As stated in this article, when you are an editor for an print or online magazine, often companies will give you free software and or hardware (joysticks, Mice, etc…) to get you to review their products. The problem comes, when they want to get you to review a MMORPG type online game with monthly charges.

There are usually three methods in which games like these are reviewed.

The first method, is for the game developer to allow the reviewer access on their Beta server- everyone plays for free, and any problems in gameplay can be linked to the software still being in Beta.

The second method, is for the developer to grant “free” accounts. This is usually popular with the writers, in that they don’t need to play the game on “their dime”. The downside is that some magazine and readers feel that this causes the writers to have a biased view on the game, and makes them soft in their reviews.

The third method, is for the writer to create his own account, with his credit card info (this happens a lot). This allows for a purely unbiased review of the game, as the writer is playing the game as any “real” player would. This also happens a lot in overseas markets, where the reseller can not get access to special accounts to allow for “free” gameplay. The problem with this, is that most of these games (at that time) require that you register a credit card, even if you are only registering.

In my case, when I reviewed Ultima Online, I was required to make an account with the game. Most MMORPG games come with a free month or two to play included in the price, as did Ultima Online, and I figured that I would cancel my account after the review.

Two months passed, I finished the review, and loosing any interest on continuing the game for a monthly fee, I canceled my account, and uninstalled the game.

A couple of months passed, and I noticed that I was being charged a monthly fee for Ultima Online. Surprised, I reinstalled the game and tried to logon, only to be told that the account information did not exist. I then tried through the web account, to access my account information, and was told that my password was wrong.

Repeated Emails to EA in the US went unanswered, and it took over a year, and an official EA office in Japan, before I was able to get them to stop charging my account.

The lesson is…Beware of who you give your credit information to, or you will pay for it.

Just my two cents

So, that’s good news for me. And it appears the Sony PlayStation Store can remove charges, despite what its tech support folks say, or what it says in its terms of service. But it leaves the issue of the Sony tech support’s bad service and really bad advice. No one’s likely to be fixing that any time soon.

HOWEVER, one who insists upon doing business with a company whose bzns “ethics” are such as those shown by Sony in the past really kinda deserve what they get!

Also while you were logged into the Store via the PC does it not let you change your password? The simple thing to combat a PS3 with an auto sign-in left on would be to change the password so the one saved in the PS3 no longer matches the system.

From my experience it’s best to be civil to Customer Services reps, they are not the ones that nicked your money and they can only tell you what they’ve been told to. Swearing and being insulting is a sure fire way to make your CS experience more difficult, if you treat them with some respect they’ll probably be more willing to help you with your query.

But never having had a problem with my PS3 I’ve never spoken to them myself so I’ll reserve judgment, but the fact remains you should never rely on someone else to look after your personal data – you should have never sent that PS3 back with your account set to auto sign-in, and if it had come to me in a fresh-install state I’d have gone so far as to perform a full format of the drive before sending it back…

I was going to suggest going to store.playstation.com to remove your payment information but you FINALLY got that infomratiom from them.

That is wrong, they should wipe the PS3 clean before they send it out again. I work in IT and before we get rid of old pc’s we wipe our Hard Drive clean.

It’s just common sense to me.