Sony really sucks compared to MS on this one issue and it's pissing me off big time

Thread: Sony really sucks compared to MS on this one issue and it's pissing me off big time
Boss Mog

Boss Mog

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  2. PlayStation
So a few years ago I moved to Europe from the US and doing so has made using PSN very difficult.

It's impossible to change countries on your PSN account so I'm stuck with a US account if I want to keep all my trophies, DLC and digital purchases and all my PS+ games. I didn't think this would be a big issue since I mostly buy physical games (i have a European account in case I need to install dlc for physical games I buy here and I can just switch back to my US account to play). The problem though has been renewing my US PS+ sub which has been getting more and more challenging.

Sony won't take foreign credit/debit cards or PayPal as payment options for US accounts. At first i was able to buy digital PS+ subs on amazon US but they closed that loophole now. Also I was pretty active on the GAF B/S/T thread and bought US PS+ subs and US PSN cards from users there (for cheap too, i got several $50 cards for $40 which at the time was only like 35€ if that) but then the exodus happened and that died so I had to turn to gray market sites like cdkeys, eneba, and others and while I was lucky that it always worked, I was always afraid they were gonna scam me especially after reading lots of horror stories but recently they started asking for way too much personal info, before you could just pay with PayPal and that was it, now they ask for your cell number, even scans of your ID, so fuck them forever basically. There's still eBay but they charge me 20% VAT or US tax depending on which delivery address I pick, and Sony charges tax on the PSN store too, I'm not paying US sales tax twice, fuck that.

Long story short I can upgrade my PS+ to Extra for 25 bucks so I was trying to buy a $25 US PSN code but I'm just running out of options and it's pissing me off. This is because when I got my Series X last year I was able to quickly log in to my US XBOX account that I hadn't used since the 360 (I never owned an XB1), change my location to my current country and keep all my digital licenses for the 360 live arcade games i had purchased back in the day and now I could shop in my country's store and pay in euros and sub to Gamepass in euros.

If MS can make it so simple to move why the fuck can't Sony do the same? I shouldn't have to jump though hoops and be forced to use shady means just because I moved.
 
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the dlc thing is the thing that really pisses me off about how sony setup their psn service..its not actually region free at all
years ago i created a US PS account when the aus dollar was on par with US currency so it made it cheaper to simply buy games digitally as it was cheaper than purchasing in aus stores but as the dollar adjusted i went back to buying games in aus...this however meant that any aus disc i had i could not simply download the dlc or enter the store from the game as it was tied to the region the disc was which could not be accessed as it was a US account

i got around the payment issues as you simply buy US cards off amazon but there was no way to change or convert your PSN account over to another region
the account itself also means that you are also tied to regions helpdesk (which is also geoblocked) so if you try and refund something digital on the account (which you are allowed by aus law) ...you have to jump through a million hoops as the US helpdesk does not recognize that you can actually refund things in Australia if they dont meet expectations.

I had to actually file a complaint with our consumer watchdog and it took about 5 months to get a refund as it went to the sony international head office and then had to filter back down to the US helpdesk to refund the game
and the funny thing was even after all of that the email summary i got back was ...we made an exception to our rule and you should not be using a US psn in aus

XBOX account...no issues
i can mix and match all sorts of DLC and games from other countries and they work fine
 
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Its amazing that Sony hasnt fixed this problem. Its been a thing for three generations now and was supposed to be solved when they transitioned from SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) to SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) and went from three different companies (SCEA, SCEE, SCEJ) to one company SIE with three divisions (SIEA, SIEE, SIEJ)..... but nothing really changed besides the reporting structure that gave more centralized power for decision making to SIEA.

Back in the PS3/360 days I use to work with Sony/MS on setting up my company's "DLC" store(s). On the MS side it was a one and done that was used for all players anywhere in the world that MS had a presence. Sony on the other hand had three discreet stores (SCEA, SCEE, SCEJ) that had to be set up individually and were mildly different. (Art dimensions, amount of text allowed, pricing structure, etc) To say the least it sucked dick through a coffee stirrer. If its still like that I would both be appalled and not surprised. For all of Sony's glory (and there is a lot), they make decisions/changes like an iceberg.
 
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Bionic Wolf said:
Looks like you'll have to move back. Come to NY. It sucks balls here.
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Will most likely never happen unless it's to flee a war or some crazy shit like that.

ManofTwo said:
It's a hassle. Just set it to the US. Thats the best way.
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Not really sure what you mean here. The account is US, I have no way to "set it" to anything else and that's the problem. Sony does not want people buying US PSN stuff outside of the US and they make it very hard.
 
Boss Mog said:
Will most likely never happen unless it's to flee a war or some crazy shit like that.


Not really sure what you mean here. The account is US, I have no way to "set it" to anything else and that's the problem. Sony does not want people buying US PSN stuff outside of the US and they make it very hard.
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Why not set it to a US account, buy a digital PSN card and use that to buy games etc.

