SOE clawback on purchase errors is awful business

What happens if you spent certs on attachments for weapons?

At this point, they really ought to let sleeping dogs lie. Every other mistake wasn't overturned. As far as I recall, the time frame of the error was only minutes, really, and how many people could have taken advantage of that in the early morning?

I agree with this. What if someone bought an item on sale, and now they have an item taken away from them? Do you honestly expect those people to wait for the next sale or spend 2x the ammount of money on it?

This is very bad business, especially as only a "small amount of accounts" is affected. Just let those people keep the items, it's not like they did it on purpose.

Actually, in a bank error of that nature, they can still expect you to pay back, however, given their error, they cannot surcharge you for failing to pay the correct amount due to their error. The expected behavior is to inform you of the mistake and that you are still expected to pay the remainder in the next cycle.

In the case of here, if they noted that an item was given without cost that should have cost, there are two ways to do it... One - Take back the item or take the cost of the item. Thing is, people notice changes in the SC/Cert with no notice (As this system is craptastic in reporting why you gained/lossed SC/Certs.) While missing an item is also not reported as nicely, the above explanation makes more sense than trying to determine how much SC/Certs were deducted for the item(s) in question.

They -can-, but they -don't-. They -might- if it was several thousand or more, and they certainly don't give my business the same lax approach they give my personal accounts, but as I said, they don't. My bank have a policy where if they make mistakes, I don't have to suffer for them, and they even hand over some cash. It's a good way to not piss people off, and it's far cheaper than the equivalent positive advertising.

Or simply to accept that they made a mistake and hurt their bank account, and that's far better than making a mistake and hurting their customer relations, which is what this 'fix' is doing.

Please tell me how entitled people are to getting things for free while I have to pay for it still. It's a VIDEOGAME. Grow up and deal with it. If someone gets something for free on accident they are NOT entitled to keep it.

What if it was a glitch where instead of not being charged, a few people pay TWICE the normal amount?

I love the white knighting... If the players had done ANYTHING wrong here, I'd agree. They haven't though. It's not about entitlement to free things, its about the fact that they made no error and are now about to be inconvenienced by SOE's ****up, for the sake of a few SC. It's just bad for customer relations.

If I ask the guy at the petrol station for 10 gallons, and he fills 20, I'm paying for 10 and driving off. Unless he can siphon at my convenience, I'm keeping the rest. He ****** up, not me.

Then again, the company do the honest thing and admit their mistake and pay for the consequences. When Apple did that to me, they gave me a £100 of gift vouchers... (And a refund on the overcharge)...

Hilarious. Look up legal definitions of theft, and show me where theft is when someone provides you good that you have paid for, but fails to take the payment from you. No one stole anything from SOE. They made a mistake and gave some stuff to people for free. Now they're abusing their godlike monopoly on PS2 transactions to cover their arses, and burn up customer relations too.

What exactly is your line of work? And what country? Pulling that **** here would see you shut down faster than you could say 'Incompetent'.

I agree, I don't this as a big deal: those people essentially got an extended trial period! If they like the item, then they can actually purchase it for real now.

A member of the VS outfit I am part of bought the lancer with SC on the day that it was released. It bugged out and never charged her the SC and she submitted a support ticket to SOE about it to have it fixed by either charging her or taking the item back. SOE never responded to her ticket. So 6-7 months later they are really going to take that back? Its not like some people didn't try and get that fixed........

How would you feel if the item given for free was a vehicle weapon that the user spent hundreds (or even thousands) of certs upgrading? What should happen in that case?

I dont find this unfair at all and really it's not worth making a fuss about. They are under no obligation at all to give away anything for free. To use a different analogy to some mentioned previously this is the online version of leaving a retail shop with an item the cashier didn't charge you for because they didn't see it at the till.

Also unless I'm mistaken it's possible this may have something to do with when the Jackhammer was able to be trialed from the SC shop and it would unlock for your account instead. More than a couple of people were deliberately spreading the word about it and intentionally using this bug to get a free item.

If they invested certs then they should be refunded though and I am sure this will be the case.

No it's not. This is the online version of picking up PC case in a retail shop, going to the till, putting your Credit Card in the machine, putting your pin in, seeing 'Pin Accepted', watching the sales assistant do the clever receipt bit, taking your card and receipt, and being handed your case in a bag and waved out of the door.

Then 6 months later, having bailiffs at your door demanding payment to the value (which has since gone up, in many cases) or they'll take your PC case and all the components you've since put in it.

