What to do IF you feel robbed by steam

[philthymcnasty]

Good afternoon,

This post is in response to
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Fail-Story

Recently it has come to my attention that Earth: year 2066 is a broken game that is being sold for $20.00 on steam. I understand that early access games are indeed not finished, but i also understand that there is quality that the consumer demands too. I am not here to debate the merits of early access. Kenshi is a magnificent game, and well worth the price i paid for it. What i am here to talk about is some consumer protection laws that are in place for AMERICAN consumers.

If you buy a bad game(or anything) with a CREDIT CARD(debit cards DO NOT HAVE THIS PROTECTION), and a store refuses you a refund there are steps to take that will remove the charge AND not hurt your credit rating.

1 Call your credit card company up and notify them of the charge, do this within 30 days, and that you want it removed.
2 send them the copy of the letter, telling the store about your grievance with the product. You WILL have to write a letter, and the credit card company WILL WANT A COPY OF IT.

That's it. The charge WILL be removed from your credit card, your credit rating will not be affected. This applies with ALL credit card transactions in the US.

I would post this in the earth 2066 forums, but steam is only letting buyers of the games post there. SPOILER: no one is happy with the purchase, except 2 accounts connected with the dev.

[Hatsune_Neko]

All i can say is wow

thats some cheap stuff that guy is doing.

[philthymcnasty]

Yes, yes it is.

There are a lot of complaints about the early access program. While i approve of it, i still understand if people are upset by the quail of the games. That is why i mentioned this little secret about credit cards.

As far as i know, it applies to ALL purchases with credit cards. That is why i recommend purchasing earl access games with a credit card, and if steam jerks you around with a refund, you have some extra protection. Make sure you write a letter though, so if they pull any stunts like terminating your account, you have some legal protection.

Which reminds me, i need to review the steam EULA.

[Santaissick]

In Finland we have a 30 day returning right for anything and for no particular reason ordered from internet. The product doesn't even have to be faulty in any way we still have the right to demand our money back. But it might only apply to physical objects purchased. I'm not sure if it applies to digital content.

Thanks for bringing this scam to my knowledge. I have seen some games in greenlight that really are clearly scams but I think most of them are blocked by the community in the voting. But I think that steam has the responsibility also to investigate and monitor games that come through greenlight and make sure there are no scams and that all the games have some sort of quality standards and demand the developers to maintain high level of informing of the progress of early access games.

And of course, if the developers fail to fill the requirements steam is responsible to remove the game from their catalogs and help in legal actions to get their customers money back from the games that never finished or turned out to be scams.

[PnzrNorm]

In Finland we have a 30 day returning right for anything and for no particular reason ordered from internet.

Finland suddenly has quadruple the spending power.
Too bad I'm a Norwegian viking. My ancestors would flay me if I moved there.

[Blxz]

Interesting. It really is becoming a sign of the times though that you can't buy anything when it comes out. Whether it is early access or some new dirty AAA title; you are almost always better off waiting at least a day or 2 to get the real reviews than you are prepurchasing (loaning your money interest free) unless you have total trust in the publisher and developer AND they are offering substantial preorder bonuses.

Good luck with your letter and credit thingy. Keep us updated, I want to know how it turns out.

[PnzrNorm]

So a part of the Steam Subscriber Agreement:

3. BILLING, PAYMENT AND OTHER SUBSCRIPTIONS

ALL CHARGES INCURRED ON STEAM, AND ALL PURCHASES MADE WITH THE STEAM WALLET, ARE PAYABLE IN ADVANCE AND ARE NOT REFUNDABLE IN WHOLE OR IN PART, REGARDLESS OF THE PAYMENT METHOD, EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT.

IF YOU ARE AN EU SUBSCRIBER YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW FROM A PURCHASE TRANSACTION FOR DIGITAL CONTENT WITHOUT CHARGE AND WITHOUT GIVING ANY REASON UNTIL DELIVERY OF SUCH CONTENT HAS STARTED OR PERFORMANCE OF THE SERVICE HAS COMMENCED. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO WITHDRAW FROM A TRANSACTION OR OBTAIN A REFUND ONCE DELIVERY OF THE CONTENT HAS STARTED OR THE PERFORMANCE OF THE SERVICE HAS COMMENCED, AT WHICH POINT YOUR TRANSACTION IS FINAL. YOU AGREE THAT DELIVERY OF DIGITAL CONTENT, AND THE ASSOCIATED SUBSCRIPTION, AND/OR PERFORMANCE OF THE ASSOCIATED SERVICE, COMMENCES AT THE MOMENT THE DIGITAL CONTENT IS ADDED TO YOUR ACCOUNT OR INVENTORY OR OTHERWISE MADE ACCESSIBLE TO YOU FOR DOWNLOAD OR USE.


Essentially, you can never get refunds. Ever. For anything. Unless you're in the EU, then you can't download anything if you want a refund. :\

[Azumazi]

What I find funny is, I just checked up on it on Steam and you can no longer purchase it. Seems like Valve has got so much poor feedback on it that they pulled the ability for them to sell the product due to this fiasco.

