PSN Accounts [supposedly] hacked into and Sony's handling leaves something to be desired

Yesterday, Reddit user kadjar made a post saying that his PlayStation Network account was hacked. He was charged over $600 and Sony is only willing to refund $150 of that. He is unable to authorize his account on his own PlayStation 4 for another 6 months because it has just been deactivated, as per Sony policy.

[Jessahness]

Mainly so we can pay less for games. When in reality, it pretty must costs us the same damn thing.

[DarkOcelet]

Ps Plus and XBL Gold offerings should be better than Steam since people are paying 60$ each year for them.

[Death]

PS+ offers games to download and play as long as you are a subscriber. So far I have downloaded and played Injustice and Infamous First Light since subscribing again almost 6 months ago. I have no complaints and feel I received my moneys worth, but it doesn't quite feel like "thousands" of dollars worth of games. Realistically I could have gone to a Redbox and saved some money.

[Dgander]

How the hell are the games free when you pay a monthly subscription? Am I the only person on N4G that went to school?

[Nitrowolf2]

@Dgander

Everyopne knows that they are 'free' until the subscription is over, but you gotta look at the offerings and how much that all adds up. So far I've enjoyed hundreds of free games I was otherwise going to buy eventually. for $50 a year, it really isn't much.

I mean, this months we got valiant heart and oddworld, both games adding to about $40 alone. In a sense, yes we are paying for it, but it's offering makes up the cost, and how often do people actually play a game they beat to completion after several months?

[Gority]

@Dgander

Yes, you are the only one here who went to school. You are apparently also the only one here who has listened to Cage the Elephant's "Ain't no rest for the wicked" and Five Finger Death Punch's "Dot Your Eyes", because ya know, ain't nothing in this world for free.

[Eddie20101]

Another dishonest article from a no name site gets a ton of attention, obviously made up stories. Who would do online chat for this kind of problem. If anything, if the information was hacked, it was through Internet explorer or Google Chrome and the computer had spyware on it and the password was gotten when they logged into PSN on the computer. Stop going to porn sites and file sharing and you won't have those problems. Make sure that you have malware protection, and use a program like CCleaner after going to important password protected sites.

Anyway I doubt that Sony customer service would cut someone off without giving them other options like calling from a phone or having someone call them. I have always had good customer service from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo the very few times I have ever had to call them over the years.

[Maxor]

Sony fanboys when PSN was free= Xbox Live is a rip off because you must pay for online!

Sony fanboys when you must pay to play online= Don't complain about "free" subscription only games!

It's hilarious because fanboys will always be fanboys. They're incapable of free thought and will defend their brand regardless of how valid the criticism.

[its_JEFF]

@Maxor how about the fact that Xbox fanboys keep insisting that XBL never gets hacked, No one on XBL has ever had their info stolen. They keep bringing up the PSN hack and how so much people's info were stolen, but we're there? And is there proof that it was from PSN and not some other service that's known for having its users info stolen all the time... like Origin? The fact is I heard more stories from XBL users getting info stolen than I've heard from PSN, but here's the big difference... XBL has never been down for a month so the perception is that PSN uaers info is in danger but the XBL users have nothing to worry about.

If you're gonna call out fanboys, you should really be calling all of them out. I honestly think both services are equally capable of giving up users info, but not chances are slim... I think where users info gets stolen is from services like Origin, FIFA, maybe even Ubisoft.

[logan_izer10]

Sounds like he just had a crappy password, end of story

[Neonridr]

did you see the responses from those chat agents though? I would be pissed if that's the kind of treatment I got.

[Dee_91]

Of course you would be pissed, you lost access to your account, but it aint their job to console you for a mistake you more than likely made lol.

[Nykamari]

Or he gave it out, game sharing with a random on the net. Well that's money lost.
@ cobra you beat me

[admiralvic]

Regardless of where their fault might be, I certainly don't blame them for getting angry at such a response. I know I had a similar run in recently with Walmart and was just as pissed.

I had someone steal my gift card by doing something* and I informed CS about it. They told me to talk to the manager at a local store, so I did and she told me I can move on or file a police report. Didn't even feign interest in my problem and basically brushed me aside.

I mean, I can understand screwing up or being in the wrong, but thats no excuse for basically brushing me/them off and doing nothing. The least they could have done is feign some compassion by saying something like "we're sorry that happened, but there is nothing we can do."

* I still have the physical card, never used the card and was told the card was scanned meaning it was not bought online. I won't speculate how they did it, just that it was certainly something that the average person is going to prepare for.

