My Runescape Diary

My son was getting a bit bored of Runescape and tried a few more on-line games, playing club penguin, a nice friendly game owned by Disney but with limited activities, nonetheless he had a few months fun, I paid for his membership for a while being a well known name and had little worry about scammers taking advantage of my card details.

He tried Bin Weevils very limited activities but a few hours of entertainment, no membership option so no worry.
He also tried FreeRealms, I'm not adding a link because the name is far from what it implies, FreeRealms owned by Sony you would imagine to be a safe place to trust with your credit card details, be afraid be very afraid never trust them with your debit card details (maestro in my case).

He found this game and played it for free for a while and with most games there is not a lot to do until you are a member, being a big name I trusted Sony and decided to pay for my sons membership when the Club Penguin one had run out.
I was very nervous from the start because you can not buy 1 months subscription for the game you can only pay for ongoing monthly subscriptions, I thought OK its Sony they are a world wide known name and wont stitch me up and my Son really wanted membership, I paid the money on my Maestro card and thought nothing of it, I would cancel the subscription if he didn't want it renewed.

I went to work the next day and came back to see emails in my inbox thanking me for purchasing Station Cash, I had never authorised it so went downstairs and gave my Son a telling off for using my debit card without permission (not that he ever gets permission I always make payments on his behalf), he was very upset and went to bed in tears, after the initial shock had worn off I took a step back and thought about what I had done.

My son was playing a game that promoted the selling of Station cash on every screen refresh, showed all the goodies you can get every where he went, he is only 10 and the lure of fancy armour, faster cars and better weapons is quite a temptation for many older players to resist let alone a 10 year old.
I wrote an email to Sony telling them what had happened and their reply was.

Thank you for contacting Sony Online Entertainment.

There are parental passwords that can be set up to prevent this from occurring from within the game, also all of our transactions require the CCV2 code on the back of the card to be completed. If your son has this information it is the responsibility of the card holder and not Sony Online for transactions made. Also I do not have the account name that you are referring to as your E-Mail address should have been used to create the parental E-mail. There are several child locks built into this game for parents to take advantage of. Could you please provide the account name and I will cancel your account.

I apologised to my son for being unpleasant as I believe he is not solely to blame for the purchase of Station Cash and Sony should take some responsibility for their site.

With regard to their response above.

a/ There may be passwords available to stop this happening but I spent hours searching for it and could not find any that prevented payment.

b/ They state that a CCV2 number is always required, my son showed me how he did it using stored card details and it never asked for the CCV2 number, my card is always with me and he never has access to any numbers neither would he know what it was anyway.

c/ I tried to remove my card details from the system using the Remove credit card facility, I was totally confused because there was no facility to remove the card number all I could do was change the Start and Expiry date which I did to prevent them charging it again.

d/ If I replied with my Sons account name (Which I did anyway) they would have cancelled the account, that's fine after they had just charged me £60 for in game items that I had not authorised.

In my eyes this is Fraud, Fraudulent Sony Online Entertainment LLC and no way to get compensation.

I have considered taking them to court but they are based in Holland and I am not sure how proceedings would be instigated, where and how much, can I take on a multi million dollar industry to court, I will certainly look into it.

Natwest Bank come up trumps again, Yeah right.

I contacted my bank Natwest to have a stop put on the transactions and they said because I paid with my debit card (maestro) for the membership I have authorised them to take as much money as they want when they want and there was nothing I could do.
How many people would open an account if they knew that every time they used a card that is a legal reason for the company to empty your account at a whim.

My suggestion to anyone thinking of using a debit (Maestro, Delta etc) to purchase anything even from a leading manufacturer such as Sony Online Entertainment LLC DO NOT DO IT.

I have not let this go by far, I will pursue this until I get a refund from someone or I die trying.

So Sony Online Entertainment LLC thanks for ripping me off and thanks Natwest Bank for helping them.

I am so glad Jagex don't have Real word payments for online items, perhaps the above is one of the main reasons it is not an option.

Sony just lost an ongoing subscription because of a lack of security in their payment system and no interest in sorting it out, but hey they just got £60 out of me through immoral means.