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Comment by s73v3r_ | Hacker News Reader

"When Justin finally heard back from Sony, they didn’t apologize and promise to protect the account. Instead, they said it—an account Justin has had for more than 13 years, with a history of trophies and purchases—was gone. There was nothing he could do, no process to appeal, no way to get any of his games back."

That, should be considered completely unacceptable, especially from a company that has had huge data breaches in the past. Sony should be bending over backwards to make this guy whole, not giving up.

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I’m surprised he didn’t sue.

ONE WEIRD TRICK - dirtbag companies HATE this - my mom (former lawyer) taught me to get any company dragging its heels or otherwise being scummy about giving you what you paid for is to basically state what you want followed by “...and if I do not get the product/service that I paid your company for, my next call will be to the State Attorneys General of the state of (where we’re from) and the state where you are incorporated, and we will be filing a claim of fraudulent business practices.”

9 times out of 10 that’ll be enough to get the gears moving. Legal compliance is almost always more expensive than fighting a customer on an issue, so they tend to give in rather quickly.

I've also heard equally worthwhile efforts when contacting a company through BBB (Better Business Bureau) has gone as far as getting people's accounts unbanned where the account was meant to stay permanently banned from an MMO. Get legal through the right channels and you will see results. You want to get a hold of BBB directly basically, I havent had the pleasure of doing it but have heard from many that it works.

While this may work, as far as I know, BBB is a private company with no enforcement muscle, providing a service similar to Yelp, but less respected.

BBB is it's own pay to play scam. People who join magicly have poor scores removed.

Only clueless business owners care about BBB. Not only is BBB a scam itself, but no one cares what they think anyway.

This is not good advice. Once you threaten to sue, most Big Companies will stop talking to you via customer support channels and make you do everything in writing to their legal department.

Don't do this.

YMMV. I have NEVER seen a company call the bluff. At worst it just means you wait while the request goes to someone’s boss or boss’ boss and they say just give them what they want.

Also I don’t tell the company I’m suing them. They could care less about me. I am however telling them THE STATE will be looking into their practices, which to them is much scarier and expensive than a disgruntled customer.

I know little of the US legal landscape, or if there's a small claim system. I've threatened legal response here in the UK, usually after months of failing to get resolution without, as last step in the chain. So I've issued a small claim against those companies (UK has a cheap option when the claim is small, somewhere under £5 - £10k. Basically fill form, give fixed low fee, wait). Those have had a 100% success rate.

> Once you threaten to sue, most Big Companies will stop talking to you

That would be fine. When I have threatened to sue someone and got no response, I will do the small claim as next step. One threat, one opportunity to resolve. More talking would enable more delays. No more communication from me aside from in writing from the court.

Generally gets a panicked phone response at speed and offering full settlement. I've had several expansive apology letters. A couple ignored the summons and waited for the default judgement before it got settled. Those were big, very well known companies, which could be pure coincidence. Most have asked "why did you sue?". Waiting for months to get that promised refund, whilst only getting excuses or lies, maybe? :)

You said you don't threaten a legal response until after months of failing to get resolution. I'm pretty sure that's what's being suggested here too. Don't open with the legal threats, as they can shut down what may have been a much faster and easier customer service resolution.

By GP sure, but the comment I'm responding to is an unequivocal "this is a bad idea". My take is apply common sense and don't make idle threats on the 2nd email or you just look silly, likewise when you get to the stage of few other choices make the threat just once. Then get on with it. :)

This is a feature, not a bug. Customer support departments are set up to optimize for cost savings; legal departments are set up to minimize legal risk for their parent companies. The latter is more likely to err in a direction that is favorable to the consumer.

Their legal department can actually make shit happen, though.

They've already stopped talking to you once they say they will do nothing to help you.

From what I hear, when you compare the French or German legal sphere with US law you'll find that US law offers few remedies to compel a contract partner to perform. Instead they'll offer compensation. That's a problem when you have things (like accounts) where no one knows the value of.

The current price of the digital content in your account should at least set a floor on the value. That would probably be enough to compel Sony to return the account.

I remember working in retail here in the UK and having occasional customers who thought that the mystical incantation "trading standards" would have us trembling in fear and bending over backwards to give them anything they wanted. We just laughed at most of them.

Back when I worked for an early online service (Dialcom) we had sold a big contract for email - the CEO of the company was pissed of with the performance and wrote a personal letter to the CEO of British Telecom (*our parent) at his home address.

At the next main board meeting our Director got handed the letter with the comment "one for you to sort out" - which is why we set up an entire Pr1me 750 for that customer.

Without incentives, why would Sony do anything for anyone?

Sony's reputation should be incentive enough.

They are a disgusting gutter company who cares naught for their reputation. I haven't knowingly purchased any Sony products (music, movies, games, hardware) since their behavior around 2005.

That was around the infamous rootkit scandal, right?

They also have some very annoying practices for their hardware. I borrowed a Sony digital camera from a relative for a roadtrip and the memory card broke down. To my dismay I realized I can't just put any old memory card in it, I have to put in a Sony one which costs 10x as much for 0 benefit.

Since then I also stopped buying any Sony products. I think they're just too big and too diversified to fail at this point. They don't have to care about their reputation at this point, the money just won't stop coming since they're so pervasive.

Which it apparently was - once they realized a reporter was writing a story on it, they fixed the issue right quick.

Competition?

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