Angry User

Another really detailed and predictably ignored rant has been posted, with yet another user exclaiming their dissatisfaction with Home's terrible customer service:

I have had it up to here with SCEA's lousy service. I purchased a number of items on Playstation Home and SEVERAL of them were NOT as show in the description. I've contacted SCEA via their support line three times and each time I was put on hold for well over twenty minutes before being transferred to person after person who all said the same basic thing. Contact SCEA about SCEA purchases doesn't work. There is nothing they can do, even though I KNOW this to be incorrect as the Terms of Service Clearly state " All content is provided by SCEA, including content created or published by third parties." as well as each purchasing being "Solely between you and SCEA" with lovely words like "Although SCEA will try to ENSURE that all product descriptions and it's associates terms and conditions are accurate, errors may occur." as well as "You will have the option of either reconfirming your order at the correct price or canceling it." SO if they get the PRICE wrong they can cancel it but if they get the DESCRIPTION or the preview image is different than the PURCHASED ITEM they can't cancel it? Unacceptable.

I've spoken to three different people, Katrina, James and Mike the Senior Supervisor at the SCEA support line and ALL of them have given me incorrect information. I was told I would need to contact "HOME moderators" for purchase problems and issues and that "There was no phone number to reach them." I was also told there was a complaint form under contact information. So I go to check contact information and low and behold there is a number to contact them and NO COMPLAINT FORM. So where do I turn to now? How do I get my money's worth? How do I make sure I am not unfairly treated? I've half a mind to simply turn this over to the better business Bureau, maybe THEN SCEA would stop abusing my financial situation and sending me in circles I am extremely dissatisfied with the services I've gotten and trying to find resolution for this problem has only cost me MORE money.

WHERE is the complaint form? WHO do I contact? I'm at my wit's end and SONY is about to loose one of it's most loyal customers and all of his friends and families business. I'm about to tear my hair out here over a FEW virtual items simply because I can't get ANYONE to actually listen to me without telling me FALSE information. Please help me!

 Well said. However, per usual no answer has been given, and no refunds in sight. The user posts later on:

Well finally a response with information. Thank you. And I did indeed send an email to the Consumer Services department, they sent an automated email a day later saying they would response within 24 to 48 hours. So, this is the third day, and I'm still waiting. I'll post the exact e-mail I sent them. Though how else I'm suppose to contact anybody else or when or where or why is becoming rather tiresome since it always seems to be somebody else problem which no one I'm ACTUALLY talking to can do anything about, whereas those who supposedly CAN do something about it- Haven't talked back to me yet-. I still have yet to see anything regarding a complaint form as was told to me by the official SCEA tech support people. ...

I purchased a number of items on Playstation Home and several of them were not as show in the description. I've contacted SCEA via their support line three times and I was put on hold for well over twenty minutes before being transferred to person after person who all said the same basic thing. Contacting SCEA about SCEA purchases doesn't work, there is nothing they can do; even though I know this to be incorrect as the Terms of Service Clearly state “All content is provided by SCEA, including content created or published by third parties.” as well as each purchasing being “Solely between you and SCEA”. I've spoken to three different people, Katrina, James and Mike the Senior Supervisor at the SCEA support line and all of them have given me incorrect information. I was told I would need to contact “HOME moderators” for purchase problems and issues and that “There was no phone number to reach them.”

Yet the ToS also says “Although SCEA will try to ENSURE that all product descriptions and its associates terms and conditions are accurate, errors may occur.” And not two lines later states, “You will have the option of either reconfirming your order at the correct price or canceling it.” So if the price is incorrect it is possible to cancel it but if the description or the preview image is incorrect it can not be canceled? Unacceptable.

I was also directed to the forums and contact information for a complaint form; arriving there online I not only did not find the complaint form, but a second number to contact for support. This has lead me to believe I was directly misled simply to get off the line and or/given false information to frustrate me into no longer following the issue. But I will not. As stated below are the purchased items and a short reason for my extreme dissatisfaction with these purchases. I would like these orders to be canceled, the virtual items removed from my account, and the purchase amount of Five Dollars and Forty Five cents ($5.45) at the very least re-accredited to my Playstation Network Wallet.
If this is not possible, though I have been told “it is not impossible”, I would like to cancel all previous purchases, have them removed and the cash amount of twenty dollars ($20.00) returned to me via mail for this unacceptable and inexcusable breach of service etiquette.

