Today is the first day of Sony's new fiscal year, and, probably as part of its Realignment of Key Businesses and Executive Appointments, the company has updated its PlayStation Store refund and cancellation policy, as seen in the PlayStation website. The exact terms of the refund policy are as follows:
Games, game add-ons, season passes, in-game consumables and PlayStation™ Video titlesBasically, anything that you purchase but do not use or download immediately can be refunded, so the policy is very geared to prevent purchases made by mistake. It doesn't detail how the faulty content will be determined, so that remains to be seen how users will have to proceed to establish to the PlayStation Store support that a product is indeed faulty.You can cancel a digital content purchase within 14 days from the date of purchase and receive a refund to your PSN wallet, provided that you have not started downloading or streaming it. Digital content that you have started downloading or streaming, and in-game consumables that have been delivered, are not eligible for a refund unless the content is faulty.
You can cancel your purchase of a season pass within 14 days from the date of purchase and receive a refund to your PSN wallet, provided that you have not started downloading or streaming any digital content (e.g. game add-ons) included in the season pass.
If you purchase in-game consumables on the PlayStation™ Store, they will be delivered when you next launch the game, until then you will have up to 14 days from the date of transaction to cancel. If you purchase in-game consumables during gameplay, they will be delivered immediately so you will not be able to cancel the purchase. In-game consumables are items such as virtual currencies (e.g. FIFA packs or GTA Cash Packs), boosts and other items that are depleted during gameplay.
It is also possible to request a refund for pre-orders, before and after the release of a title, also provided that you have not started downloading or streaming the content to your device. You can also request the cancellation of a subscription service such as PlayStation Plus, PlayStation Now, and Spotify Premium, but there's some nuance to the terms in that case: "The refund may be reduced pro-rata to reflect the use you have had of the service. This may show as two transactions in your account transaction history: a refund to your wallet of the full amount originally paid and then a debit of a charge for the period of the service you received." As such, users cannot expect the full refund after having used a subscription service for a while.
The specifics of requesting a refund are detailed on the PlayStation Store support article. All refunds will be issued to the user's PlayStation Network wallet, so there's no possibility of credit card refunds. And, as already reported last year, while you will finally be able to change your PSN ID, the policy update determines that you cannot cancel or obtain a refund for your purchase of a change of online ID.
What do you think of Sony's updated refund and cancellation policy? Have you had any troubles with the previous refund policy? Let us know in the comments below!
