Unexpected refund from Steam/Valve

[brezaleksandar]

I just received a refund for my last three purchases - all of which took place within the last month. I have the games installed and I was playing all three of them in the last couple of weeks. I'm not at my home computer right now so I don't know if I lost access to them (I'm guessing it's highly likely). I never requested the refund and I thought that the transactions have gone through. I never reported the purchases or asked for a refund, either from Steam or my bank.

Does anyone know what on Earth is going on here?

[asmodeal]

Same thing just happened to me and my account is suspended for fraudulent activity and I have no clue as to why. I bought the games through the steam app built in store. The oldest purchase was made 2 months ago.

One game was going to be released tomorrow and I was looking forward playing it so I am sort of hoping for a quick answer now.

[brezaleksandar]

Did you get an e-mail regarding fraudulent activity? I'm still at work and I'm hoping I'm not in for a nasty surprise when I get back home.

[asmodeal]

I have an alert in the steam client telling me my account was associated with fraudlent activity.
"This account appears to have been used for fraudulent activity"

I know that we technically don't own games but we just buy license to use them, also we supposedly cannot get a refund after a product is delivered. Is it however legally possible to get refunded without even asking for it? I guess they could also just close the account without refunds so maybe that is better.

The games I was refunded for are a bunch of DLC for Borderlands 2, Borderlands the pre-sequel and a pre-order on binding of Isaac rebirth.

The payment were made for Valve luxembourg and I read someone else having an issue with them today but since you are in the USA your situation should be different.

[DEM]

I have the same problem. 14 operations refunded for no reason... things I've payed two months ago.

[asmodeal]

The support page was super slow for me to load earlier as well. Eventually I managed to submit a ticket but it took a while, a good 20 min to wait for the site to finally load.
I am waiting for an answer now.

I am also discovering how tied we are to steam as there is basically no DRM free version of Isaac rebirth and I really want to play this game tomorrow when it comes out.

[brezaleksandar]

Turns out my account has been suspended due to "fradulent activity" as well. Obviously, Steam thinks that it has something to do with my last three purchases (all three were older games that were on sale, if that means anything to anyone) and has thus removed them from my list and suspended my account. If that's the case I wonder if it has something to do with my payment method or my bank, perhaps? That would be completely unusal, as I've been using the same card/PayPal account for the past three years or so. Also, wouldn't it be more fair to us old customers if Steam would allow us to keep playing those games while it conducts an investigation into any possible issues? This way we're all frozen out of our recent purchases, which seems to be a quite unnecessary punishment.

I have submitted a ticket and I'll keep you posted.

[asmodeal]

Maybe the three of us did something similar that triggered red flag and this odd response.

The last thing I did was activating an Evolve Alpha key I found from a reddit thread. And the last thing I did around the oldest stuff I was refunded for was buying a game throught the steam store 16 days earlier.

It also does not seem as if it as an issue with the payment as all the stuff I was refunded for was originally debited from my bank account normally.

I am just amazed that this is even possible. It is like you go to a store and buy a chair and start using it for two months when suddenly the store owner comes to your house give your money back and take away the chair you were seating on without even telling you why he is doing so.
And then all you can do is call the store and wait for them to explain you why they refunded you, canceled the transaction and banned you from buying anything in their store.

[HLCinSC]

Originally posted by asmodeal:

I am just amazed that this is even possible. It is like you go to a store and buy a chair and start using it for two months when suddenly the store owner comes to your house give your money back and take away the chair you were seating on without even telling you why he is doing so.
And then all you can do is call the store and wait for them to explain you why they refunded you, canceled the transaction and banned you from buying anything in their store.

Steam is not issuing a refund. Instead what happens is the payment provider is taking it back from Steam. It is more akin to say you lease a car and write the dealer a check then the dealer deposits it only to later find out the check bounced and he received no payment so he then has your car reposessed.

[asmodeal]

But the payment was made, my account was debited two months ago. Unless there is still another step for steam to receive the money that failed later on, my payment was not bounced and steam got my money.

Plus this is what the email steam send me says:

"We have refunded your purchase of the items listed below. The credit should appear in your account within several business days. "

I guess it is the same thing as to when Amazon pulled out the Orwell book from people's kindle. It is not really buying game but buying a license to use them, maybe not even buying but renting until Steam decides the rent is over.

[HLCinSC]

Oh ok I didn't realize you had gotten a refund email directly from Steam. The situation I referred to was where you just getthe games have been removed due to fraud message

[brezaleksandar]

I doubt that it's my payment method - as you said, it went through on my card and two of the purchases took place weeks ago. I also thought that it might be the fact that I've spent the summer in Europe so it triggered some kind of regional issue, but if I recall correctly, I made other purchases upon return to the States that weren't refunded/flagged. This is getting stranger by the minute.

I like your analogy with chairs. That's exactly how I feel. Also, it seems like it can take up to two weeks for Steam to respond to a ticket, so I guess we'll just have to wait it out...

[Satoru]

Regardless of the refunds your accounts were suspended for fraud

In which case you have to refer to Steam Support as to why

[brezaleksandar]

We did - which still doesn't mean that we can't exchange our thoughts and perhaps find commonalities that might help us better understand what's going on. Especially since all three of us have been on Steam for years and it's kind of obvious that none of us have conducted any kind of fraudulent activities.

[76561198161821512]

Yeah I made a new account. I bought a game 2 months ago that was supposed to be out today and now I am locked out of buying and playing it.
For sure they can lock your account on spot and then make you wait for as long as they wish without giving you explanation.

I will wait for a reply to come but in the meantime I just bough the game again on a different account.

If the issue is IP related then I am not completely clear on that. Although I have not done anything that come close to a fraude, I have used different IP to connect to my steam account. I still don't see how this would lead to having some games refunded though.

[brezaleksandar]

Maybe I wasn't clear in my previous comment - I meant to say that I think I might have made a purchase or two this summer while in Europe, and then I made several purchases when I came back. I wonder if this might be against Steam TOS... Does anyone know what the policy is in terms of purchasing games in a different region?