If you use PlayStation Network, Sony’s online platform for buying games and downloadable content for games, consider not keeping payment information on file and changing your password. It’s bad enough that stories of hacked accounts have surfaced in recent days, but these users report that Sony has given them no good options: they can eat hundreds of dollars’ worth of purchases, or lose access to their PSN accounts…forever.

If you’re wondering what kind of mischief can result when someone gets hold of your account, well, here’s the sad tale of a Reddit user who disputed $570 in fraudulent purchases made on their account. That’s what you’re supposed to do when fraudsters get hold of your account and make a bunch of unauthorized purchases, right? We thought so. Sony disagrees, though. They’re holding this gamer’s account hostage until they pay back the $570 in fraudulent charges. No, really.

I explained that this was a fraudulent purchase made by someone who had hacked into my account. I had never given my username or password to anyone. They did not budge on their position, though. Sony is holding my account hostage until I pay their ransom.

This user isn’t alone. It happened to another person, who posted to Reddit before taking the step of disputing the charges. The situation is similar, with about $600 in fraudulent charges that Sony won’t admit are fraudulent. Here’s the dilemma that Sony has given this user: they can dispute the charges and have their account indefinitely banned from PSN, or they can pay the $450 and have their console banned for only six months.

This victim has turned down offers of gifted games, instead wanting to turn the world’s attention to Sony’s bad security practices. The company is displaying a particular gift for blaming users for their account breaches, which is rather ironic considering the terrible breach of employee data, films, and employee e-mails late last year in another branch of the company.

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