Sony Lowers The Last of Us: HD's Price, Refuses to Offer Refunds - Update

[fhmy]

Is this customer service rep actually reflective of Sony' stance? Seems like he's answering the question to the best of his own ability.

EDIT: Adam Boyes recently sent out a few replies on his Twitter to a couple of customers saying they will get their $10 dollars back. Sounds like this rep didn't know exactly what he was talking about.

 

[Strazdas]

Oh, come on, Sony, you were doing so well. It's not like those few customers will set you back all that much.

Edit: isn't this against some law? If the product is not yet delivered, isn't the customer within his/her rights to cancel the purchase?

In Australia at least, consumer law states that the merchant is legally obligated to offer a refund if the product is faulty or not as advertised. In this case, the product is certainly not as advertised, as it has changed from the initially advertised price.

Australians have actually successfully managed to utilize this law in regards to video games in the past. For example, EA had to offer Australians refunds for SimCity (2015), which was "faulty" at launch, despite EA policy specifically stating that it will not offer refunds for any reason (at least, at the time)

similar laws exist in EU and US as well. in EU people have sucesfully applied it, in US consumer laws only exist as toilet paper anyway.

YOU MAY NOT CANCEL A PRE-ORDER AT ANY TIME AND REFUNDS ARE NOT AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDERS, SUBJECT TO APPLICABLE LAWS.

Irrelevant statement. fine print on PSN rules does not superceede law, and this statement is unlawful. but since they say its subject to applicable laws, what they actually mean is that its bullshit because laws in all 1st world countries actually contradict it.
It is ILLEGAL to not allow a cancel of a pre-order.
It is ILLEGAL to not refund the money for a pre-order unless such preorder can be proven to have caused costs to the company, in which case that amount of costs are not refunded and the rest is refunded. Not going to happen in this case.

 

[JayRPG]

My thoughts on the updated matter are:

I knew Sony would come out pretty quickly and tell everyone they'll be getting the refund, not refunding them would be the worst move Sony could make at a time where they are still struggling overall as a company but are actually making good ground to get themselves out of the mess.

The whole situation was brought on from a random tech support guy, he just said exactly what his script would have told him to say regarding anything with pre-orders and refunds, and that is that no refund is given on pre-order items.

BUT, what I don't understand is why it even got to a tech support guy anyway or why no memo was sent to support teams telling them about the $10 refund.

In an almost fully connected world, where billions of people can interact with each other at the click of a button, Sony MUST have known that this would make the rounds, VERY quick, if they seriously thought that this wouldn't have spread like wildfire, they are insane.

The second the decision was made to drop the price, an announcement should have been made regarding both the price drop and the refund of the difference to PSN pre-order customers, if you wanted to be extra careful, send a memo to the support teams informing them of the $10 refund so they can relay that information accurately to customers.

Sony have just created bad PR (however minor now) that was completely avoidable and not only completely avoidable but easily avoidable.

It's all well and good to say that the tech support guy didn't have authority to make a decision but support is the first point of contact for a company, the failings were not with the tech support guy but Sony as a whole for not properly informing support staff - Assuming that they planned the $10 refund all along.

If they weren't considering the refunds at all, thinking that nothing would come of it, I would almost write them off as having no common sense.

 

[J Tyran]

Well at least its sorted, I guess Sony didn't want to deal with all the different consumer protection legislation this infringed upon. That said I never pre-order anything from anywhere that demands a deposit or money up front, Steams "no money down" hold on the funds is as far as I will go.

 

[Scorpid]

And this is why I NEVER PRE-ORDER

Amen brother. They sucker you in with "ooo shiney exclusive gun skin" and at launch they hit you with bugs, broken servers, and day one DLC and only a year or two later all the DLC (Including your shiny "exclusive" gun skin) and the game itself is on sale on steam for 75% off, the servers are fine and stable, and they either fixed the bugs or those heroic selfless modders have, and now who feels like a fool.

 

[AndrewC]

Whatever happened to the 'if you bought the original game we'll give you a discount' - this seems a little unfair to those who don't have a PS4 yet.

 

[bluegate]

Whatever happened to the 'if you bought the original game we'll give you a discount' - this seems a little unfair to those who don't have a PS4 yet.

Thought that the last thing they said about that was; "We'll see what we can do / We are looking into it.".

 

[AndrewC]

Whatever happened to the 'if you bought the original game we'll give you a discount' - this seems a little unfair to those who don't have a PS4 yet.

Thought that the last thing they said about that was; "We'll see what we can do / We are looking into it.".

Seems it'll stay that way too

 

[Not Lord Atkin]

It's the tech support guy. Don't trust the tech support guys. They hate you and they tend to make really bad PR for companies. You know, like Valve tech support? Who are insanely crap and one of the reasons why Valve's been getting a bad rep lately?

 

[Steven Bogos]

The Last of Us: HD

So I guess this is happening. You'd think people would know that calling a 7th gen remaster an "HD" version of a game is retarded, since most of them were HD to begin with.

I actually initially had "The last of us: Remastered" as the title but cut it down to HD to make the headline fit the page, lol.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Why the hell would you buy the Last of Us HD if you've already got it?

 

[Zipa]

Don't retailers like Amazon generally have some sort of price guarantee, so if a price does drop from pre order to launch they automatically pass the saving on to you?

 

[Something Amyss]

If I remember correctly, Angry Joe mentioned in his post E3 vlog that as soon as TLOU HD was announced, he immediately preordered it.

I can't imagine he'll be too happy about this.

If only he (and others) would learn a lesson from this (And yes, I know the story's been updated).

 

[Something Amyss]

Don't retailers like Amazon generally have some sort of price guarantee, so if a price does drop from pre order to launch they automatically pass the saving on to you?

Amazon does, but a lot of them don't. Or don't explicitly, at least.

 

[Rozalia1]

I'm still befuddled that there is really going to be a "remastering" of a PS3 game...but I suppose its make business sense and as I never did pick up the TLOU, I suppose I'll do so now.

Good to see the correction being made.

 

[Karathos]

And now after the update to the story lo and behold, it's as numerous people immediately stated, like they're Nostradamus or something - now the person with the pay grade to make this kind of decision steps in and handles it with zero drama. But no, people gotta jump onto any situation like a ***** in heat. Any method to get your voice heard in the tabloids and get a little drama going.

Sigh.

 

[Vivi22]

Random customer service rep #582225829 isn't going to have the paygrade to make this kind of decision, and will obviously lean on by-the-book regs that are stated on the preorder site. This isn't even goddamn news.

This. As someone who worked in a call center for a cell phone company, so much this.

You know what journalists should do when they hear that a customer service rep said they couldn't give someone a refund on the $10? Contact Sony and find out if that's the official decision or if they are actually going to decide to give refunds. Because that customer service rep doesn't have the authority to give a refund or say that Sony is going to give refunds unless he's been told that's the policy. He might not even agree with it. God knows anytime I thought a customer was in the right but policy tied my hands, I never agreed with it. Which is why I went out of my way whenever I could to work within the rules and give customers as much leeway as I could to help take care of them.

But at the end of the day, if you're working in a call center you're probably there because you need that pay cheque, and you aren't going to risk getting canned to try and set company policy that could affect thousands of customers.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm still befuddled that there is really going to be a "remastering" of a PS3 game...but I suppose its make business sense and as I never did pick up the TLOU, I suppose I'll do so now.

Good to see the correction being made.

Well, I mean, the idea in this case is that there are a bunch of people who now have a PS4 who never had a PS3 and there's a new market.

The more baffling thing is that people are buying Tomb Raider definitive, since I would think anyone who wanted it would have played it already.