EDIT: Also, when I worked for a department store in my youth, it was our responsibility to ensure we did our jobs properly and all goods were properly rung up and paid for. If they made it out of the store, we didn't tackle them to the ground and take the item back; we ****** up, we accepted it because it's bad business to go terrorising your customers and searching their bags after your employee screwed up...

Thing is... You are trying to apply one business' practices across the board. That is a fallacy in thinking. One of the companies I used to work for had a business practice of "Lifetime guarantee" bit on the clothing they sold to their customers... IE: You could return it at any time after your bought it. Thing was, people abused that to the point that there was a different handling for 'repeat offenders'. Why do I mention this? Why doesn't other companies offer this for their stuff, Apple included? Because it is not always the best business practice.

Now in the case of SOE, they aren't like your bank. Sony, in and of itself, is a corporation that plays their own rules, hell, even Apple played its own rules when dealing with the joys of the Flashback Virus that hit a lot of macs. You know that Apple Care Service many people BOUGHT along with their expensive Mac... When that virus hit the Mac, what was the response of Apple Care when people called in with the problem - Sorry, that isn't covered under Apple Care. They literally turned people away from support until they put up a patch, and did it again when that patch failed to cover that.

Mind you, this is not defending SOE on this practice, but pointing out a simple fact that your expectation that SOE is to 'write it off' like a bank is kind of foolish. Also, note, banks are also known for pissing off people at times, ranging denial of loans to payments based on a poorly structured loan/mortgages. Just cause you have a nice bank, again, does not mean other banks follow that, let alone other businesses.

Again, you do realize, this is Sony... The company that has AV hardware that has been bought in several countries, selling also Computers at near the price of an Apple Mac claiming quality, and also owns several Hollywood Movie production companies/studios that also make money and does PR up the whoha... Even if you decide to thumb your nose on playing or paying Sony in Planetside 2... You are still paying them money in other ways, from some random component in one of your electronics, a game or even playing on the PS whatever it is now, or one of the portable music devices that you wanted to go with cheaply instead of wasting your battery on your smartphone if you had one, or one of those movies you think is cool, not seeing that one little thing going "A Sony Corporation" in small print. In all technicality, you are still a 'customer' to them, just losing a small revenue is a subsidiary area. But they will be accounting every little detail, such as something like Station Cash.

Lastly, calculation wise - Certs spent - Yes, time spent lost, but certs don't stop accruing. Station Cash, unless you are a 'paying member', you do not accrue that over time and it is something you purchase. You, as a customer, will be watching that sucker like a hawk cause it is 'money' to you. But would you rather have it deducted with no notification beyond 'Hey, we determined you didn't pay for something and deduct it from you.' While you think they can write it off as "We messed up, so here is a freebie." Thing is, that item may not turn the tide of the battle in Planetside 2, a mistake of that nature should be "Well, let's give everyone a free item.". However, if it affected a small group, the accounting level is 'Do the lesser of two evils'... Taking the item is of the lesser of two evils, even more so if it wasn't a Weapon.

No it's not. Clearly the majority of these people would notice they were not charged for their item almost immediately. Maybe it's like putting your pin in the machine but then seeing the receipt said £0.00 charge because the item was priced incorrectly and then not saying anything to the cashier. If they did raise a ticket (aka being honest) as the poster did earlier in this thread did then I feel a bit more sympathy and maybe SOE could of left them with the item but even then they are under no obligation to do so. You are also way over stating the inconvenience caused to these people.

SOE made the mistake, SOE should pay for it. I don't exactly keep an eagle eye on my, admittatedly paltry nowadays SC balance, but I'd be pretty damn annoyed if I logged in later to find that a bunch of my guns had been "repossessed" because apparently due to a bug in the system I hadn't been charged for them six months ago. I'd be even more annoyed since it's likely I bought them on a daily sale/discount somewhere along the way since, in general I find the price per gun in PS2 to be too damn high.

What I find most laughable though from the white knighting is the fact that these are digital items that entirely exist in magical code land. There is no warehouse full of Strikers that are being physically sold - it's all pretend guns, bought with pretend money. It's not even like the PSP case since Sony hasn't lost a damn thing in this debacle i.e. the cost to make, the things. It's not like they're having to write down a loss for six hundred missing Mattocks because the guns in question don't really exist!

All of which makes the idea of trying to take punitive actions against even this small number of players counter-productive. Unless of course they can be proven to have deliberately cheated. Even then though, the ball is in SOE's court to prove to their customers satisfaction that they aren't going to arbitrarily strip us of our arsenals one day out of the blue because "Bug Fix".

