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It's also worth noting that if you do a chargeback, a company like Uber will often block your account and phone from using their services. Doing a chargeback a

It's also worth noting that if you do a chargeback, a company like Uber will often block your account and phone from using their services. Doing a chargeback against Steam for instance and they will ban you, preventing you from playing games you've paid for ("leased" more accurately). So, it's important to be careful about doing chargebacks unless you're sure the company you're doing a chargeback against is one you never wish to do business with again.

voidmain0001 9y ago
I've never issued a charge back so I'm in unknown waters, but if I wanted to keep my account with Steam after a charge back, couldn't I just update my account to use a different credit card?
- nightcracker 9y ago
  No, because they ban the account, not the credit card. You can make a new account and use a new credit card I guess, but you still lost your library of games.
  - cm2187 9y ago
    But do you pay an upfront amount to get games on steam? It's not a subscription then, how do they justify preventing you from using them?
    - reformatt 9y ago
      Yeah, you purchase the game before playing it generally. The justification is that you've only purchased a license to play it, which they'll revoke. Still some BS to get locked out if you pay upfront for a game. It's also way worse when you realize how garbage their customer service is. It's pretty hard to get a human on the other side within a week or two, so it's way harder to get wrong things fixed.
      - cm2187 9y ago
        Why would anyone use steam then?
        eropple 9y ago
        Because it's tremendously convenient, the games are cheap, and there's a two-week, two-hours-played window for refunds. "But I can't chargeback if I get irrationally gamer-ragey" is not something I've ever worried about, ever.
        cm2187 9y ago
        Not charged back. But steam having a kill switch where they can prevent you from playing any game if for any reason they don't like you. I'm not sure I would pay any money upfront for what is really a subscription.
        eropple 9y ago
        I don't think it's something that you need to worry about unless you're gonna be overtly shitty. I have my beefs with Valve, but not on this topic. Even if you get caught hacking in a multiplayer game, your account isn't banned (though you may be VAC banned from playing multiplayer in games that participate in VAC). Steam-wide bans only come from chargebacks that are against your EULA--and their refund policy is pretty reasonable, I think--and similar stuff pulled against Steam itself rather than anything you'll do during the course of using the service normally. And if you're really paranoid about it, you can pretty easily back up games and play them with a cracked Steam DLL. It's not a big deal.
        bigtunacan 9y ago
        Credit card charge backs are a federal law created to protect consumer rights. Steam's ToS are at odds with federal law in this respect as they say I have a 2 week / 1 hour window to get a refund. Federal law says I have 60 days and then outlines under what conditions, but they are pretty broad. Previously I purchased a software license for Gamemaker Studio Master Collection (directly from YoYo, not through Steam thankfully). This was when Windows 10 was very new, but YoYo claimed it was supported. Turned out it had bugs with some configurations and so it was crashing on launch; completely unusable. I opened a support ticket and was following up, but they had no idea how long it would take to fix it. Next thing that happens is they drop the price from about $800 to about $400. There I was, still unable to use the software and now it was 1/2 the price. So I contacted them again and said, "Look, it's been a month now and you still haven't fixed this and you dropped the price to 1/2 what I paid. I've been really patient, the least you can do is refund me the difference since I still can't even use the software." They came back and said, "No it was $800 when you bought it you just have to wait until we get it fixed." At that point I was super frustrated and replied back and said, "I'm done, just refund the entire amount and cancel my license." YoYo's reply was that they don't give refunds under any circumstances and that it was plainly spelled out in the EULA. So I called my credit card company and they did a charge back. Circling back, now they sell through Steam and if this had happened Steam would ban my account and block me from ALL software I had ever purchased from them. It's unethical and bordering on illegal that Steam takes retaliatory measures against consumers for excercising their consumer credit rights as provided by federal law. Quite frankly Steam should be on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit.
    - chii 9y ago
      > how do they justify preventing you from using them? they don't need to justify anything. Their platforms, their rules. You signed your rights away when you clicked yes to the EULER. Of course, you can litegate, but then you'd end up costing more money than you can gain, and probably no one will find it worth the hassle.
      - edoceo 9y ago
        They may have an arbitration clause, in which you agree to not litigate. 4D chess.
        tijs 9y ago
        That would not hold up in court. At least not in European court. Consumer law trumps EULAS and its illegal to put arbitration terms in consumer contracts.
        edoceo 9y ago
        Take a look at what's happening with AT&T, arbitration in the USA. Consumers have lost a lot of their "rights"
        kilotaras 9y ago
        EU is generally a lot more consumer-friendly than US. Or company-unfriendly depending on your perspective.
- johnbellone 9y ago
