Credit where credit is due.
Sony has been slapped with a £1.9m fine by Australian authorities over its PlayStation refund policy.
Australia’s Federal Court …
Credit where credit is due.
Sony has been slapped with a £1.9m fine by Australian authorities over its PlayStation refund policy.
Australia’s Federal Court handed Sony Europe, which operates the Australian PlayStation Support Centre as well as the country’s PSN terms of service, an AUD $3.5m fine because its digital refunds policy was found to be in breach of the Australian Consumer Law (ACL).
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) found Sony Interactive Entertainment Network Europe Limited (Sony Europe) guilty of misleading four customers who complained to Sony that they had bought faulty PlayStation games. According to the ACCC, Sony customer service reps told them over the phone Sony Europe was not required to refund the game once it had been downloaded, or if 14 days had passed since it was bought.
«Consumer guarantee rights do not expire after a digital product has been downloaded and certainly do not disappear after 14 days or any other arbitrary date claimed by a game store or developer,» ACCC chair Rod Sims said.
Additionally, the Court said Sony breached the ACL by telling one of the four customers it didn’t have to give a refund unless the game developer authorised it, and it told a fifth customer that Sony could provide a refund using PlayStation Store credit instead of real-world money.
