Not entertained by PS3 credit card charges

Ita Murphy contacted us with a problem she has been having with Sony Playstation.

“On June 27th my husband made a €20 online purchase for our seven-year-old son on the PS3. The games console belongs to our two older sons. Unknown to my husband or myself, the PS3 retained his credit card details, and later, in the early hours of the morning, our seven-year-old got up out of bed and went downstairs to continue playing his game.”

The next morning Ita’s husband got a call from his bank stating that there had been purchases on his credit card amounting to €235.90, which they now know their son was able to make via the PS3. It had retained the card details and didn’t look for authorisation with each purchase.

“Obviously, our son had not a clue he was racking up charges, and each time he was asked if he wanted to purchase a piece of equipment for the game he just kept hitting ‘yes’.

“On June 28th I sent an email to Playstation detailing the events of the night before, and telling them that all but €20 were unauthorised purchases and asking for the balance to be returned to our account,” she writes.

“Since then emails have been back and forth from Sony, but they refuse to even entertain the idea of a refund, deeming the situation regrettable.

According to the Playstation network’s terms of service, users are responsible for “all use of [the account], including all purchases and online conduct”. When it comes to storage of cards details, section 6 states: “If you register a payment card to your SEN account and/or when a request is made to add funds to your SEN wallet using a payment card, we may carry out residency, anti-fraud and other checks with your card issuer using your card details, at no cost to you. Your card details (excluding your three-digit security number) will be stored for future use unless you delete them.”

But, as Ita says, her husband was “only making a purchase as a once-off for our son, and neither he nor I knew that Sony automatically retained these details. I can’t even begin to express my utter frustration with Sony and their unwillingness to even entertain our request,” she writes.

“Neither of us can understand why the company does not make it standard practice to seek authorisation at each time of purchase. I can only come to the conclusion that this is a deliberate stance on their part to generate further purchases.

“I am sure plenty of people have been bitten in similar situations with a far heavier financial impact, but we can ill-afford the money loss.”

We contacted Sony but we were still awaiting a response at the time of going to print.

Change of hotel angers holiday

maker A reader and her family booked a two-week holiday to Tunisia starting on September 6th

through Skytours Travel Agents on Dublin’s Talbot Street. They were supposed to stay in the El Mouradi Palm Marina Hotel. The holiday was organised by Just Sunshine Holiday Company.

It would have been the third time the family stayed at this hotel, but when they arrived in Tunisia they were told that the hotel was overbooked and they had been put into El Mouradi Palace, which was listed as a five-star hotel.

“We were not informed about the changes made to our holiday booking before we left Ireland, so we had no choice of hotels and were not given an offer of a refund. We were not even given a chance to pay extra for another hotel of our choice,” she writes. She judged that the new hotel was not of an acceptable standard and that she has travelled to more than 38 countries and never had to complain about any hotel until now.

“We spent nine days trying to get out of this hotel, even to a lower-starred one, but we were unsuccessful. We were told by the holiday rep it was against the company’s policy to do so and that his manager would not allow it. When they got home they sent complaints and photos to Skytours who passed them on Just Sunshine. “What I want to know is who is to blame?”

We contacted Skytours, which in turn contacted Just Sunshine. It said it was still investigating the case and would get back to us. We will, hopefully, have more to report next week.