Sony’s latest game console, the PS5, has been hard to come by since its introduction in mid-November 2020. There is a worldwide shortage of computer chips, and Sony is also affected. The company expects that this problem will not be resolved until the fall.
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Game enthusiasts must therefore be patient or lucky when a retail chain has managed to buy a batch of PS5s. The Mediamarkt retail chain offered its customers such a great opportunity this week, says Rob Swerissen from Hilversum.
Extra accessories: 620 euros
“On Thursday we received an email that the sale would start at 10 am Friday morning. So I was ready, just like my son and son-in-law,” he says.
The standard PS5 sold out very quickly, but the three managed to order one with extra accessories, such as a headset and an extra controller. It was considerably more expensive, but they took that for granted.
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“All three of us received an order confirmation and paid for it, because you have to transfer immediately, of course, the 620 euros,” said Swerissen, who was glad that it had worked out. “You are looking forward to it, it is scarce and it was finally done, we thought.”
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Just after half past six in the evening, the joy turned to disappointment after an email from Mediamarkt. “WOW! Even our web shop couldn’t take all your enthusiasm and F5s for a while”, the company writes to Swerissen. His order has been “reluctantly” canceled by the company and he will be refunded within three days. His son was lucky, but his son-in-law was also missing out.
Complaints rain on Facebook
They are not the only customers who thought for several hours that they had managed to get their hands on the coveted game console. On the Facebook page complaints from disappointed customers are raining in the company. Swerissen himself thinks that it concerns hundreds of victims.
Whether that is correct is unclear, the company will not say how many orders have been canceled and how many PlayStations the company had in stock. “What I can say is that the demand was five times higher than the available stock”, Dorien Tjin-Kinds, press officer of the company, told RTL Z.
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Because all those buying enthusiasts placed their orders at the same time, things went wrong at the company, she explains. “Unfortunately, due to a technical malfunction (…) the available stock was displayed incorrectly. This has resulted in us inadvertently selling more PS5 than we had available,” she explains. “We find it very annoying that customers have become the victims of this.”
Three days of waiting for a refund
Duped Swerissen is of little use, he would rather have his money back immediately, he says. “The nasty thing is: you order, pay and then Mediamarkt takes three days to pay you back,” he says. The company uses that three-day repayment period if there is a delay at banks, according to Tjin-Kinds. According to her, the reimbursement was ‘started immediately’.
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Immediately after the ‘technical problem’ came to light, the company did its best to inform customers ‘as soon as possible’, the information officer explains.
Duped customers will be the first to purchase the PS5 when new stock arrives. This is not expected to be until July, according to an email to victims in possession of RTL Z.
‘A big mess’
He does not yet know whether Swerissen will make use of this. He is very disappointed with the company, also because of the poor customer service. “A lot can go wrong in such a chain, but you couldn’t reach anyone. Not by email, chat, the messenger or by telephone. It was a big mess”, the 58-year-old grumbles.
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“You can expect from such a huge concern that there is someone somewhere who thinks that you have to be prepared for such a flow of orders,” says Swerissen. “This is extremely messy.”
The company promises improvement in that area. “Of course we are working on a solution to the technical problem, so that we can avoid such unpleasant situations in the future,” said Tjin-Kinds.
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