I'm returning my PS4 -- Sony secretive on PlayStation Network 'irregular activity'

I'm returning my PlayStation 4. It's a shame because I love it very much. The games are wonderful and the streaming video capabilities are very useful. However, I simply cannot trust the PlayStation Network. The old saying is "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me". After the first PSN hack, I should have known not to trust it. But here I am in 2013 with a PlayStation 4 -- shame on me.

Today, I received an email from Sony that says, "the Sony Entertainment Network team routinely monitors for any irregular activity, and if such activity is detected, we may sometimes reset passwords of affected accounts to protect consumers and their account information. Your account password was recently reset as part of this process". Oh my. Surely a call to Sony will give me more details right? Wrong.

Of course, I was concerned that it was a phishing scam, especially since the opening salutation was "Dear valued customer". So I went to the official PlayStation website and obtained a phone number. The first customer service representative I encountered seemed disengaged and eager to get me off the phone. I explained the situation and he confirmed that the email was legit. However, he was unable to tell me why my password needed to be changed, even after I pressed him on it.

I politely demanded a supervisor and my call was transferred to manager Rick. I explained to him that it was unacceptable to withhold information from me. I wanted to know what type of "irregular activity" was detected on my account. Was my password stolen? My credit card details? I needed to know. He explained that it was a corporate decision that he did not know.

While I was getting annoyed, I kept my cool and asked Rick to take ownership and get me an answer. Surprisingly, he agreed to call the corporate office on my behalf while I held. After what felt like an eternity, he came back on the line with new information. He explained that as per PSN terms and conditions, they reserve the right to force a user to change a password at any time for any reason. He further explained that they would still not tell me what kind of suspicious activity triggered my warning email. I asked him why wouldn't the corporate office want to tell the users? He replied with "corporate wheels spin in strange ways". Gee, thanks.

Shockingly, he told me not to worry, he had a great solution. I could change my password and then change it right back to the compromised one. When I explained that was bad practice, he didn't seem to understand why. Obviously, his suggestion defeats the entire purpose of changing my password in the first place.

So here I sit, feeling violated and unappreciated. Someone may have accessed my information but Sony won't tell me anything. I spent over $600 on the console, camera, games and PlayStation Plus. Luckily, Amazon is great about returns. However, I highly doubt I can return opened games.

What do you think, am I wrong to return it? Is Sony's behavior acceptable? Tell me in the comments.

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