Account locked, Consumer Rights Act refund (UK)

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Just as a word of caution. Steam refused my request for a refund on a defective game, I'd tried for more than 2 hours, it crashed regularly, I thought I could live with it, turns out I couldn't.

I asked for a refund, Steam's rep basically said "no, our policy says ..."

Anyway, refund is a right for defective products under UK law. So, I requested a refund from PayPal.

PayPal acceded, according with their own policies, now Steam are trying to punish me by restricting my account (for 4 weeks). This must be unlawful action on Steam's behalf - it's extremely customer hostile in any case.

The money involved is very small, but I feel strongly that selling games you know are defective (many comments doing after the fact referencing the same/similar bug) and then refusing to adhere to the law on refunds should be punished quite harshly.

Anyone else has a similar situation (preferably in the UK) and investigated the potential legal redress?

[Ganger]

Originally posted by Idontexist:

You stole from valve, not vice versa. Give them their money back and fix your PC so it can run the game.

I won't say the OP stole from valve. It's just the OP wasn't happy with the product and wanted his money back but when about it the wrong way.

He got refused to refund and his only course of action was to do a charge back.

[ShelLuser]

Originally posted by Ganger:

Originally posted by Idontexist:

You stole from valve, not vice versa. Give them their money back and fix your PC so it can run the game.

I won't say the OP stole from valve. It's just the OP wasn't happy with the product and wanted his money back but when about it the wrong way.

He got refused to refund and his only course of action was to do a charge back.

Which means he kept both the game as well as his payment. That's called stealing.

[crunchyfrog]

Ex-legal advisor here in England.

You went about this the wrong way, I'm afraid.

While on the face of it you are indeed correct that goods must conform to SADFART (yes, that is the proper acronym) under the Consumer Rights Act, including digital goods, what you should have done is pursued it further with Valve, showing them the law.

Frontline staff don't know stuff like this anyway, but in any case the refunds work in two ways. Your first attempt is automated, so it MUST fall within the 2 hour/14 day window. If it does, you get your refund. If it doesn't, you appeal and ask for a manual refund and they look at any extenuating circumstances (and they're generally pretty good with this).

The problem lies though that you shoudl ALWAYS return to the place of purchase to sort out issues like this. Going to Paypal or your bank should ONLY ever happen if all other resolution attempts have failed - in other words, the last straw.

By doing a chargeback you DO put your account in jeopardy because that chargeback generates fees for Valve now, so they're out of pocket. And as such, as per the terms you agreed to, they will restrict your account if the balance is not sorted.

So sadly, you have ONE avenue left now - you must clear that balance by clearing the chargeback.

If you then take it further afterwards, make sure to enclose the COnsumer Rights Act and quote the appropriate clause(s). And should it go pear-shaped still, by all means contact Consumer Direct to report them.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

If you then take it further afterwards, make sure to enclose the COnsumer Rights Act and quote the appropriate clause(s). And should it go pear-shaped still, by all means contact Consumer Direct to report them.

There is nothing the user can do after, especially when they breached a contract.

Originally posted by Ganger:

Originally posted by Idontexist:

You stole from valve, not vice versa. Give them their money back and fix your PC so it can run the game.

I won't say the OP stole from valve. It's just the OP wasn't happy with the product and wanted his money back but when about it the wrong way.

He got refused to refund and his only course of action was to do a charge back.

Chargeback success = money back and has the game.
Definitely theft aka stealing.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

If you then take it further afterwards, make sure to enclose the COnsumer Rights Act and quote the appropriate clause(s). And should it go pear-shaped still, by all means contact Consumer Direct to report them.

There is nothing the user can do after, especially when they breached a contract.

Originally posted by Ganger:

I won't say the OP stole from valve. It's just the OP wasn't happy with the product and wanted his money back but when about it the wrong way.

He got refused to refund and his only course of action was to do a charge back.

Chargeback success = money back and has the game.
Definitely theft aka stealing.

But I thought there was the chance to make amends and pay the money back to Valve, no?

Once that would get sroted, let's say, they still continue to have their statutory rights. That's the point.

Although I would add if (big if) they would want to pursue the faulty goods angle, they would seriously have to demonstrate the goods are indeed faulty, which I should have mentioned earlier. That might be rather difficult.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

But I thought there was the chance to make amends and pay the money back to Valve, no?

Only thing they can do is that, anything 'after' is no longer an option.

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Once that would get sroted, let's say, they still continue to have their statutory rights. That's the point.

They threw everything out of the window when doing a chargeback. Let alone the standard agreement between users and valve, of which valve was stolen from; so to take it into any legal matter, valve would be extremely unforgiving of this & could bring up the previous action of theft/fraud and breaking the agreement which gave them refund based rights especially a manual ticket to assist in such a refund if actually needed, until they broke this.

When you've done something wrong, it's best to not go after the party that was in the right the entire time, especially when they can bring it up in court. It would be a very costly mistake.

Originally posted by Miss Ann Thrope:

You must be new to PC gaming. Just because a game doesn't run properly on your machine doesn't mean the product is defective. Troubleshooting and workarounds are often required.

