shady as fuck.

IcedEmotion said:
You sound like a difficult person to deal with.
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No I just don't like getting screwed over by a company that breaks my property and then prevents me from accessing my other property.

polonyc2 said:
GameStop accepts broken PS4's for trade-ins??
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Yes, they offered me $200 as a trade in...if it was not bricked they would have given me $250. So obviously Sony only charges Gamestop $50 to refurb PS4s, while the consumer gets screwed over for $149.99
 
l88bastard said:
For the last time...I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR AUTO RENEWAL

I had always renewed my PS+ subscription by buying the cards and putting in the codes. When my system died and Sonys CSR told me they would not do anything. I told them to CANCEL MY PS+ membership.

I never signed up for auto renewal, and if I did it had to have been a checkbox, prre-checked in the middle of a jumble TOS wall of text....and they just billed the last account that I used to purchase something on store.

Sony is shady as fuck.



No I just don't like getting screwed over by a company that breaks my property and then prevents me from accessing my other property.
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PS+ auto renews and is funded by your Wallet. Your wallet refreshes with whatever payment method you chose to to use for the Wallet. Auto renewal is on by default and it tells you near the top of the text when you sign up.

I don't believe at this point that you politely told a CSR to cancel PS+ for you. This forum pretty much hates everything console related and not one single person is sympathetic to your issue because they know you fucked up.
 
l88bastard said:
Yes, they offered me $200 as a trade in...if it was not bricked they would have given me $250. So obviously Sony only charges Gamestop $50 to refurb PS4s, while the consumer gets screwed over for $149.99
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I suspect Gamestop knows your PS4 was recoverable with a few basic steps you didn't try. If it turns on and loads the recovery dialog with no error LEDs then it isn't "bricked".
 
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l88bastard said:
Yes, they offered me $200 as a trade in...if it was not bricked they would have given me $250. So obviously Sony only charges Gamestop $50 to refurb PS4s, while the consumer gets screwed over for $149.99
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Actually, Gamestop has their own refurbishing center. They send systems down to Grapevine, Texas to get repaired. If you're interested Gamestop got to tour the place back in 2012 and did an article on it: http://www.gamespot.com/articles/inside-gamestops-refurbishment-center/1100-6389498/ If you look at the used consoles on their site any of them that say "Gamestop Premium Refurbished" came from their Texas facility.
 
Ocellaris said:
I don't believe at this point that you politely told a CSR to cancel PS+ for you. This forum pretty much hates everything console related and not one single person is sympathetic to your issue because they know you fucked up.
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Agree 100%

/thread
 
Here is the thing: everyone here can sympathizes with you, everyone here will most likely agree that those incredibly long terms of services are too ridiculous to read. But they are there and if you don't want to deal with them, don't do business with anyone who uses them. That is your only choice. You would of been 100% in the right here had you not done the chargeback. What you should of done it called Sony up before you attempted the chargeback and tried to get them to refund you your money. That was the right thing to do.

Chargebacks are very serious business when it comes to the merchent. They get charged fees and those fees start to skyrocket as chargebacks build (they go up the more chargebacks they get) The merchent (sony) is 100% liable for these charges because its considered a card not present transactions. Additionally if enough build up they(merchant bankers) will raise their cut or cancel your (sony) account outright. We are talking alot of money here.

Additionally you may think you didn't sign up for auto renewel, but you did. You just didn't know it. It was probably in one of those terms of services things that no one reads. Because of this you are in the legal wrong because you basically claimed fraud that didn't happen.

Morality is a separate issue. We could argue all day what is right and wrong here. What a standup company would and should do. But no multinational does that. They are worried about numbers. Period. The only time they care about customer service is in how it effects the bottom line. You as an individual do not matter enough to deal with or worry about. Your chargeback on the other hand does. hence why your account was terminated in the first place.

Bottom line: Your going to have to pay 50$ unless you can convince them to give you a break. Thats reality and bitching here about it wont change that. You thought you would beat sony by doing a chargeback and you were wrong. Again, i agree that everything about your situation is pretty fucked up, but you volunteered for it by buying a PS4 or an XBOX or a Nintendo or the millions of other things you do in your daily life.
 
lol

dude thought he actually "owned" $500 worth of games

welcome to the future buddy
 
Yeah, first of all PS+ is set up automatically to renew on its own. You don't have to sign up for that, you have to cancel it manually.

Secondly, I'm 99% positive you could have fixed your PS4. If not with your original hard drive, simply swapping in a blank hard drive that fits and setting up the OS would have surely fixed it. You can download the OS and set up files and put them on a thumb drive. I had to do this when I installed my 1Tb drive.

Not sure why you didn't think of that, did you just assume it was not fixable?

Did you even try to ask any of us here when your system bricked? You could have made a thread and asked for any possible solutions.

And chargeback isn't a good idea since it was a legitamte charge. You should have called and asked for a refund.

AND..... This is why buying physical copies are a much better idea. I bought a few digital titles that were older and only $15-$20. I would never buy multiple $50 titles digitally for this very reason. On any platform.

But live and learn man, live and learn.
 
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Converge said:
Yeah, first of all PS+ is set up automatically to renew on its own. You don't have to sign up for that, you have to cancel it manually.

Secondly, I'm 99% positive you could have fixed your PS4. If not with your original hard drive, simply swapping in a blank hard drive that fits and setting up the OS would have surely fixed it. You can download the OS and set up files and put them on a thumb drive. I had to do this when I installed my 1Tb drive.

Not sure why you didn't think of that, did you just assume it was not fixable?

Did you even try to ask any of us here when your system bricked? You could have made a thread and asked for any possible solutions.

And chargeback isn't a good idea since it was a legitamte charge. You should have called and asked for a refund.

AND..... This is why buying physical copies are a much better idea. I bought a few digital titles that were older and only $15-$20. I would never buy multiple $50 titles digitally for this very reason. On any platform.

But live and learn man, live and learn.
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He posted about his bricked PS4 in another thread, however he doesn't appear good at talking about details or what he actually tried. I knew he was doomed before that thread died.
 
I am still wondering who makes 2 calls to sony regarding their hardware and then chargeback without calling?

Money talks.. and you costing them fees on a chargeback is huge. You should have acted like an adult and called to sort out the matter. Regarding the call you made to cancel the PS+ subscription.. I find the time between companies charging you and it showing up or actually being withdrawn can be numerous days. Especially if its a day near the end of the week.. could potentionally be until the middle of the next week before it comes out.
 
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