UPDATE:
kadjar’s issue seems to be resolved! Sony was able to trace the IP his account is currently attatched to and it is somewhere in Europe (not specified). He stated on his Reddit post (view link below) ”Sony HQ had been made aware of my situation, and that they’ll be examining the details to see if there ought to be a change to their policies.”
This is good news for him and possibly others who might one day have the same fate. As for the other two mentioned below, hopefully there’s are resolved as well.
Yesterday, Reddit user kadjar made a post saying that his PlayStation Network account was hacked. He was charged over $600 and Sony is only willing to refund $150 of that. He is unable to authorize his account on his own PlayStation 4 for another 6 months because it has just been deactivated, as per Sony policy.
When speaking with customer service on the phone, he was told “but you only have the Last of Us and some of our free games, so it’s not a big deal”. If he disputes the charges with his bank to have the fees returned, it will end in a permanent ban for his account.
Now, where Sony has an exceptional reputation on making great games and consoles, their customer service in this particular case is just atrocious. But wait.. there were more cases than this one? The image below is of another PlayStation user who spoke with a ”representative” online to try and get an explanation of what had happened.
Something like this should be looked into on a higher level than just a robot on a chat line telling you when the console was deactivated. It didn’t help him whatsoever. And then it happened to someone else:
From what is written in the Reddit post linked above, kadjar received very little help from Sony, but users are wanting to gift him copies of games he might enjoy. Unfortunately, he is still unable to use his account.
It is HIGHLY recommended that if you have your debit/credit card on file in your PSN account, unlink it. It’s not clear if this is the same person, or multiple people, but it would be wise to take all security measures possible.