Especially troubleshooting. Too many people just default to "(country law) allows me to declare defective!" instead of the fact it has to be as such, provable, and that they must go through the proper channels in order to resolve an issue.

Too many people bypass troubleshooting entirely, especially when minor settings can be the cause between crashing and uninterrupted gameplay.

[Flavius Claudius Julianus]

All of this noise for a 5 dollar anime game probably.

[Satoru]

I'd recommend you read the law before putting your foot in your mouth

That would be true if you actually understood said law.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/contents/enacted

Refer to section 37

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/15/section/37/enacted

Your contract is goverened by the Consumer COntracts Regulation of 2013

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/contents/made

Refer to section 37

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/3134/regulation/37/made

Supply of digital content in cancellation period

37.—(1) Under a contract for the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium, the trader must not begin supply of the digital content before the end of the cancellation period provided for in regulation 30(1), unless—

(a)the consumer has given express consent, and

(b)the consumer has acknowledged that the right to cancel the contract under regulation 29(1) will be lost.

Oh you can waive your right of cancellation as long as both parties agree to it.!

Refer to the SSA

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8620-QYAL-4516


EU and UK law EXPRESSLY ALLOW YOU TO WAIVE THIS RIGHT. The law says you can do this. It is 10000% legal.

Here's a tip. Don't pretend to know the law when you don't

[Muppet among Puppets]

If the law is on your side, call (it).

Chargebacks are for when you did not get what you asked for and are not interested in interaction with that trader again.

If an automated system doesnt work, talk to people.

[Your Mom's Oshi]

Originally posted by Muppet among Puppets:

If the law is on your side, call (it).

It's not. As Satoru posted, Valve is within their legal rights in this situation. OP is just stealing from them and blaming them for it.

[Brian9824]

As others have mentioned your in the wrong, and its not a restriction for 4 weeks. That is how long until you have to reverse the chargeback until your account is locked and you will be unable to add more games to it.

You don't get to declare a product is broken unilaterally and get a refund. The game not working on your computer doesn't mean its broken anymore then you not being able to run software because your running an old OS means its broken.

So either reverse the chargeback or your account is permanently locked.

[Ganger]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Chargeback success = money back and has the game.
Definitely theft aka stealing.

Valve has locked his account and would of removed the game. Unless the OP has it saved in off-line mode or the game doesn't have DRM then he gets to keep.

Anyway, why should we care as users, the issues are between him/her and valve.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

But I thought there was the chance to make amends and pay the money back to Valve, no?

Only thing they can do is that, anything 'after' is no longer an option.

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Once that would get sroted, let's say, they still continue to have their statutory rights. That's the point.

They threw everything out of the window when doing a chargeback. Let alone the standard agreement between users and valve, of which valve was stolen from; so to take it into any legal matter, valve would be extremely unforgiving of this & could bring up the previous action of theft/fraud and breaking the agreement which gave them refund based rights especially a manual ticket to assist in such a refund if actually needed, until they broke this.

When you've done something wrong, it's best to not go after the party that was in the right the entire time, especially when they can bring it up in court. It would be a very costly mistake.

Originally posted by Miss Ann Thrope:

You must be new to PC gaming. Just because a game doesn't run properly on your machine doesn't mean the product is defective. Troubleshooting and workarounds are often required.

Especially troubleshooting. Too many people just default to "(country law) allows me to declare defective!" instead of the fact it has to be as such, provable, and that they must go through the proper channels in order to resolve an issue.

Too many people bypass troubleshooting entirely, especially when minor settings can be the cause between crashing and uninterrupted gameplay.

Well, I'd have to check on that technically, but generally I agree. Once he chargedback it does rather throw their chances away. Nobody is likely to play ball after that.

But I do the other point about troubleshooting (or lack thereof) would be a MAJOR sticking point, assuming things were not this far down the road.

[JACKET]

Just avoid More damage.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

Only thing they can do is that, anything 'after' is no longer an option.


They threw everything out of the window when doing a chargeback. Let alone the standard agreement between users and valve, of which valve was stolen from; so to take it into any legal matter, valve would be extremely unforgiving of this & could bring up the previous action of theft/fraud and breaking the agreement which gave them refund based rights especially a manual ticket to assist in such a refund if actually needed, until they broke this.

When you've done something wrong, it's best to not go after the party that was in the right the entire time, especially when they can bring it up in court. It would be a very costly mistake.


Especially troubleshooting. Too many people just default to "(country law) allows me to declare defective!" instead of the fact it has to be as such, provable, and that they must go through the proper channels in order to resolve an issue.

Too many people bypass troubleshooting entirely, especially when minor settings can be the cause between crashing and uninterrupted gameplay.

Well, I'd have to check on that technically, but generally I agree. Once he chargedback it does rather throw their chances away. Nobody is likely to play ball after that.

But I do the other point about troubleshooting (or lack thereof) would be a MAJOR sticking point, assuming things were not this far down the road.

They also tend to ignore the massive clause that a product isn't ever going to be considered defective just because it doesn't work on your PC unless you were specifically told that your exact combination of hardware and software would run it or you can point at something stopping it running for everybody.