 I'd also like the hundreds I spent on Home back. Hell, that's the entire reason this blog exists!

More People Losing Money

Another report of people buying items in home and not receiving them:

to whole it may concern i just purchase punk chick bundle from you guys and i only receive hair top and spike on my wrist i never receive the skirt or boots if i pay 1.49 for it i suppose to get every thing right please sony fix it i dont want to lose any money on this thank you come in peace oh also something wrong with my neptune suite apartment it wont let me switch funiture at all why can your fix that thank you again sony have a nice day please asap

(Original poster, please learn to use periods and commas too.)

Awards in crappiness.

So it seems more and more topics keep appearing in the tech support graveyard involving the apparent & constantly missing items. In this most recent post:

For the last year, I've NEVER had a problem with Home.  Except for a occassional disconnect, HOME has never screwed me over the way it did this morning.  Woke up, logged on, and found out:

Every reward from every promotion since E3 - GONE
Every reward from most of the spaces, such as Motorstorm, Siren, the HOME theatre, IREM Square, ETC... - GONE
Only stuff I have left is ones I bought from the PSN store for FREE
I had atleast 100 rewards from different spaces and promotions now completely erased from HOME for no reason.
Moderators, do something about this bug.  PLEASE.

 When using Home we usually warn people not to invest money into it, because it is the easiest thing on the Playstation Network to lose money on. However we often forget to make mention that investing time into getting reward items is just as futile because they are constantly lost. Easiest solution: don't use Home.

More Stolen Money

According to this post:

i bought some animated t shirts and after i bought i went to try them on but there not there HELP!!!!!

And this person lost some money as well.

I bought the Guybrush pirate bundle and didn't get the blond ponytail that is supposed to go with it, I checked under the avatar hair catagory, under the hats catagory, headphones, outfits... it doesn't appear anywhere.

And this horrid grammar disaster says:

i was tryin to buy the pool table bundle from the coffee table store and it nvr downloaded, but the loss in funds was there. wat the heck home, if yer gonna start robbing me im gonna stop buying! if anyone has an answer to this issue plz help me. as for the trolls with their snarky comments this post is not for you

 

Chainsaw shirt warning:

Many users are reporting the following about Male Shirt with Chainsaw:

Friend and I just purchased this shirt, got charged but nothing in inventory and no red cart icon so it's not crediting correctly.

 Same thing happened to me as well! :\ I hope it's fixed soon i was excited about that shirt... It was gonna be one of my fav shirts...

I can confirm that this happened to me as well.  The shirt is not in my inventory, but I got an email receipt confirming my purchase.

Yeah, I couldn't find it either...oh well.....I'm sure there will be a fix soon!

Midway warning!

If you haven't heard, The Playstation Home Midway is the newest ripoff pooped out of the bowels of Home's development teams. If you haven't heard the news, the Midway is quick to take your money and not give you shit in return. Here's some fun posts:

According to this topic:

I am having problems with midway I have the tickets but every time I go to play a game home glitches and it kicks me off from it and I try again and it says game is unavailable it happens with every game

And this topic:

hi home fixer ppl lol.. i was hopin one of u would read this and fix the earing in the carnaval i have all of them i think n they all only are workin for one ear n the other one is missing..i like them alot i was hoping it was a acident u cud fix it so that we have it for both ears if we won it. thank u very much =)

And this topic:

hey i've purchased 100 tickets from the midway carnival and did not receive any whats going on . the order numbers are 1704254068 and 1700520158

And this topic:

just went and purchased tickets and key and my system stuck on the download part any advise and did i just get ripped off

And this topic:

So, I decided to go play in the Midway ... Had 26 tokens to play with ... I played 4 or 5 games of Spilt Milk, and my token count went down to 4 ...that session cost me 22 tokens somehow

Then, I decide, I need more tokens so I go buy more ... it takes .99 from my wallet, and I get nothing ... I just payed to get 0 tokens, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT? and just like my missing hockey pants that I bought over a year ago (nice joke to play on a Canadian), I assume I'll get no response from the appropriate people ... it's bad enough that I had to change the aspect ratio on the tv just to play these games but now it's taking my money on top of it? Thank-you Sony

and this topic:

this is reseaworrioer i brought 2 99cent tickets an the key from midway and im upset because it's not working . i can't play any games NONE ..this is not the 1st time . i put in alot of $ into home . i just want what i paid 4 ... help please

and this topic:

So I bought some tickets today for The Midway, used them, and decided to buy more, so I did. Well the second set of tickets I purchased didn't register. It registered that I purchased them, but did not give me the actual tickets. So now I didn't get my tickets, ergo I can't use them, and I can't buy more (not that I would if they don't give them to me -.-).

