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?

[nullable]

It's common ignorance. And human nature 101 is to start assuming and guessing when knowledge fails. And people like to believe their assumptions and guesses are pretty accurate. None of it is special or snow flakey, just human.

[Ganger]

Originally posted by Son GOKU:

If 4 weeks have passed and he decides to cancel the refund process, will his account return to the way it was or will it remain locked forever?

By this point, I think the account is locked forever but I do believe you can still play the games you already bought before hand but everything else is locked eg. adding new games, trading etc.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by Son GOKU:

Originally posted by Ganger:

Reserve the charge back or your account will remain locked forever. The 4 week lock time is for you to reserve the charge before your account is locked forever.

As for legal redress, only a lawyer and a UK court of law can answer this question for you OP. If the game isn't defective then you will have a hard time proving this in court if you decide to take that far (which I suspect you won't be able to prove it).

My advice is to reserve the charge back and suck it up.

If 4 weeks have passed and he decides to cancel the refund process, will his account return to the way it was or will it remain locked forever?

In the past, users who failed to reverse the chargeback within the designated time saw their restrictions become permanent. Valve have loosened it in recent times whereby if the chargeback is not reversed, the account is locked for the allotted time but this is on a case by case basis and I believe their messaging has been made more clearer on the alert. Either way, the payment method is banned for life.

[JVC]

These kinds of laws have been harmonized within the EU for ages, UK laws will be similar to current EU countries' laws.

When the buyer of an item or service wants to complain about it, he has to take his claim to the seller. If the product is broken, the seller has the opportunity to try to fix the product.

The seller has the right to examine the claim - and to reject it, if the claim is invalid. If the customer is dissatisfied with this, he must still try to take up a dialogue with the seller.

OP, you didn't do this. What you did is like pulling the emergency brake in a train. Yes, it's there. But we aren't supposed to pull the red lever unless an actual emergency is taking place.

Chargebacks are for when funds have been drawn from your account illegally. This isn't the case here, you entered into a trade with open eyes and Valve sold you a product in good faith. So the money was drawn from your account legally, and you haven't performed the tasks you have to do to establish a legal foundation for a refund.

Cancel the chargeback request and learn from your mistake.

[TheForestSpirit]

You bought the game then initiated a chargeback. You're in the wrong here not Steam. You made yourself look foolish with this thread. Next time be careful not to go over the 2 hour playtime limit and if you're not happy then request a refund that way and move on.

[Blaagh]

love how you guys keep going on and OP hasn't given a single response

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

You should have done a manual ticket.

FWIW, I did, Steam support response was "*shrug* you went over our 2h limit, consumer protection laws don't mean anything to us, sucks to be you huh" (paraphrase!).

I'm seeing a few "You stole from valve", I no longer have the goods, they were returned according to the CRA UK I acted entirely within the law in returning defective goods -- there's no 2h limit in the law but they can reduce a refund according to time used, which would have been entirely reasonable.

Yes, I followed the procedures that Steam gave for requesting a refund (through their support); CRA makes the seller required to make good on a purchase, not the manufacturer (stops them fobbing you off with "contact the manufacturer, not our problem").

Then I followed the procedures through the payment system allowing Steam to resolve my case without a chargeback, they chose not to.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by 🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

You should have done a manual ticket.

FWIW, I did, Steam support response was "*shrug* you went over our 2h limit, consumer protection laws don't mean anything to us, sucks to be you huh" (paraphrase!).

I'm seeing a few "You stole from valve", I no longer have the goods, they were returned according to the CRA UK I acted entirely within the law in returning defective goods -- there's no 2h limit in the law but they can reduce a refund according to time used, which would have been entirely reasonable.

Yes, I followed the procedures that Steam gave for requesting a refund (through their support); CRA makes the seller required to make good on a purchase, not the manufacturer (stops them fobbing you off with "contact the manufacturer, not our problem").

Then I followed the procedures through the payment system allowing Steam to resolve my case without a chargeback, they chose not to.

Stop ignoring the most basic fact of law you failed in you cannot act within the law for returning defective goods if the goods themselves are not defective and the problem is caused by an issue with the system you tried to use them with.

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

... what you should have done is pursued it further with Valve, showing them the law.