[baryonyx]

I didn't know it was Walmart's job to take care of you're Giftcard, or that if someone steals it from you, that it's their problem. ofc they gonna brush you off, cause it's not their problem, it's you'rs. If someone steals you're bike in a supermarked underground's garage, can you go to the security on that mall, and get a new bike back? no, you will file a suit with the police, the police will check the cameras to identify the criminal. If someone fucked up with their PSN information, how is it sony's fault? I delete my credit card information EVERYTIME i use it, as well as on other sites as well. Sharing accounts, doing dumb shit online or on Web, is all on you as a consumer. If Sony themselves was hacked, and the information was stolen from there, then it's sony's problem

[blackblades]

Or he have gave it out, remember the kid that handed the controller to a stranger and deleted his characters on destiny. It's his fought if he didn't do it it would of never happen.

[PickAShoe]

password123

[ctate1995]

"password" is strong enough? My accounts compromised then.....

[22CobraKing]

Maybe he gameshared with a person and the other person might of given it to someone else to download something but messed with his account.

[Jessahness]

Kind of like that kid who gameshared Destiny and lost everything
*edit I meant shareplay. nbd.

[kayoss]

gameshared and share play are two different things.

[FPSRUSSIA]

exactly what i was going to say he might of game shared with someone

[plmkoh]

TL;DR Man gets phished, man demands compensation.

[kayoss]

How do we know if he was actually hacked or he gave his account info to someone and that person abused it? Its like me and netflix. I never use netflix, but I shared my netflix with my cousin and wife. He watches some weird stuff on there. My wife would see the history and thinks it was me. I cant prove that it wasnt me unless my cousin confesses.
In this case, how can you prove that he was hacked unless that hacker comes out and say he did it.

[plmkoh]

And how do you prove the network was 'hacked'? Because one isolated person claims his info got compromised, therefore everyone else is affected?

You can bet good money he either got phished or he used the same details as some other website login.

[kayoss]

LMAO. I do wear the pants in house. But when i looked at the list of movies that my cousin watches. I also question him. Lets put it this way, all the movies he watches involves lots of sex.

[rainslacker]

Sony has records to track what is brought where and I'm sure they could prove if transactions were valid or not. Stories like this rarely give all the information needed to make a determination on if the CS person did the right thing according to policy. The attitude of the CS people could be discussed, but even then, without being there from start to finish, it's just people making assumptions.

Since it's not a problem among hundreds or thousands of users, the chances that Sony was hacked to get the info is slim to none...that's just not how hackers work. The most likely scenario is the guy gave his information out...possibly without realizing it(phishing), or he was game sharing and gave his account info out to someone who decided to rack up a huge bill, or even that he just charged a crap ton of money then decided he didn't want to pay it for some reason(also pretty common).

To be fair, I'd err on the side of any merchant here, because I know how crappy people can be to CS people first hand, and I know 99% of the time, they always lie. The people with legitimate concerns don't act like twats, and they rarely go venting to the net, they go up the food chain to get the next person of the CS chain....which the liars sometimes do as well but do it in such a way to try and get others to think that the CS person did something wrong, and that they were all peaches and cream.

[Aloy-Boyfriend]

Anyone can say his PSN account was hacked. You have to prove that you were actually hacked and not that you gave you account to someone else and made Purchases with it.

My account has never been hacked, and I don't even worry about. I keep changing my password every 3 months, and i Don't give my account to anyone. People should be more careful about his personal info

Also, when someone access your account from another console, your billing info always deletes itself. It's little to impossible that someone would use your credit card to make purchase, let alone spend $600. It seems to me this guy was tricked and want money in return. You have only yourself to blame

[JeffGUNZ]

eh, depends. A few years back this happened to me on my 360. What happened was my yahoo address linked with live got hacked and they were able to get into my account and buy MS points and what not. My bank refunded the money immediately and xbox did an investigation. They caught the person per the follow up call and I was kept off my account during the 5-7 investigation. Sucks when it happens.

[Taero]

Not disagreeing with you over the first two paragraphs but couldn't someone have accessed the PSN through the web store front and bought things on there without triggering the deletion?

[rainslacker]

The web store front requires you put in the CC CVV code, and put in your password on checkout. On the console itself you can opt out of password verification at checkout(unless it's changed in the past 4 years).

Anyhow, it's easy to catch people who phished a password and used the console to make a purchase, whether this actually comes to criminal charges I don't know. Making the purchase on a PC would not transfer it to a PS3/4 with a different account AFAIK, and as soon as a person logged on to a PS3/4 with the proper account, they would be logged and be found.

[il-JumperMT]

Phishing scams are not hacks and if you fall for them you are not entitled to anything. Its your own fault deal with it.

[ltachiUchiha]

Gamers that play online on psn or xbl should be smarter. There is a reason they sell psn & xbl cards. If u put your credit card online to purchase stuff & your card gets hacked. Thats your fault. U know damn well these services been breached before yet u still decide to use your own card? Use your head ppl. If hackers can hack the government what makes u think psn and xbl is unhackable? Smdh.