If they're not accepting your CC etc.
 
ManofTwo said:
Why not set it to a US account, buy a digital PSN card and use that to buy games etc.

If they're not accepting your CC etc.
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That's what i was doing but my problem is that it's been getting very difficult to buy US digital codes here. I can't do it on Amazon anymore, gray market sites are shady as fuck and asking for more personal info than they used to so I refuse to use them anymore, people on eBay charge more than the code's value and eBay charges tax on top of that, not to mention that PSN charges tax too on top of that. I'm running out of options to buy digital codes, that's my real issue. I was thinking of trying Walmart.com I know they sell digital codes and you can use PayPal, but they might have blocked foreign PayPals from buying, I don't know i haven't tried. I just wish I still had friend or family in the US who could just buy me a code off of amazon and I could just paypal them but all I have left is an aunt who isn't good with computers.
 
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Boss Mog said:
That's what i was doing but my problem is that it's been getting very difficult to buy US digital codes here. I can't do it on Amazon anymore, gray market sites are shady as fuck and asking for more personal info than they used to so I refuse to use them anymore, people on eBay charge more than the code's value and eBay charges tax on top of that, not to mention that PSN charges tax too on top of that. I'm running out of options to buy digital codes, that's my real issue. I was thinking of trying Walmart.com I know they sell digital codes and you can use PayPal, but they might have blocked foreign PayPals from buying, I don't know i haven't tried. I just wish I still had friend or family in the US who could just buy me a code off of amazon and I could just paypal them but all I have left is an aunt who isn't good with computers.
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Why not on Amazon. They still have the digital
 
Boss Mog said:
Too afraid they might close my account. They could say "you're not in the US anymore so you can't use a US account, we're banning it".
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Their customer service department is absolute shit and would probably do that to save them filling out paperwork...the only reason why i probably still have my account is my complaint went via an Aus government agency....the same one that sued valve years ago for million's of dollars
 
ManofTwo said:
That is weird
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Not really, they don't want foreigners using the US store to possibly get discounts. Before Amazon used to work but Sony must've told them to stop accepting non US cards as payment. You really need a US card, even using a VPN to simulate buying from the US isn't enough.
 
Boss Mog said:
Too afraid they might close my account. They could say "you're not in the US anymore so you can't use a US account, we're banning it".
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I would still contact customer service if I were you. I was able to get a Japanese psn account moved to the US once but it was years ago during the ps3 era and it took a lot of back and forth with customer service. If I recall correctly much of the content I had accessed on the Japanese store didn't follow the account.

I wish I had my x360 account still. I lost access to the email it was tied to and they told me I was out of luck even though I could prove it was mine with address info and credit card proof. I had to create a new account for my XSS and I'm really resistant to buying anything on it now.
 
kingpotato said:
If I recall correctly much of the content I had accessed on the Japanese store didn't follow the account.
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Well that would pretty much make it pointless for me then, my main issue is keeping all my content from the US account intact, particularly a decade's worth of PS+ titles.
 
Boss Mog said:
Too afraid they might close my account. They could say "you're not in the US anymore so you can't use a US account, we're banning it".
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I don't think they'd do that tbh. Just call them and ask, they won't shut down your account immediately.
 
Boss Mog said:
Well that would pretty much make it pointless for me then, my main issue is keeping all my content from the US account intact, particularly a decade's worth of PS+ titles.
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To be fair the difference between the US and EU stores are probably less than the JP one. It might be possible to retain a lot more. You should still contact them honestly just to see.
 
I was able to finally find a way to buy digital PSN codes from Amazon US. It turns out there's a setting on Amazon hidden in the menus where you can select your region for digital purchases, so once I set that to US, I was able to checkout successfully on Amazon US without the code being removed from my cart. I wanna thank this one guy on reddit who mentioned this solution, you're a fucking legend!



Only caveat is that you have to pay in US dollars. Amazon US usually lets you pay in Euros for physical goods, it does the conversion for you so your bank won't charge you a fee for paying in dollars. i guess you can't on digital goods, i just hope the bank fee for paying in dollars isn't too bad.
 
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AJUMP23 said:
Can you put your console through a US VPN?

Where are you in Europe?
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VPNs don't work, Sony won't let you add a foreign bank card or foreign paypal account on a US account. The only way to purchase things on the US store when you live abroad is by adding funds to your wallet via US digital codes.

VPNs don't work for work on Amazon's website for purchasing codes either. But now I know that it wouldn't let me buy them because my region for digital purchases on Amazon wasn't set to US, so I changed that and now I'm good.
 
Had the same problem, set my account to UK when created it back in 2008 because it didn't let to choose my country.
Because of it I could not use paypal or credit card for digital purchases.
Found a site cardscodes.com and they never let me down, always bought psn cards codes from them and would still do if needed.
 
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