Sony agrees to review its PSN fraud allegation process

The way in which Sony handles victims of account fraud on PSN could be about to change.

The BBC’s consumer show Watchdog last week highlighted two problems with Sony’s fraud response measures.

The first is that it has been refusing to refund content that has been purchased by third parties illicitly using hacked accounts unless it can be shown that the content was faulty. In addition, those who fall victim to an account hack are also finding themselves locked out of their PSN profiles even once the fraud has been confirmed.

"We would like to thank BBC Watchdog for bringing these cases to our attention,” Sony said in a statement. Having reviewed the evidence, we concluded that these appear to be fraudulent transactions, and further, that unfortunately the service received by both Mr Archer and Mr Lappin fell below the high standards we set for ourselves.

We would like to apologise to them both, and notify them that we have taken immediate action to reinstate their accounts and refund the wallet top up as appropriate.

We are also reviewing the investigation process that is applied to allegations of unauthorised account use. We take the safety and security of our customers’ accounts very seriously, and have a range of industry-leading security measures in place to protect our customers. It is, however, imperative that all consumers take every precaution to protect their personal details online.”