Statutory Rights - With Regards to the CD Key Issue

[DanEFC]

People keep bringing up Steam's "no refund policy". It's true, Steam do operate a no refund policy, however, this does not affect your statutory rights. There are several ways in which your rights can be breached by the seller. The seller must have the right to sell the product. The product must be what you expected, based upon the seller's description, etc. and the product must be of satisfactory quality. It would make sense to me that if Steam do not own any CD keys for Star Wars: Empire at War Gold Edition, they do not have the right to sell these keys. The product is also not what I expected. I expected a playable, executable, launchable game. Instead I have a series of inaccessible, useless data files. I would urge people not to be too concerned with Steam's "no refund policy".

With that said, I am firmly in the "chill out, be patient, and you'll get your game" camp. It's terrible, terrible service from Steam, but they'll get it sorted, just most likely after the weekend/bank holiday.

[ChrisDJ0122]

u do know that the no refund policy is just in regards to real money they will give u steam credit but thats it and they do have the right to sell it, they ran out of keys same thing as gamestop running out of hard copies, they need to RESTOCK its fine wait till the sale is over and then they will see how many people need keys fill the order and pass keys out so by tues-wed mostly is when people will get there key codes

[DanEFC]

Yes I am aware of that. However, I think you will find that the majority of people paid for the game with real money, not with Steam credits, so it is real money with which they are concerned. If they do not own the product, they do not have the right to sell the product. If "gamestop" ran out of hard copies, they would say "sorry, we don't have that game in at the moment, so we cannot sell it to you" they wouldn't sell you an empty case. They would advise you to wait until they had RESTOCKED.

[ChrisDJ0122]

i paid with my credit crad, not steam credit, and yes they would only give u steam credit back, and to continue using the "gamestop" anaolgy if you pre-order games (i know its not for a pre order) but they will wait till they get the orders fill the order and add some an example would be if 100 people pre-ordered trhey would order 120 its almost the same thing right now they are waiting for the orders to fill so the have a number to work with when they get new keys so by mon-wed they should be "restocked" and we will get our keys and if someone send complaints about a refund all they would offer is a steam credit not ur how you put "real money" and if someone really wanted to press the issuse they would have to keep going up because if a for lack of better terms a lower employee gave a "real money" refund they could get in trouble and lose there job and by the time that someone who made a big deal over a "real money" refund would most likly have there key to the game and is now no longer valid for a steam credit refund OR a "real money refund" because the services will then be rendered

[DanEFC]

The sole point of my post was the make the distinction between a company's individual refund policy (which for Steam happens to be a "no refund policy", or "Steam credit only refund policy") and the statutory rights every consumer possesses during every transaction. You seem to have missed this point (somehow). Yes, if you asked for a refund they would only offer you steam credit, if that. That is in accordence with their refund policy. However, in this case, your statutory rights have been breached (and yes, they have been, likely on multiples scores) and you are therefore entitled to a full refund (i.e. not just Steam credit).

The pre-order analogy is so irrelevant I'm not even going to address it.

You state that if a so called "lower employee" gave a refund, they could lose their job. This would be a much more ridiculous and serious issue than the one which we are discussing. A company firing an employee for issuing a refund, particularly in the event of a customer's statutory rights being breached, is a ridiculous notion.