Yes, I did that. Quoting the law to the support rep.

The paypal resolution system gives the seller opportunity to respond, so I made a grievance statement there too, and gave them ample time to respond.

What should happen then is the seller should make good, either fix the product or offer a refund.

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.

Chargebacks generate fees because the payment provider wants to discourage actions that result in chargebacks (I've been on the other side of them too).

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

There's also small claims for the monetary loss; which is relatively small. I can't imagine Steam will even bother to respond to the court documents.

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

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.

I made a good faith attempt to get the game to work, which took me over their time limit.

As it happens in the UK, the onus is on the seller to show it's _not_ defective. If they did that then I might need to get an independent source to demonstrate the defectiveness to a court.

The Steams rep never disputed it was defective.

[Count_Dandyman]

Originally posted by 🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷:

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

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.

I made a good faith attempt to get the game to work, which took me over their time limit.

As it happens in the UK, the onus is on the seller to show it's _not_ defective. If they did that then I might need to get an independent source to demonstrate the defectiveness to a court.

The Steams rep never disputed it was defective.

Yeah and the seller can easily show the product is not defective by showing the simple fact that other people are playing it just like they did the last time people tried claiming they were entitled to a refund because of games not working for them.

And no getting an independent source to demonstrate it doesn't work on a system incapable of running it does not help you at all because again you are responsible for the system you want it to run on not the seller and digital goods do not have the variation and potential for a manufacturing defect that physical ones do your copy is entirely identical to the copies of everybody else that is playing it.

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

The OP purchased a product, did a chargeback (which is for UNKNOWN charges) BUT the OP knew about the payment because they actually paid for the game.

If you read the Paypal rules then refusing a refund on defective goods is a reason for chargeback, I reiterated the legal basis on which I was requesting a refund (which I'd already communicated to them through support) and gave them time to make good (built in to the Paypal
process).

I returned the game (removed it from my account).

UK consumer laws are quite strong, a lot stronger than many people realise. I don't think Steam should be allowed to behave as if those laws don't apply -- it's a small amount of money, but the principle is that when I buy something I expect it to work as advertised and if it doesn't then I expect, as the law says, that the seller will make good.

[Ganger]

Originally posted by 🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷:

If you read the Paypal rules then refusing a refund on defective goods is a reason for chargeback, I reiterated the legal basis on which I was requesting a refund (which I'd already communicated to them through support) and gave them time to make good (built in to the Paypal
process).

I returned the game (removed it from my account).

UK consumer laws are quite strong, a lot stronger than many people realise. I don't think Steam should be allowed to behave as if those laws don't apply -- it's a small amount of money, but the principle is that when I buy something I expect it to work as advertised and if it doesn't then I expect, as the law says, that the seller will make good.

Unless you reverse the charge back, your account will remain locked dude. We are not lawyers and we really don't have a understanding on the law.

Anyway, What are you going to do ?

[🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷]

Originally posted by Count_Dandyman:

Yeah and the seller can easily show the product is not defective by showing the simple fact that other people are playing it just like they did the last time people tried claiming they were entitled to a refund because of games not working for them.

Are you in the UK? that's not how that works.

Goods have to be fit for purpose.

If your system doesn't meet the minimum specs, that's not a reason for refund as the specs are advertised at the point of sale and so it's still fit for purpose it was sold for, if a game just crashes for no known reason on a system that meets the specs then that is not fit for purpose.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by 🇮 🇻 🇴 🇷:

UK consumer laws are quite strong, a lot stronger than many people realise. I don't think Steam should be allowed to behave as if those laws don't apply -- it's a small amount of money, but the principle is that when I buy something I expect it to work as advertised and if it doesn't then I expect, as the law says, that the seller will make good.

It doesn't matter what you think, paypal might allow you to do a chargeback but steam is also allowed to ban your account which is what they initiated.

You can't unliaterally declare a product defective because it doesn't work for you to get a refund, it has to actually be found defective by a court for those rules to apply. If other people are playing the game then by definition its not defective.

So feel free to justify it all you want, you violated steam's terms, Steam got hit with a fee because of your chargeback and as a result if you don't reverse the chargeback your Steam account will be permanently locked at the end of those 4 weeks.

So your choice now, reverse the chargeback or your account is permanently locked.