[Hatsune_Neko]

Earth:Year 2066 - Refunds

[Azumazi]

Damn, that is some nice news. Glad to see Steam is on top of things and keeping an eye on early release games because to be fair I had honestly felt someone would attempt to abuse the system with Steam and their zero refund policy to run a scheme of some kind. Glad to find that they aren't having any of that on their watch.

[PnzrNorm]

Damn, that is some nice news. Glad to see Steam is on top of things and keeping an eye on early release games because to be fair I had honestly felt someone would attempt to abuse the system with Steam and their zero refund policy to run a scheme of some kind. Glad to find that they aren't having any of that on their watch.

The problem with this is that Steam is paying these refunds out of pocket.
Muxwell is likely outside of the economic laws of both the EU and US, and so cannot be pursued for damages incurred over a 100% electronic product that, under EU's laws, becomes 100% the consumer's problem the moment they begin downloading the game.

Steam is just providing excellent customer service at this point in order to protect their reputation from scammers like Muxwell (oh, btw, there are dozens more out there, but those are mainly devs that got bored with their own game or stopped caring about maintaining online servers *cough* Fray, Kingdoms Rise, Legends of Pegasus, BRINK, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, StarDrive *wheeze*).

[Azumazi]

Chivalry", to be honest was a good game that basically the developer stopped listening to his consumer base, which in my opinion is very much different from Muxwell. Steve Piggott made a good game and then decided to "Do it his way" and broke most of the balancing instead of listening to players. I have 3 friends that stopped playing it due to these issues and went over to War of the Roses due to that issue. It isn't like he dropped a complete pile of crap on someone and ran with the money, he more or less acted like a 6 year old refusing to listen to problems and ignored them as if everything was perfect. Sadly, the game was at its best 6 months ago before many of his "Balancing" came in and broke it to hell.

[PnzrNorm]

...the game was at its best 6 months ago before many of his "Balancing" came in and broke it to hell.

6 months ago?
The "balancing" issue I encountered was over a year ago, before Deadliest Warrior was even a rumor.
Eff archers, btw.
I was forced to be a vanguard

[bk3000]

Good afternoon,

This post is in response to
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Fail-Story

Recently it has come to my attention that Earth: year 2066 is a broken game that is being sold for $20.00 on steam. I understand that early access games are indeed not finished, but i also understand that there is quality that the consumer demands too. I am not here to debate the merits of early access. Kenshi is a magnificent game, and well worth the price i paid for it. What i am here to talk about is some consumer protection laws that are in place for AMERICAN consumers.

If you buy a bad game(or anything) with a CREDIT CARD(debit cards DO NOT HAVE THIS PROTECTION), and a store refuses you a refund there are steps to take that will remove the charge AND not hurt your credit rating.

1 Call your credit card company up and notify them of the charge, do this within 30 days, and that you want it removed.
2 send them the copy of the letter, telling the store about your grievance with the product. You WILL have to write a letter, and the credit card company WILL WANT A COPY OF IT.

That's it. The charge WILL be removed from your credit card, your credit rating will not be affected. This applies with ALL credit card transactions in the US.

I would post this in the earth 2066 forums, but steam is only letting buyers of the games post there. SPOILER: no one is happy with the purchase, except 2 accounts connected with the dev.

Certainly you CAN do that, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

As I understand the matter... reversing a charge on something you bought through Steam will likely result in Valve permanently banning your account. Not worth it to me. Now they MIGHT let that slide relative to this particular scam of a game, but that is your risk to take. I have > 300 Steam games I'd just assume not risk over that small amount of money.

Granted I never bought that particular game myself. But I'd caution against following your "trick" and the further spreading of it. If you seek restitution then I'd advise you do so through Steam support. Tell them if they can't give you money back that at least they could give you Steam credit, another game, etc. As with any customer service your best bet is to be polite but persistent. If you aren't getting anywhere then request to speak to a supervisor.

Now supposing you bought the game in question (or any other) outside of Steam (as in directly from the game studio's website) and where thus provided a Steam Key... yes then reversing the charge is probably not going to risk your Steam account. I'd still use it as a method of last resort after trying to talk things over with their customer service etc. You would not want to start getting accused of making fraudulent charge backs as doing so is quite illegal.

[philthymcnasty]

Interesting. It really is becoming a sign of the times though that you can't buy anything when it comes out. Whether it is early access or some new dirty AAA title; you are almost always better off waiting at least a day or 2 to get the real reviews than you are prepurchasing (loaning your money interest free) unless you have total trust in the publisher and developer AND they are offering substantial preorder bonuses.

Good luck with your letter and credit thingy. Keep us updated, I want to know how it turns out.

I have not bought earth 2066 or whatever. I am just an accounting student who has taken a few business law classes. Credit card protection was something they covered for two weeks, its a huge deal.

Your credit card provider usually has these steps on their website.

The per-order thing is VERY interesting, now that you have pointed it out. I have noticed that a lot of people have been complaining about their per-orders lately. The only company i pre-order from, is bethesda, because they proved their worth with morrorwind, and so far, have not let me down.

but yeah, caveto emptor, or buyer beware.