  The account itself has a restricted set of functionality. Although a little sleuthing on Google seems to indicate there is a time horizon on this. Possibly while they investigate?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- volkk 9y ago
  Well your card is linked to your account. So you can start a new one, but you won't have access to any of your old games
  - chii 9y ago
    i wonder if it's worth making a new account for every purchase, and then writing a script/custom client to map each game to its account, and create an automatic login shortcut for each game. This way, if you find any issues and had to chargeback, you only lose one particular game.
    - wazanator 9y ago
      They do some tracking of clients and I imagine if you start refunding more than they would like they would piece two and two together.
idbehold 9y ago
It seems like this behavior should also be reported to the credit card companies. In the case of Steam, it seems like what you should do is have the credit card company charge back ALL the purchases you made if they ban your account.
- eli 9y ago
  I don't think that's a good idea, but anyway there are time limits. You can chargeback something more than a few months old.
  - sigstoat 9y ago
    i assume you meant to say "you can't chargeback..." since you're pointing out there are time limits. in my experience the time limits are related to delivery of the service. for instance, you pay with credit card for a service happening 9 months in the future. if the appointed day arrives, and the service is not performed, there won't be a problem getting a charge back even though the actual charge was 9 months old.
    - aoeusnth1 9y ago
      And in the case of steam, the "time of service" is at all points in the future?
      - sigstoat 9y ago
        i'd certainly make that argument to my credit card company if steam cut me off completely. i don't think it's crazy for a software company to want to claim that i'm leasing software from them after a one-time payment, but if that's the case, i also feel like i forever have grounds for the return of my money if they ever break the lease.
- Shivetya 9y ago
  Steam has a litany of disclaimers to block refunds. Even games dropped by developers don't matter to Steam. I had a few hours registered to a game I could never get to work beyond a few turns but since I "played" it I was not entitled to a refund. I really dislike digital distribution of games and software on this point. While some Steam games I can run offline I am not sure if all of them can be. Plus how do I reinstall? It is a sad state of affairs when being a buyer on ebay is safer than buying from Steam
mikeash 9y ago
It's a real problem with Steam or any other place where your account is tied to stuff you want to keep. But with Uber, what would prevent you from just making a new account and carrying on?
- chii 9y ago
  they can easily tie an account to a phone number.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Get a new number from Google Voice or similar?
- cromulen 9y ago
  Because Uber will go very far to track you and your multiple accounts: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uber-iphone-app-store-apple-tim-cook-removed-from-tracking-users-phones-a7698851.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Difference between this and Steam appears to be Uber losing control of the account. That's how the purportedly fraudulent charges were made. With the Steam stories I've heard, the card was usually lost and then used on Steam or otherwise the account password was lost by the user.
redm 9y ago
I'm not surprised, Chargebacks are inordinately expensive for the company. The initial cost is usually over $25 regardless of the size of the charge. [1] I can go up from there. If they fight it, which they will likely loose because CC companies stick behind card holders, it will cost more. To ensure they don't get more chargebacks, they have little choice but to block your account. Most companies will do whatever they can to avoid a chargeback. It's better to start there if you want to maintain a relationship. [1] https://chargeback.com/chargeback-fees-processor-library/ https://chargeback.com/chargeback-fees-processor-library/
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  I know. I experience quite a few with PortableApps.com with open source donations. Unfortunately, if you use something like PayPal, you have to monitor every donation and reverse any suspicious ones and eat the cost regularly. You even have to maintain your own internal list of what email addresses have committed fraud before because PayPal doesn't ban them.
- patrickread 9y ago
  Having been involved with chargebacks from both the consumer and company perspective, for the company, it can be really frustrating when customers chargeback without ever trying to contact you. Often, the company is happy to rectify the situation if you contact them, because like you said, chargebacks can be expensive per transaction. In my experience, sometimes consumers will run a chargeback even for legitimate purchases. For example, a spouse will run through a credit card statement and do a chargeback if they don't recognize a purchase, without even checking with their partner. Then, the credit card company often sides with the consumer despite evidence, and if you sold a tangible good, you're SOL.
nonamechicken 9y ago
I have heard similar stories about Sony's PlayStation store too. If you charge back, they ban your account. Now you cannot play online anymore. Even offline games may not work since the license is tied to your account.
benologist 9y ago
Steam recently got fined for their deliberate, long-running, fraudulent, criminal behavior - http://www.pcmag.com/news/350574/valve-fined-3m-in-australia-over-steam-refunds http://www.pcmag.com/news/350574/valve-fined-3m-in-australia... They're estimated to have stolen from Australians 22,000 times out of ~25m population so you can imagine why they scrambled so hard to change their policies before justice was served in the EU or US.