This topic seems to think their ISP is to blame, however this topic brings it back to reality:

I just bought the $.99 ticket pack and downloaded it as normal. When I exited the ticket booth, my counter is still at zero. I have left the space and come back. Same problem. What should I do? I am very low on money and it was a tough call to give another dollar to this carnival when I've already spent so much on it. I don't like how I paid but cannot play.

Bottom line, the Midway is broken, and spending money on it is foolish. Spend that money on one of the games off PSN. You'll get more value for your money

Clone Trooper gloves missing in Clone Trooper Bundl

Speaking of bundles missing items, there is this topic:

The Clone Trooper gloves are clearly shown to be part of the bundle in the picture on the LucasArts store, yet are missing when purchased. The Clone Trooper gloves have been missing from the NA store for quite a while and it's about time NA gets to complete the outfit. Those who bought the bundle and received no gloves should be compensated for the missing gloves as well.

Beardless Wonder

Beardless? That could be due to one of this weeks Home failures, which is fucking up the Obi-Wan outfit.

Today I bought the Obi-Wan Tunic and Armor Bundle, everything is in my inventory except the beard. I shall wait a week or two before I start feeling ripped off, in hopes that it will appear. Please, can the powers that lead, look into this.

Which Locust_Star replied:

Did you check the Facial Hair section? That's where it should be appearing.

And sixteen minutes later:

Update: We are fixing this issue now. Those of you that have already purchased the bundle and have not received the beard will need to contact Customer Service on Monday for vouchers for the beard. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Derp. How many update bundles will break? The list continues.

All my "HOME" purchases are GONE!!!

Another reason to avoid spending money on Home: (Edited for spelling and grammar)

Two days ago it took me an HOUR on the phone to straighten it this out. Apparently my acct got put on hold because I made several single purchases in "PlayStation Home" for myself. PlayStation took it upon themselves to flag my account due to my card possibly being stolen, but not bother to contact me about it. After three days of my account being on hold I spent an hour on the phone i was finally able to to log back in. Today i log in and ALL MY PURCHASES ARE GONE!!! (Two apartments, furniture, outfits and other items) I called them back today about all my stuff being missing and they tell me its not their problem and i have to contact moderators in this FORUM to get my PURCHASED ITEMS BACK. I find this very wrong and annoying.

Will someone please explain this madness and tell me how to get my stuff back?

Wow, More Failures than Usual!

Every time Home gives us the slightest glimpse of Hope... They crush it like a bug. But not any bug, one of those gross bugs that explodes and makes a crunching sound.

First there's this post about content refusing to be bought:

Every time i got to checkout at the lucusarts store I'm getting an error "this content cannot be selected at this time" Thanks. Glad I got up early

FAIL. I checked into it and got the same error. Please comment to let us know if you got it too. Next up, buying stuff and not receiving it, a Home Classic:

Do not buy the locoroco stuff because it does not appear after you have bought it.

Ok, that was to the point, but did other people notice?

Are you asking a question? I wish people would right coherently on simple sentences.

Yes, the stuff do NOT show up after you buy them. What a jip. I just spent more than $12 for no reason. The information says that I get an instant download of the virtual stuff but I don't have it. Sony broke the contract with me. I did not agree to a "pay now receive maybe later" for the virtual stuff.

I'll take that as a yes, FAIL #2. Next, we have the lightsaber. Everyone wanted these so badly. Home provided. Think they did so without screwing it up?:

The Lightsaber is $5...
Thats outrageous

That's from Fail777! King and ruler of Failtopia. But is that the only issue? seems not:

I saw a girl with a lightsaber, it didnt even glow

Awesome, overpriced, non-glowing lightsaber. Even the Glow rods glow, why don't these? FAIL #3. Anything else? How about Sodium:

just as subject says i lost 4.99 in new store at mall. i was tryin 2 buy da animated emoticon love bundle and lost 4.99. I got an error, but dnt write it dwn srry. who do i contact to get refund. plz help

FAIL 4. And the day has barely started. This is going to be a fun update.

