Remember that friend you had as a kid that needed to validate whatever they said by claiming they had a relative working for a specific company? Well, apparently that doesn't sit well with Sony at all, especially if the claim also comes with a threat, even if it wasn't ill-intentioned.
A PlayStation Network user has recently had his PSN account permanently banned for claiming that a relative worked for Sony and could have another user's account banned. Yes, it is as ridiculous as it sounds. The news comes from
SegmentNext, who reported that PSN user Hamed Jalalie was accused by another user of hacking the game while playing
Fortnite. After a heated exchange, Hamed claimed that his dad worked for Sony and said: "bahahahahaha my dad works at Sony he will get u banned."
While the claim itself doesn't really seem to be ill-intentioned, it's curious that Sony actually sent an email to Jalalie in which they informed him that such claims can, indeed, have someone's account permanently banned. The email reads as follows:
"We are writing to inform you that your account has been permanently banned. We have made this decision based on your online activity in the message. Pretending to be, or by association able to influence, an employee of Sony, its affiliates or 3rd party partners is against our code of conduct. You will no longer be able to access online multiplayer, PlayStation Store and other network features. Your account will not be reinvested at any point. We take the decision to ban an account very seriously, and we only do so after one of our moderators has carefully analyzed the situation. PlayStation Support, therefore, can not overturn this moderation decision.
Your sincerely, SIEE moderation
Sony Interactive Entertainment."
It will be interesting to see how the story develops given that, on the one hand, the "my dad works for..." is used mostly as an online meme and should be treated as such. On the other hand, if Sony's code of conduct for PSN says that pretending to be, or know someone that works for the company could have someone's account banned, even if it is just as a joke, they're in their right to ban said account. Chances are that this was an automated reply and an agreement could be made between the user and Sony. Either that or, you know, just create another PSN account and let it go.