[philthymcnasty]

Good afternoon,

This post is in response to
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/ ... Fail-Story

Recently it has come to my attention that Earth: year 2066 is a broken game that is being sold for $20.00 on steam. I understand that early access games are indeed not finished, but i also understand that there is quality that the consumer demands too. I am not here to debate the merits of early access. Kenshi is a magnificent game, and well worth the price i paid for it. What i am here to talk about is some consumer protection laws that are in place for AMERICAN consumers.

If you buy a bad game(or anything) with a CREDIT CARD(debit cards DO NOT HAVE THIS PROTECTION), and a store refuses you a refund there are steps to take that will remove the charge AND not hurt your credit rating.

1 Call your credit card company up and notify them of the charge, do this within 30 days, and that you want it removed.
2 send them the copy of the letter, telling the store about your grievance with the product. You WILL have to write a letter, and the credit card company WILL WANT A COPY OF IT.

That's it. The charge WILL be removed from your credit card, your credit rating will not be affected. This applies with ALL credit card transactions in the US.

I would post this in the earth 2066 forums, but steam is only letting buyers of the games post there. SPOILER: no one is happy with the purchase, except 2 accounts connected with the dev.

Certainly you CAN do that, but that doesn't make it a good idea.

As I understand the matter... reversing a charge on something you bought through Steam will likely result in Valve permanently banning your account. Not worth it to me. Now they MIGHT let that slide relative to this particular scam of a game, but that is your risk to take. I have > 300 Steam games I'd just assume not risk over that small amount of money.

Granted I never bought that particular game myself. But I'd caution against following your "trick" and the further spreading of it. If you seek restitution then I'd advise you do so through Steam support. Tell them if they can't give you money back that at least they could give you Steam credit, another game, etc. As with any customer service your best bet is to be polite but persistent. If you aren't getting anywhere then request to speak to a supervisor.

Now supposing you bought the game in question (or any other) outside of Steam (as in directly from the game studio's website) and where thus provided a Steam Key... yes then reversing the charge is probably not going to risk your Steam account. I'd still use it as a method of last resort after trying to talk things over with their customer service etc. You would not want to start getting accused of making fraudulent charge backs as doing so is quite illegal.

"ided a Steam Key... yes then reversing the charge is probably not going to risk your Steam account. I'd still use it as a method of last resort after trying to talk things over with their customer service etc. You would not want to start getting accused of making fraudulent charge backs as doing so is quite illegal"

I should clarify that this SHOULD be a last resort. You will want to have a steam customer support ticket number, a record of all your emails with steam, and documentation of the matter. This will protect you legally if they refuse to resolve the situation. If you demonstrate that you attempted to solve cure the problem with the merchant, and they did not do so to your satisfaction, then yes, use your rights.

Now, since i started the thread, people burned by that particular scam have been refunded. Do not get me wrong, steam is a very nice service, and so far people generally like it. However, i would like to stress that we should be careful with our purchases until they improve the refund system. As it seems a lot of scam games are showing up, or have been around like towns.

I am noticing a lot more digital distribution sites now, like green man gaming. I am not sure if these are new, or if they have been around for a bi. Hopefully the competition should make everything better.

[Hatsune_Neko]

i use greenman gaming.
it tends to have some really good discounts, sometimes better than Steam. like my last one Elder Scrolls Online, imperial edition, i got like 33% off before game launched officially.
and a few other games as well.

[bk3000]

As it seems a lot of scam games are showing up, or have been around like towns.

Now that caught my attention. I bought Towns a long time ago when it was new it was very new and FAR less well developed than it currently is. I haven't really kept track nor played it for a while now though. I am pretty surprised though for you to describe Towns as a scam game. As of the last time I played it I think it was well enough along that I could dream of not describing it as such. Sure enough the Steam community is doing just that though.

No matter if development has continued or not I consider it a satisfying game at the stage I last played it in and it appears to have been worked on since that point. I definitely don't regret my purchase. I think it was(and therefore likely still is) worth the purchase price. Granted I think I paid 10 instead of the current $15 price. Now unless they turned it into a crash fest since my last play and aren't fixing it I don't think I would call it a scam game.

From the perspective of the Steam community though (be it a community quickly prone to complaints echoing) they probably only first saw it from the state that it got greenlit and only witnessed it grow from that point. It may be relatively unchanged from that point so from their perspective it may seem a quick cash grab. Someone like me who followed it from the beginning knows better. Yeah they aren't going to continue to develop the game from now until the end of time - that isn't practical for most game devs. I think it was ready enough though the last time I played it.

Again I think Towns is a game that is worth the low price they ask. I don't think it is a scam.

[philthymcnasty]

I consider towns a scam game because they promised a finished game. I am glad you do not feel burned by your purchase, BUT, developers abandoning games like this is VERY BAD for early access. You pay money, you should get a finished game.

Granted, its in better shape the air control.

I just hope it is was an exception, and that other ea games will do well.

Drunken robot pornography was a great example as to how early access can be done right.