Progress?

Over the last couple of weeks, there has been a few things happening. Good things for a change. I'd like to bring attention to them. First is this topic by Locust_Star:

I've discussed some of this with users via PM, but today this little nugget of good news came down for you all that are still waiting for certain items to be recovered:

"For users that have lost reward items, we are planning to have an extended maintenance in March to merge the lost rewards we have been able to recover with the current live database. Details will be announced at a later date."

You heard it right, you'll finally get some of those lost items!

Secondly, there was this post by... Locust_Star again:

As some of you may know, select items contained within the Venetian Mask Bundle have not been appearing in inventories after purchase. We apologize deeply for this error. As a gesture of good will (and a means to making sure everyone that purchased this bundle receives these items), we will be making this bundle free to the entire community starting at 12:00am PT on Saturday, February 13th and ending at 12:00am PT on Monday, February 15th.

A little late reporting this we're aware, but it goes to show you, people pissing and moaning is starting to get some action. Broken stuff isn't being tolerated anymore, and folks haven't just sucked it up. To the home community, minus the useless HCV, thank you. Your non-stop complaining got progress. We just hope you don't stop. And thanks to Locust_Star who has picked up the pace with the bugs and communication.

First Missing Item Report

First report of a missing item for 1/28/10 update:

Today I bought the Gem Dress from the Costumes shop in the mall. I didn't buy the whole set, as I just wanted the dress really. It's kind of an 80's style purple dress with green straps I think. I've been able to preview it from the store, however the dress hasn't shown up on my inventory yet. I've tried logging out and back in and whatever else but nothing seems to have worked. And apparently the dress itself is bugged and no one has it in their inventory yet (correct me if I'm wrong). Hopefully this gets fixed soon, as it was a really cute dress and probably my favorite item from the update today.

Second post, same issue:

I purchased the new Gem Dress from Costumes today and it does not show up in my inventory. I checked under Torso and Legs, and it's not there. I hope this get fixed asap.

Assassins Creed - Now with vanishing outfit!

Much like a true assassin, This guy's outfit vanished into the night, alone with his money:

hi sindonia star i hope you can help me with my problem on 1-18-2010 i pay for a outfit on home .the store trend were i got it from a assassin creed 2 outfit the newest one i pay 249 for it and never receive it i have it in my transation management but not in my inventory can you help me please asap thank you oh my new email adress vampsps3@yahoo.com

Sorry, you spent to much, can't help you.

We figured before they lock/delete/move this topic, we'd bring attention to it: (Please forgive the capslock, not our fault)

OH YES THEY CAN TRANSFER THEM TO ANOTHER ACCOUNT, BUT AS I ASKED THEM JUST A FEW DAYS AGO, THEY REFUSE TO AGREE TO TRANSFER THEM BACK TO THE ORIGINAL FROZEN ACCOUNT WHEN THEY FIX IT!

THEY SAID THAT THEY WOULD TRANSFER THEM BUT NOT TRANSFER THEM BACK. THEY CLAIM THAT THEY CANT. THIS MADE ME REAL MAD. FOR ONE THING, THEY HINTED THAT AT $247 I HAVE TOO MANY ITEMS. THIS HINTS THAT IF I HAD NOT BOUGHT SO MANY ITEMS, LIKE IF I ONLY HAD $20 WORTH OF ITEMS, MAYBE THEY WOULD TRANSFER THEM BACK OVER. BASICALLY, I'M BEING PENALIZED FOR BUYING TOO MANY ITEMS. I AM BEING PENALIZED FOR HAVING TOO MANY ITEMS. I'M BEING PENALIZED FOR DOING MORE THAN EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT WHICH IS TO BUY EVERYTHING IN SIGHT. THIS IS WRONG. THEY ARE LAZY AND DO NOT WANT TO DO THEIR JOBS WHICH IS TO GIVE US ACCESS TO THE ITEMS THAT WE HAVE BOUGHT (PUT THEM ON A LOANER ACCOUNT IF THEIR PROGRAM IS BUSTED) AND TO PUT THE ITEMS BACK (WHEN THEY FIX THE ORIGINAL ACCOUNT THAT THEY BROKE BECAUSE THIER PROGRAM DOESNT WORK PROPERLY) BECAUSE THIS IS IN FACT THEIR JOB TO DO THIS

Poor Frog Canadians!