voidmain0001 9y ago

I've never issued a charge back so I'm in unknown waters, but if I wanted to keep my account with Steam after a charge back, couldn't I just update my account to use a different credit card?

nightcracker 9y ago
No, because they ban the account, not the credit card. You can make a new account and use a new credit card I guess, but you still lost your library of games.
- cm2187 9y ago
  But do you pay an upfront amount to get games on steam? It's not a subscription then, how do they justify preventing you from using them?
  - reformatt 9y ago
    Yeah, you purchase the game before playing it generally. The justification is that you've only purchased a license to play it, which they'll revoke. Still some BS to get locked out if you pay upfront for a game. It's also way worse when you realize how garbage their customer service is. It's pretty hard to get a human on the other side within a week or two, so it's way harder to get wrong things fixed.
    - cm2187 9y ago
      Why would anyone use steam then?
      - eropple 9y ago
        Because it's tremendously convenient, the games are cheap, and there's a two-week, two-hours-played window for refunds. "But I can't chargeback if I get irrationally gamer-ragey" is not something I've ever worried about, ever.
        cm2187 9y ago
        Not charged back. But steam having a kill switch where they can prevent you from playing any game if for any reason they don't like you. I'm not sure I would pay any money upfront for what is really a subscription.
        eropple 9y ago
        I don't think it's something that you need to worry about unless you're gonna be overtly shitty. I have my beefs with Valve, but not on this topic. Even if you get caught hacking in a multiplayer game, your account isn't banned (though you may be VAC banned from playing multiplayer in games that participate in VAC). Steam-wide bans only come from chargebacks that are against your EULA--and their refund policy is pretty reasonable, I think--and similar stuff pulled against Steam itself rather than anything you'll do during the course of using the service normally. And if you're really paranoid about it, you can pretty easily back up games and play them with a cracked Steam DLL. It's not a big deal.
        bigtunacan 9y ago
        Credit card charge backs are a federal law created to protect consumer rights. Steam's ToS are at odds with federal law in this respect as they say I have a 2 week / 1 hour window to get a refund. Federal law says I have 60 days and then outlines under what conditions, but they are pretty broad. Previously I purchased a software license for Gamemaker Studio Master Collection (directly from YoYo, not through Steam thankfully). This was when Windows 10 was very new, but YoYo claimed it was supported. Turned out it had bugs with some configurations and so it was crashing on launch; completely unusable. I opened a support ticket and was following up, but they had no idea how long it would take to fix it. Next thing that happens is they drop the price from about $800 to about $400. There I was, still unable to use the software and now it was 1/2 the price. So I contacted them again and said, "Look, it's been a month now and you still haven't fixed this and you dropped the price to 1/2 what I paid. I've been really patient, the least you can do is refund me the difference since I still can't even use the software." They came back and said, "No it was $800 when you bought it you just have to wait until we get it fixed." At that point I was super frustrated and replied back and said, "I'm done, just refund the entire amount and cancel my license." YoYo's reply was that they don't give refunds under any circumstances and that it was plainly spelled out in the EULA. So I called my credit card company and they did a charge back. Circling back, now they sell through Steam and if this had happened Steam would ban my account and block me from ALL software I had ever purchased from them. It's unethical and bordering on illegal that Steam takes retaliatory measures against consumers for excercising their consumer credit rights as provided by federal law. Quite frankly Steam should be on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit.
  - chii 9y ago
    > how do they justify preventing you from using them? they don't need to justify anything. Their platforms, their rules. You signed your rights away when you clicked yes to the EULER. Of course, you can litegate, but then you'd end up costing more money than you can gain, and probably no one will find it worth the hassle.
    - edoceo 9y ago
      They may have an arbitration clause, in which you agree to not litigate. 4D chess.
      - tijs 9y ago
        That would not hold up in court. At least not in European court. Consumer law trumps EULAS and its illegal to put arbitration terms in consumer contracts.
        edoceo 9y ago
        Take a look at what's happening with AT&T, arbitration in the USA. Consumers have lost a lot of their "rights"
        kilotaras 9y ago
        EU is generally a lot more consumer-friendly than US. Or company-unfriendly depending on your perspective.
johnbellone 9y ago
The account itself has a restricted set of functionality. Although a little sleuthing on Google seems to indicate there is a time horizon on this. Possibly while they investigate?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
volkk 9y ago
Well your card is linked to your account. So you can start a new one, but you won't have access to any of your old games
- chii 9y ago
  i wonder if it's worth making a new account for every purchase, and then writing a script/custom client to map each game to its account, and create an automatic login shortcut for each game. This way, if you find any issues and had to chargeback, you only lose one particular game.
  - wazanator 9y ago
    They do some tracking of clients and I imagine if you start refunding more than they would like they would piece two and two together.

