this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
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That's just good policy. Yelling at support personal or making them unsafe should not be celebrated. What is wrong with you?
Sure, yelling at them is bad.
But this is way more than that
You can't ask for anything, or they could arbitrarily decide you broke the agreement. You can't protest in any way, or they decide you broke the agreement.
Merely asking for what you've paid for to be returned to you is grounds for banning your profile now.
They only mention repeated or unreasonable requests. Not requests in general. It does not appear to be true that Asking for a refund gets you banned.
Yes, and companies can be trusted to not abuse their unquestioned power over their users.
They certainly don't have a track record of fucking over users!
Why are you defending a multi billion dollar company like they're paying you?
Them not adhering to their own policies is a different issue as their policies not being sensible. Attacking one using the other as reasoning is being unreasonable.
And who is the arbiter of unreasonable? Sony.
It's their policy, they get to determine what is unreasonable, not some independent neutral third party.
I always thought this stance to be interesting, because it reminds me of soldiers in a conflict. The arguments are that the enemy rank and file are just doing their jobs, they have a family, the actual evil bigwig is out of reach, etc.
But also, are you just going to do nothing and let them steamroll you? They're choosing to continue to work at that business, and are the only "frontline" that you can interact with. The fact that the business made a policy specifically addressing this common complaint, means it actually reached the ears of someone in power.
I'm not encouraging violence or anything of course. But, by design, there's nobody else to voice your displeasure to. The only other option is to quietly accept their changes and be ignored.
If they didn't want angry people calling, maybe they shouldn't make terrible decisions?
Screaming at a minimum wage call center employee doesn't actually do anything but make their day worse.
When you shoot the soldier who's marching through your home you're depleting the enemy army of people.
I worked at a call center for xbox. Yelling definitely worked because we had a protocol to escalate angry customers to tier 2 and they usually get some freebies like a few months of xbox live, some games or a gift card. There was a thin line between yelling/bring angry and being rude. We had the option to disconnect the call of there were personal insults
If that’s the only way to voice one’s opinion and be heard.
Any way, I didn’t see a lot of “screaming” in the policy. It says if you bother us too much, we’ll stop listening.
Which is the actual concern. No one here is saying you should be screaming at people.
Lol, call centers aren't a way to voice your opinion to the company. You're voicing your opinion just as effectively here.
The only language companies really speak is money. So stop giving it to them.
Right. Not heard. That’s why Sony put out this policy, because they can’t hear the complaints.
I’d say the complaints are working as intended.
Btw, I don’t have any sony products, so I can’t “stop” giving them money. But the idea that “stopping” further purchases is adequate remuneration for property theft is laughable.
But you're not heard when you abuse call center employees that very likely work at a 3rd party call center.
Well I’m not calling them. But obviously people are being heard. Hence this policy, article, and post.
If the response is "go away" you're not being heard.
What's being heard is the money they're losing by their campaign's high turnover rate, and complaints tying up agents.
So it’s being heard. Great, we agree.
If the response is "fuck off," you're not being heard.
I was trying to help someone I cared about get insurance denial information regarding cancer treatment. The insurance company (United lmao) personnel were the worst most inhumane human beings I've ever had the displeasure of speaking to. I'm nice and keep my voice calm. I used all the right words and requested things that were well within the rights of the person I was helping and the responsibilities of the people I was talking to. The number of times they just hung up, stated they had no record at all of any of my calls, told me what I was asking for didn't exist, etc etc. I wrote letters, I sent emails, nothing. Eventually there was no need for treatment, exactly as the insurance company planed for. If every single person there woke up to the worst day of their lives for the rest of their lives it would not be enough to make up for what they did, and what they likely continue to do for a job. They are likely involved in more deaths than modern soldiers are.
All of that said, people really need to get a grip on threatening customer service reps. It's not like Sony changed their policy retroactively or something. The whole industry has been operating this way for a while, often even the no disc thing. I would love to see all these people threatening others channel that energy into a boycott or something. I used to play the sims a lot. I already have the game but haven't launched it since news of the EA buyout broke and I let them know why. People will scream at the reps and then never actually change their behavior. I know the people screaming are not a monolith, but either enough people care or enough people don't. You being more threatening does nothing, especially if there's no follow through.
You have the option to not continue to buy their products.
I don't buy their games or consoles, personally. But I also don't call Sony to complain, so I'm very much an outsider's perspective on this.
You shouldn't abuse or kill without need the enemy in war either. Doing so tends to be a war crime.
Yelling at and abusing people does not further your cause. I guess them going on a mental break, killing themselves or quitting does harm Sony, but the harm to them and society is much worse.
It likely doesn't even harm Sony. Most companies outsource their customer service to 3rd party call centers.
Or a third option: you know, just vote with your wallet. To follow on your analogy and borrow from a famous quote: "[War is] a strange game. The only winning move is not to play."
But yeah, I know that gamers will never do that. So, the abuse will continue unabated, and corps will own them more and more.
That falls under being ignored. Most people will only realise it's a big deal if enough noise is made about it. Sony would maybe lose 10% sales from people quietly quitting, but still profit from the decision long-term. Right now the news article was only written, and we're only talking talking about it, because enough people made a fuss. That's how protests work; they're not convenient or polite.
This isn't a war, the customer service people aren't walking through your home grabbing your games to throw in a fire. Harassing them isn't going to have any effect on the corporate direction. If you want to get the decisionmakers' attention, stop buying their products. If you keep sending them money, you're basically just paying for the privilege of screaming at some minimum wage workers.
I know yelling at customer service is a shitty thing to do but who else do I yell at? The CEO won't give me his number and the rest of the management won't either. Customer service is the only place people even have a chance to be heard, and that's why they get mad. It's a systemic problem and companies use cheap replaceable employees to defer it.
Then don't yell at anyone, just boycott the company. It doesn't matter how justified your anger is, that doesn't make it right to abuse people.
I agree
Why are you even yelling?
Typically people do that when they are angry
You just don't buy the product?
It is so weird, these people are arguing over the ability to keep a piece of plastic so they can then throw more money at Sony. For entertainment.
You can ask for or look up the info for the corporate offices.
There's a good chance the support agents aren't even Sony employees.
If you must voice a complaint to the call centre, at least keep it civil. You're much more likely to be heard.
No one at the call center gives a shit regardless of how you approach it, I promise you. They probably aren't even Sony employees.
3rd party call centers are usually terrified of telling the actual business about issues.
I did say 'if you must'. I reckon it's pissing into the wind as well. Just don't buy their product is my advice. The only thing megacorporations like Sony respect is the bottom line. I also don't expect enough 'gamers' to do that to make a difference. They'll yell and stomp their little feet, but still send them their money.
Doesn't justify the behavior. The company must retaliate to do their due diligence to their employees.
And asking for refunds when we were all essentially scammed? They sold us the "games" under false pretenses.
When did they do that? I guess you could ask for a partial refund if they weren't advertised correctly. But that would not amount to much money after all.