Son racked up huge PlayStation costs

MattMattMattUK

Vectis said:

I've never understood the notion that someone would ask to have their expenditure (or someone else's expenditure in this instance) 'refunded' because they has spend too much in a month. Is it because it's something online that you would even consider asking? If your son had, for instance, bought lottery tickets or spent the money on something consumable (food, cigarettes etc) would you also ask for a refund?

Surely this is one of life's lessons and sometimes the person has to learn by their mistakes. I've done silly things like this in my past - we probably all have - but I have never considered going back to the vendor and asking for a refund because I had overspent that month.

I'm not having a go at the OP but honestly just don't understand the concept of asking for a refund because I had spend more than I should have.

People think that as the goods are virtual they have no cost, so they should be allowed them for free. In reality here Sony are also only the middle man, the magic beans that the OP's son bought will have been added to his EA account, 80% of the revenue will be transferred to EA and Sony will keep 20%, it is not Sony's money to give back. 

elsien

I think the difference here as well is that previous threads have been more about children running up big bills on families credit cards when the correct safeguards haven’t been in place, wherea the OPs son is an adult who has probably made an unwise decision.

A_Lert

Yeah, if it's an adult using their own money on their own gaming account, and there's no legal recognition of diminished capacity or anything like that, then no chance of a refund.

EA and other game publishers know their business models are predatory, they just don't care because they get filthy rich out of it. It won't get your money back, but campaigning for government action might put a stop to it. At the very least, if it makes enough people think twice before buying the next FIFA or Playstation that's something.

MattMattMattUK

A_Lert said:

Yeah, if it's an adult using their own money on their own gaming account, and there's no legal recognition of diminished capacity or anything like that, then no chance of a refund.

EA and other game publishers know their business models are predatory, they just don't care because they get filthy rich out of it. It won't get your money back, but campaigning for government action might put a stop to it. At the very least, if it makes enough people think twice before buying the next FIFA or Playstation that's something.

The loot box concept might get changed, but then they will just sell things in a different way. The fact of it is that there is a demand for these add-ons, even if you ignore the loot boxes the amount of "cosmetics" sold is in the tens of billions (Fortenite alone sold $1.8 billion of cosmetics last year), people want digital shiny, people are willing to pay for digital shiny, companies will happily sell them digital shiny. 

Laura0866

Sounds like you won’t get it back sadly 

MattMattMattUK

Laura0866 said:

Sounds like you won’t get it back sadly 

Why are you creating Zombie threads?