You have 14 days to request a refund on your PlayStation Store purchases, and you must not have started downloading any part of the content. Once you begin downloading the content, it generally becomes ineligible for a refund unless it’s faulty.
Generally, refunds will be issued to the same payment method that they were originally purchased with. Certain payment methods, such as vouchers, will not allow for this. In these situations, refunds will be issued to your PSN wallet.
The PlayStation Store does not issue refunds for purchases made outside of the PlayStation Store. For example, for purchases made on PlayStation Direct, gift cards, vouchers for PlayStation Now or PlayStation Plus, as well as purchases from other retailers, or voucher codes for specific games.
You can contact PlayStation Support for:
PlayStation Refunds: If you have purchased something on PlayStation Store but decided to cancel it, then you can ask for a refund.
Unauthorized Payments: If you think that your account has been compromised, or if you have been the victim of fraud, then contact your card provider and report the incident. PlayStation Support will only consider discussing the charges with the account holder.
Voucher Code Recovery: If your voucher code was printed on a receipt, please call the store to get in touch with them. For damaged vouchers, please provide proof of purchase and the date when it was purchased.
Request PlayStation Store Refund Via:
- Refund Via Assistant Chat
- Call PlayStation Store Support (800) 345-7669 (Mon-Fri 9:00AM-6:00PM PT)
- PlayStation Store Twitter @AskPlayStation (Open 8:00AM-7:00PM PT)
More Helpful PlayStation Store Refund Links:
If you made a PlayStation purchase at another retailer, you should check that retailer’s refund policy and procedures.
How to Get Refund on PlayStation Store
- Sign in to your PlayStation account at my.account.sony.com.
- Once you have signed in, select “Refund Request” which will initiate the support request with the chatbot. The chatbot will ask you some questions to help determine your eligibility for a refund.
- As of December 2020, this includes a question asking if your request is about Cyberpunk 2077. If you respond yes, you will be taken through that process specifically.
- The chatbot will tell you that if you’re eligible for a refund, you’ll need to speak with an agent to complete the process. Click “I’m ready” to proceed.
- You will be asked if you are the owner of the account. As previously stated, only account owners can request refunds, so click “Yes, I am” if that is applicable. Otherwise, you can have them available to authorize for you or you can take down the support ID so that you can come back to chat when they’re available.
- You’ll need to select the payment type that was used when the purchase was made.
- Indicate your refund request reason.
- You’ll then be asked if any content has been downloaded. If you select “Yes,” you’ll be told that you’re ineligible for a refund according to Sony’s refund policy. So, select “No” as applicable to proceed.
- You’ll then be asked if it is your first time requesting a refund. If you say it is not your first time requesting a refund, you will be asked why you asked for a refund last time.
- Finally, you’ll be asked how long ago you made the purchase. If you don’t remember when you made the purchase, you can find it in your account’s transaction history. Input the purchase date in the blank provided.
- You will be given a support ID and connected to a live agent.
Refunds Are Handled Differently in Regions
If you are in a different region, you’ll want to check the PlayStation website to confirm the process for your region. For example, in Europe, refunds are handled by a form rather than by chat as is the case in North America.
Refund Window
Generally, you can get a refund within 14 days of purchase and as long as you haven’t started to download the content. Subscriptions can be partially refunded depending on how much you’ve used.
Refund Process
The process generally involves using a chatbot to answer some preliminary questions to determine your eligibility and then speaking with a representative to complete the transaction. Although the policy says that you must not have downloaded content to be eligible for a refund, we provide a way that you may be able to obtain a refund even if you have downloaded some of the content.
How Long Does It Take
The PlayStation refund policy for North America does not indicate how long it takes for a refund to be issued. However, some purchasers have reported receiving it in as little as 24 hours to about a week.
Purchasers have reported that they were told to expect it in about a week to 10 days, but the refunds were issued much sooner. Generally, merchants set expectations higher so that they can avoid dissatisfaction if something happens that causes the refund to be delayed.
How to Check Refund Status
You can check your refund status on the PlayStation Store by going to Settings, then Users and Accounts, then Account, then Payment and Subscriptions, and finally, Transaction History. Once your refund has been processed, you will see it here.
If Your Refund Request Is Denied
If you’ve already downloaded some or all of your PlayStation content, you can try this to get a refund. One of PlayStation’s eligibility requirements for a refund is that you haven’t yet started downloading any of the content. So, technically, if you’ve already started to download the content, you can’t return the game anymore.
This is a workaround that you can try in which you talk to an actual human to try to get your refund essentially. If you’ve started your download, the first thing that you’ll want to do is cancel the game. If you’ve already played the game, don’t play anymore.