This is no different than the similar arguments people use to steal digital music or films. Personally I find the current non-discounted item SC prices ridiculous which is why I dont pay for them but the items on the SC shop do have a real monetary value that is helping pay for the continued production and maintenance of this game.

I totally agree. My point is in relation to best practice. Clearly, especially having started a precedent with a MUCH larger 'free giveaway' (millions of certs for some plays), this is just not good practice; it reminds everyone that your only goal is to extract as much money from them as possible, and you don't give a **** how you achieve that. It's unnecessary, uncalled for, and with customer relations already struggling for SOE (right through from gamers that won't touch them due to SWG, to moneygrabbing in their other cashshop games, to people just put off by their twitter-based approach to 'communicating with their community'), there's just no reason to do something like this.

That's my only point really. It's going to cost them more than the lost SC, and it's yet another mark on the 'Things SOE do to make customers feel less valued' sheet.

SOE is a separate entity to Sony; there's been frequent talk in the past about selling it off/closing it down when it's had 'fallow years' (Sony don't get development cycles, sadly...). With that said, I'm aware of that, and I'm aware that even when I was livid about SWG and did everything I could never to give Sony a penny, I'm sure they had more than that from me. Absolutely none of that changes the fact that SOE could have chosen to do the right thing by a 'small group' of their players, and taken a minuscule loss (actually, loss of potential revenue, not loss of revenue...), and instead they've chosen to cling onto every cent like their multi-national corporation cannot give up the demand for our blood.

That even leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, and as I say, to the best of my knowledge, my account is unaffected.

Oh, and as to 'watching it like a hawk', I'm a paying customer (or I was before I had my 'Camels Back' moment), and can honestly say I have never known what my SC was before or after a purchase. I don't check my bank statement every time I use my card, and I don't check every item on my receipt to make sure it stacks up. I assume a level of competence on behalf of the businesses that I use... That, to me, seems a fair way to conduct oneself as a consumer.

I actually agree. If it was a huge error that caused them a boatload of money, fine. But if it was pretty limited, they shuold just chalk it up to their own mistake and let the players keep the weapons. Now they'll be hearing about it for months and for what gain? Maybe 10% of the erroneous purchases will be recouped? Just seems like a bad idea.

'Clearly the majority'... Where are you getting your statistics from? And what exactly is so clear about it?

How would they notice they hadn't gotten charged for the item? I certainly don't check my receipts, at least not until I'm filing accounts at the end of the month. Which ties into your attempted amendment. Let's say the receipt did say £0.00... Try standing next to a checkout in any shop and watch for people getting handed their card and receipt. I bet you not even one person in an hour will open that receipt after they've paid. The card machine said the price. They hit 'accept' and put in their pin. It said accepted. It printed a receipt. The sales assistant gave them the product and let them go. Yes, if you'd noticed on the receipt it said £0, you might be in the wrong not to report it to them, but the chances of noticing that are nil in my case, and I believe I'm in the majority here, even if only via anecdote (from working tills).

Now, ignore all that if you like and let's get a bit closer to the actual occurrence. Imagine it's a receiptless system, like the Apple Store (or the Depot! :O )... They're going to email you a receipt maybe immediately, maybe when the payment comes through, maybe in a few days when the system catches up. Whatever. Are you going to sit in the store and spam refresh on your email waiting for that receipt? Are you even going to notice if a receipt for a $1 purchase never arrived?

Now let's go that extra step to the Depot. You don't even get an email receipt. You just get 'Purchase accepted', and the item in your inventory. Unless you expressly took down your SC balance before purchase, the value of the item, and checked the balances after every purchase, it's a nonsense. Your analogy falls flat on its face, as soon as you're relying on noticing the receipt says £0.00...

Without wishing to get into an 'offtopic' discussion here about piracy and what not (it's not 'stealing'; it's piracy. Accept it. There's a difference. There was with boats, too )... It's not the same issue at all. People tried to pay SOE, and many I'm sure believed they did pay, and SOE's own system failed to take that payment. The loss is a loss of potential revenue, not of actual assets, so they have nothing to recoup.

If my sales team achieve 20% below their target, I haven't lost 20% revenue, I've lost 20% of potential revenue. If that loss was because our phone lines were down for a whole day in a 5 day week, it's still only a loss of potential revenue. My company is not any poorer, we have lost no assets; we have simply had a worse week. When you put in the piracy argument, you're talking about a whole different issue; that 20% would be because someone had called all of my clients minutes before me and offered them our services for free. It's illegal competition, not an internal ****up.