How to contact a person in steam support - cannot complete transaction and the prefilled questions do not even make the error I get searchable

[worldtraveller8]

I have been trying to complete a purchase for the last 13 hours with the message "There seems to have been an error initializing or updating your transactions. Please wait a minute and try again or contact support for assistance. I have been "waiting a minute" for 13 hours trying over and over with several long breaks in between. I tried to "contact support" and it leads me down a useless rabbit hole with NOTHING addressing the specific error generated (ZERO search results even though it is a steam error and could not even find a match in the forum). And there is no way I can find to even CONTACT A REAL HUMAN BEING at Steam. Any idea how to do an actual ticket request instead of this abysmal computer BS hell?

[worldtraveller8]

Escrito originalmente por ♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭(Bdizzle):

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

That appears to be obvious. I have never in my life seen a company go out of there way to try to NOT provide access to real support in my life. Especially when people are trying to purchase games. And it is a virtual monopoly in PC gaming. I am considering filling an antitrust complaint with the FTC. It is one thing if you have a natural monopoly. It is another if you actually provide a horrible customer support experience so you do not have to hire real people, and you can do it since you have a monopoly.

Digital rights lawyers are upwards of $300/hr. Wait for class actions. It's not Steam only. It's modern tech companies. Amazon has the only good support I know of. Meta full of bugs and no support, most major apps too. Other than Amazon in the past year I've only ever managed to get no support or an irrelevant AI response.

Agreed. That is why the FTC needs to get involved. The government lawyers are charged with enforcing antitrust actions. It is not just they have bad customer support. You cannot sue for that since you can just buy from someone else. But when like every PC gave is mainly offered through steam you have no choice. So this is a test case of a company abusing its monopoly position providing poor support. And we are starting to FINALLY see some governments go after these tech companies, especially in Europe. Thank God for Europe (I cannot even believe I am saying that...).

[N3tRunn3r]

https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWithPurchase

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

The switch over to USD will happen even before you get a response from support.

[worldtraveller8]

Thanks. That takes me where I was before. But the game trick worked and that got me to a support ticket.

[worldtraveller8]

Escrito originalmente por cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

The switch over to USD will happen even before you get a response from support.

:summercat2023:

Yeah I am guessing that. That is why I am so upset. And it is not failing because a last minute person. I know someone that literally was purchasing after me and the transaction went through.

[♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭]

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

Escrito originalmente por ♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭(Bdizzle):

Digital rights lawyers are upwards of $300/hr. Wait for class actions. It's not Steam only. It's modern tech companies. Amazon has the only good support I know of. Meta full of bugs and no support, most major apps too. Other than Amazon in the past year I've only ever managed to get no support or an irrelevant AI response.

Agreed. That is why the FTC needs to get involved. The government lawyers are charged with enforcing antitrust actions. It is not just they have bad customer support. You cannot sue for that since you can just buy from someone else. But when like every PC gave is mainly offered through steam you have no choice. So this is a test case of a company abusing its monopoly position providing poor support. And we are starting to FINALLY see some governments go after these tech companies, especially in Europe. Thank God for Europe (I cannot even believe I am saying that...).

Based EU. I'm googling their antitrust treaties and they look pretty swell. GDPR rocks too, unfortunately any requests I've ever sent to US based companies based on that have been ignored too 😆. Sad to say but due to the way they operate I've got no moral bias against the piracy scene at this point.

[worldtraveller8]

Escrito originalmente por ♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭(Bdizzle):

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

Agreed. That is why the FTC needs to get involved. The government lawyers are charged with enforcing antitrust actions. It is not just they have bad customer support. You cannot sue for that since you can just buy from someone else. But when like every PC gave is mainly offered through steam you have no choice. So this is a test case of a company abusing its monopoly position providing poor support. And we are starting to FINALLY see some governments go after these tech companies, especially in Europe. Thank God for Europe (I cannot even believe I am saying that...).

Based EU. I'm googling their antitrust treaties and they look pretty swell. GDPR rocks too, unfortunately any requests I've ever sent to US based companies based on that have been ignored too 😆. Sad to say but due to the way they operate I've got no moral bias against the piracy scene at this point.

Honestly that is EXACTLY what I was thinking this morning. And I have never pirated a game before. But it is starting to look very appealing. If this complaint does not get resolved by 3PM I will never be spending another dime with Steam one way or the other. I can just play my existing games, use a console, or go to the high seas.

[♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭]

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

Escrito originalmente por ♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭(Bdizzle):

Based EU. I'm googling their antitrust treaties and they look pretty swell. GDPR rocks too, unfortunately any requests I've ever sent to US based companies based on that have been ignored too 😆. Sad to say but due to the way they operate I've got no moral bias against the piracy scene at this point.

Honestly that is EXACTLY what I was thinking this morning. And I have never pirated a game before. But it is starting to look very appealing. If this complaint does not get resolved by 3PM I will never be spending another dime with Steam one way or the other. I can just play my existing games, use a console, or go to the high seas.

🙌🎮🏴‍☠️😈

[davidb11]

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

Escrito originalmente por ♪Strawberry Crisis☆ミ♭(Bdizzle):

Digital rights lawyers are upwards of $300/hr. Wait for class actions. It's not Steam only. It's modern tech companies. Amazon has the only good support I know of. Meta full of bugs and no support, most major apps too. Other than Amazon in the past year I've only ever managed to get no support or an irrelevant AI response.

Agreed. That is why the FTC needs to get involved. The government lawyers are charged with enforcing antitrust actions. It is not just they have bad customer support. You cannot sue for that since you can just buy from someone else. But when like every PC gave is mainly offered through steam you have no choice. So this is a test case of a company abusing its monopoly position providing poor support. And we are starting to FINALLY see some governments go after these tech companies, especially in Europe. Thank God for Europe (I cannot even believe I am saying that...).

It's against the rules to accuse Steam of violating laws for no reason ever.
Good grief.

The FTC has no reason to go after Steam just because you can't get access to Steam Support in an E-mail.

[worldtraveller8]

Read it carefully. It is against the rules to BE A MONOPOLY. One evidence of having a monopolistic position - showing actual impact to the consumer - is horrible customer support where they make it very difficult to even submit a support ticket. An active justice department like existed over 100 years ago would have already broken up Google and Facebook and would be taking a serious look at steam. I think Amazon would be okay because they have more legit competition and their customer support, service, and pricing is impecable.

[davidb11]

Escrito originalmente por worldtraveller8:

Read it carefully. It is against the rules to BE A MONOPOLY. One evidence of having a monopolistic position - showing actual impact to the consumer - is horrible customer support where they make it very difficult to even submit a support ticket. An active justice department like existed over 100 years ago would have already broken up Google and Facebook and would be taking a serious look at steam. I think Amazon would be okay because they have more legit competition and their customer support, service, and pricing is impecable.

I laughed.
Seriously, there are monopolies.
The FTC won't go after Steam until it dismantles Google.
Facebook is it's own nightmare, but the Lizard People won't let it go away. :P

Amazon has it's own worker issues. :P
It may not be a Monopoly, but it's meaner than most Monopolies.