33 ms·
^ This. I naively disputed Steam not honouring a refund (it was for about 0.5% of what I've spent with them up to that point), a couple of £pound at most. I'd
by pbhjpbhj 6mo ago
^ This.
I naively disputed Steam not honouring a refund (it was for about 0.5% of what I've spent with them up to that point), a couple of £pound at most. I'd paid by PayPal and as Steam refused to abide by UK law (Consumer Rights Act says broken stuff has to be fixed or refunded), I raised the issue with PayPal. I expected Steam would refund me, instead they did not dispute that they'd unlawfully failed to refund me, so PayPal - Steam's provider - cancelled the charge.
In response, Steam 'limited' my Steam account - effectively closing it temporarily. Now it's limited so they won't use PayPal to sell me anything now, so I haven't bought anything from them since [I have cashed in CS skins, and used that cash to 'buy' games].
It was an interesting lesson in 'might is right'. PayPal were able to refund the transaction because Steam want them and had no argument against the refund. Steam were able to cut me off because this appears to be a loophole in UK consumer law - sellers who break the law can just dismiss buyers who ask for refunds. Lesson learnt.
From Steam's point of view, they pissed off a customer and probably burnt 30mins-1hour of support time in answering my requests, way more than the cost of the refund. But selling games, which I later found Steam knew was broken, and then not refunding because I had the tenacity to try and fix it - meaning that the game sat open for longer than their auto-refund time - is not on imo. Petty of me for sure. Crap of Steam too.
- fc417fc802 6mo agoI'm surprised UK law doesn't prohibit retaliation against the customer for insisting on his legal rights. Not petty of you IMO. It's what everyone ought to do but it's inconvenient so most people don't.
- Ekaros 6mo agoWhy should they? Freedom of association is key Western principle. Steam chose not to associate with them anymore. If the user don't like it they should have sued them in court instead.
- Cpoll 6mo agoBeing able to freely threaten reprisal against people exercising their rights circumvents those rights. Freedom of association applies to individuals; it's a non-sequiter here.
- fc417fc802 6mo agoIt's relevant in that businesses generally also enjoy freedom of (non)association but obviously that's not an absolute.
- Borealid 6mo agoI think there's a line between retaliating against someone, and refusing to help them in the future. I do not believe that refusing to do business with an individual, where your business provides a non-life-critical service, is retaliation. A water company refusing to provide water to your home would be problematic. A luxury handbag store refusing to allow you to purchase more luxury handbags would not. Image as a hypothetical that a customer goes into your store for the sole purpose of wasting your support staff's time. They are not going to make a purchase. They are also not directly committing a crime. They are just hurting your business for no particular reason. Should you, as a business owner, be forced to allow them to continue to be on your property? I think the ideal answer is yes for critical public spaces, and no for ordinary retail. Steam clearly falls into the latter category and should be free to ban customers for any reason save discrimination against protected classes.
- tardedmeme 6mo agoIt's certainly retaliation if you can't use something you already paid for.
- Borealid 6mo agoA limited account is allowed access to all prior purchases. It can even download those purchases again (incurring costs on Valve's part without paying anything). I don't believe anything was rescinded in the situation being discussed; Valve just prevented the user from continuing to use their community/marketplace services. This makes sense because they were put into the bucket containing fraudulent or abusive user accounts.
- fc417fc802 6mo agoIf I report my employer for an OSHA violation and they retaliate that's illegal. Of course such laws hardly ever stopped anyone so it's a very bad idea to depend on it but the principle is certainly there.
- gblargg 6mo agoI grew up when we owned game systems and the games, and they couldn't phone home to see if I still had permission to play. I was recently considering installing Steam but this kind of thing gave me pause. I couldn't invest any money in something that could have the rug pulled out from at any time.