After being randomly switched to the Europe server, many of the French Canadians got really irritated. Rightfully so. Now they are coming back from their visit to the Old World, and it seems they left some stuff behind.

Since last week, all French Canadian users of Home got "free vacation" to Europe. We got all redirected to European servers of Home by error...

Today the problem got resolved, but there is another one!
Many clothes and prizes that I had unlocked in the past are missing for me now. It looks like that I have lost all my Theater Prize and Special Event Prize...
Here's the list of my missing items and clothes:
Legion T-shirt (Male / Female)
Happy New Year 2010 T-shirt (Male / Female)
Happy New Year 2010 Hat (Male / Female)
Christmas Tree / Christmas Tree (decorated)
Open Beta Anniversary T-shirt (Male / Female)
*Gold Chain
*Ninja figurine
*Guitar
Racecar
*Fish Hat Ornament
*Hamster
*Xi Butterfly ornament
*Film reel ornament
*Brain on plate
*Stone Turkey Statue
*Home logo
Lawman Vest (Male / Female)
Turkey Costume (Male / Female)
PSPgo Hat (Male / Female)
Best Ranger Competition T-shirt (Male / Female)
Criss Angel Coffin Coffee Table
Criss Angel's Mindfreaking Coffin Couch
Blue Glasses
Disco Glasses
Phurba Dagger
Zombie Costume (Male / Female)
Cole Outfit

What are we gonna do? Will Home help us?

Sorry to tell ya, but there's not shit you can do. The mods will not help you.

Home's Terrible Support. How bad is it? 10 unanswered posts.

I decided I was going to go on an adventure to the PlayStation®Home Support. See if I could dig through there and find some answers to WHY things don't get accomplished. I decided to pick 10 different support posts that should have been answered, that have not. This is what I found: (all references to pages are pages by the default settings)

First is this post, 6th Lure Is Broken!!! (When will this be fixed): At this point the topic is a little more then 28 hours old and two pages.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Secondly this post, user from quebec redirect to european server: Currently this post is four days old, the person posting claims that the issue had been going on since Thursday the 7th. Three pages.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Third, How do I get missing ITEMS?: As of this point, this post is a week old. 2 pages long. The person posting it even says:

First, since SONY has like NO CUSTOMER SERVICE at for home, and PM's GO UNANSWERED how do you get items you are missing?

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

I decided to stop picking on the new posts. I mean, a week isn't forever. I went back through the pages to page five. Surely things here had to be answered. Unanswered post four, Central Plaza FREEZES,,,needs Maintenance!!!: This post was posted 1 month 6 days ago.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Page 6 of the forum, post number five, Why does my Ghostbusters StayPuft shirt look all screwed up?: posted 11 days ago

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Page 13 had this gem, number six in my count, MAKES ME SICK!: posted 18 days ago.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Page 13 also had this post, number seven, Why is it I have yet to get support for my missing paid item?: posted 2 months ago. 3 pages long. To quote:

I've called Sony Support 3 times since Home's 1.32 update and they told me that they can not refund my money for my missing "Female Do-rag". They told me that I have to contact the Home Managers or the Home Moderators to either get my money back or to restore my missing item. I've PM Locust Star 2 times and I've PM Cydonia and Glasswalls at least once. I've even sent an email through the support form and not one person from Sony replied to my problem. What the hell kind of support is this company is running. I haven't even got a reply that someone is going to look into my problem. It seems that the people who run home can only ban people from home or provide service that will line their pockets with more money. I'm very disappointed in the service from this company it makes me not want to purchase anything from the Playstation network anymore seeing how they can not provide technical support for my purchased products from the service.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Number 8, from page 15, Over-moderation (Directed at forum staff): This was actually replied to. It was given a half assed reply. (The admin asks that if your post is deleted to take it up with the mod who deleted it. How is that possible of THE POST IS MISSING? Astounding.)

LAME RESPONSE FROM STAFF

Page 16, unanswered post number nine, I DID NOT GET THE TURKEY STATUE, CP lag crashed me!!! HELP : Posted 21 days ago.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

And finally #10, Lost and Found!: This post is for support for missing or broken items. It is six pages long. It has been going for two months. It is full of tons of folks who paid for things they didn't receive or that don't work.

NO RESPONSE FROM STAFF.

Tune in later as I continue to expose the support forums lack of support, and the lame duck job that the home team is doing.