idbehold 9y ago

It seems like this behavior should also be reported to the credit card companies. In the case of Steam, it seems like what you should do is have the credit card company charge back ALL the purchases you made if they ban your account.

eli 9y ago
I don't think that's a good idea, but anyway there are time limits. You can chargeback something more than a few months old.
- sigstoat 9y ago
  i assume you meant to say "you can't chargeback..." since you're pointing out there are time limits. in my experience the time limits are related to delivery of the service. for instance, you pay with credit card for a service happening 9 months in the future. if the appointed day arrives, and the service is not performed, there won't be a problem getting a charge back even though the actual charge was 9 months old.
  - aoeusnth1 9y ago
    And in the case of steam, the "time of service" is at all points in the future?
    - sigstoat 9y ago
      i'd certainly make that argument to my credit card company if steam cut me off completely. i don't think it's crazy for a software company to want to claim that i'm leasing software from them after a one-time payment, but if that's the case, i also feel like i forever have grounds for the return of my money if they ever break the lease.
Shivetya 9y ago
Steam has a litany of disclaimers to block refunds. Even games dropped by developers don't matter to Steam. I had a few hours registered to a game I could never get to work beyond a few turns but since I "played" it I was not entitled to a refund. I really dislike digital distribution of games and software on this point. While some Steam games I can run offline I am not sure if all of them can be. Plus how do I reinstall? It is a sad state of affairs when being a buyer on ebay is safer than buying from Steam

mikeash 9y ago

It's a real problem with Steam or any other place where your account is tied to stuff you want to keep. But with Uber, what would prevent you from just making a new account and carrying on?

chii 9y ago
they can easily tie an account to a phone number.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Get a new number from Google Voice or similar?
cromulen 9y ago
Because Uber will go very far to track you and your multiple accounts: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/uber-iphone-app-store-apple-tim-cook-removed-from-tracking-users-phones-a7698851.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

Difference between this and Steam appears to be Uber losing control of the account. That's how the purportedly fraudulent charges were made. With the Steam stories I've heard, the card was usually lost and then used on Steam or otherwise the account password was lost by the user.

redm 9y ago

I'm not surprised, Chargebacks are inordinately expensive for the company. The initial cost is usually over $25 regardless of the size of the charge. [1] I can go up from there. If they fight it, which they will likely loose because CC companies stick behind card holders, it will cost more. To ensure they don't get more chargebacks, they have little choice but to block your account. Most companies will do whatever they can to avoid a chargeback. It's better to start there if you want to maintain a relationship. [1] https://chargeback.com/chargeback-fees-processor-library/ https://chargeback.com/chargeback-fees-processor-library/

JohnTHaller 9y ago
I know. I experience quite a few with PortableApps.com with open source donations. Unfortunately, if you use something like PayPal, you have to monitor every donation and reverse any suspicious ones and eat the cost regularly. You even have to maintain your own internal list of what email addresses have committed fraud before because PayPal doesn't ban them.
patrickread 9y ago
Having been involved with chargebacks from both the consumer and company perspective, for the company, it can be really frustrating when customers chargeback without ever trying to contact you. Often, the company is happy to rectify the situation if you contact them, because like you said, chargebacks can be expensive per transaction. In my experience, sometimes consumers will run a chargeback even for legitimate purchases. For example, a spouse will run through a credit card statement and do a chargeback if they don't recognize a purchase, without even checking with their partner. Then, the credit card company often sides with the consumer despite evidence, and if you sold a tangible good, you're SOL.

nonamechicken 9y ago

I have heard similar stories about Sony's PlayStation store too. If you charge back, they ban your account. Now you cannot play online anymore. Even offline games may not work since the license is tied to your account.

benologist 9y ago

Steam recently got fined for their deliberate, long-running, fraudulent, criminal behavior - http://www.pcmag.com/news/350574/valve-fined-3m-in-australia-over-steam-refunds http://www.pcmag.com/news/350574/valve-fined-3m-in-australia... They're estimated to have stolen from Australians 22,000 times out of ~25m population so you can imagine why they scrambled so hard to change their policies before justice was served in the EU or US.