Ask for Exception
The less time you’ve spent playing the game, the better your case is for basically requesting an exception to their refund policy. If you’ve played the game for several hours, or even just an hour, it’s going to be a hard sell to convince the customer support representative that you deserve a refund.
It might still be doable, but it will definitely be harder because you’ll still need to come up with a legitimate reason for why you’re trying to cancel.
How to Answer Chatbot
Typically, there are seven questions that you are asked by the chatbot. The fifth question asks whether or not you have started to download the content. Even if you have, you want to answer no because you want to be able to talk to a human.
Be sure to answer the sixth and seventh questions accordingly so that you can get to a representative as well. At this point, you will be put in the queue to wait for a representative. This could take a while depending on how busy they are. You can do other things while you’re waiting.
When You Are Connected to Support Team
Once you’re connected with a representative they will ask you some of the same questions. They will be able to see that you downloaded the content, but when they ask you if you have, you should say something like no, I personally didn’t download the game.
Try to explain that it was a mistake and that someone else accidentally purchased it and downloaded it. You could also say that you don’t have password protection on your account, but you have since added it to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
Your goal is to make the customer support representative sympathize with you so that they will grant you an exception and approve your refund.
What Not to Do
You don’t want to just say something like, oh no this game just sucks. They aren’t going to give you a refund in that case. You can’t lie to them completely because they can see your log time of how much you’ve downloaded and how much time, if any, you’ve spent in the game. They have access to all of that information.
If, for example, you beat a game, you can’t tell a customer support representative that the game was glitchy and you want your money back. They won’t believe you.
Types of PlayStation Store Refunds
There are three different types of content that you can request a refund for on the PlayStation Store. These include games and add-ons, subscriptions, and pre-orders.
Games and Add-on Purchases
The games and add-on refund policy covers full game purchases, in-game consumables, season passes, and any downloadable content.
Once you begin downloading content, it is generally no longer eligible for refund unless it is proven to be faulty, which can be difficult. But if necessary, it’s worth a try and can be done by following the same procedure as will be outlined below.
Subscriptions
Unlike the games and add-on refund policy, subscriptions are still eligible for refund after you’ve already started using the purchase.
However, the refund amount will be reduced to a partial refund amount depending on things such as how long you’ve had the subscription, whether you’ve played online, downloaded any monthly games, used cloud storage, and other factors.
Pre-Orders
The final type of PlayStation Store refund is for pre-orders. If you pre-ordered the content more than 14 days before it’s official release date, you can request a refund up until the release date.
If you pre-ordered less than 14 days before the official release date, you can request a refund up to 14 days after the purchase date. Sometimes pre-orders include extra content that is made available before the release. Access to that content becomes immediately unavailable once the refund is processed.
Cyberpunk 2077
The PlayStation Store currently has a separate process flow for Cyberpunk 2077 due to widespread glitches in the content. In order to streamline the process, they have placed a link prominently at the top of the refund page with a link to start the process.
The website states that they want to ensure a high level of customer satisfaction, so they are offering a full refund of Cyberpunk 2077 purchases from the PlayStation Store. They also state that they have removed the game from the store and are not selling it right now. They are likely working out the glitches that caused the issues and will be re-releasing it at a later date.
When Will Refunds Be Processed
Once they have confirmed that you purchased the game from the PlayStation Store, they will process your refund. The site does not say how long it will take. Instead, it says that timing can vary depending on the payment method and your financial institution. You are then asked to sign in to complete your request.
Some purchasers reported still not having received their refunds in January 2021 after requesting them in December 2020. However, others confirmed that they did indeed receive their refund after some time.
Many were dissatisfied because they didn’t receive any type of email or communication confirming that their request had been received or was being processed. However, they eventually received their refunds in January 2021 after some delays.
Some recommended calling to speak with a representative or tweeting @AskPlayStation via direct message (DM) on Twitter for assistance. It should be noted that requesting assistance via Twitter might have longer response times.
Conclusion
There are several types of refunds that you might seek from the PlayStation Store. This can include things like games, add-ons, season passes, in-game consumables, and PlayStation Video titles. It could also be pre-orders, promotional bundles, and subscription services.
Certain items, such as wallet funding/top-up, online ID change, and purchases outside of the PlayStation Store, such as gift cards, vouchers, code cards, etc. are non-refundable.
You can start your refund request form with PlayStation using Refund Assistant or contacting customer support through your Sony Account.
PlayStation does not make the refund process as easy and simple as Steam. The following instructions guide you through requesting a refund on the website using the live chat feature. Details about other methods are below.
Related: Best SSD for PS5 2022
