Chargeback Initiated By Bank

[美的]

Hey Steam Comm,

I was recently the victim of literal fraud charges on my credit card and debit card. My bank had initiated chargebacks/disputes from a timeframe of a few weeks as there were quite a few transactions. One of the transactions in this timeframe that they disputed charges from, was a transaction made on Steam for Lost Ark. I have already called my bank to have this specific transaction reversed and the dispute/chargeback has been closed and cancelled--meaning that the funds are being resent back to Steam and reapplied to the transaction/my Steam Account. I have already spoken to Steam and they've said that I have to wait to have these funds show back up on Steam for the transaction to be re-covered/reapplied.

In contrast, because of this chargeback initiation, it triggered an automatic permanent ban on my Lost Ark account. I have reached out to AGS support via the ticket/ban appeal ticket and they just keep giving me automated replies talking about how the decision has already been closely looked at, however, that's not possible considering the fact that this ban was triggered automatically due to error from my bank themselves--I have corrected this error and called them to have it reversed as I said. I am not sure what to do in this case. Do I just have to wait for the Steam transaction to re-clear through Steam and then show AGS support through my appeal ticket that the transaction is reapplied once again?

The ban is 100% wrongful, as there's been no TOS breaking done on my account and of course my luck has a Steam/LOA transaction within that time period of fraudulent activity. The automatic trigger was due to my bank processing the chargeback/dispute as a precaution, therefore, would it be safe to assume that once the transaction is reapplied, I will be able to have the ban lifted?

Wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation where a chargeback was initiated, cancelled and then had a ban lifted afterwards.

Thanks for the advice/help in advance.

[mimizukari]

A chargeback typically leads to immediate termination of any account it's associated with. If they said the decision is made then there's likely no way to reverse that decision. Your bank shouldn't automatically be issuing chargebacks without your consent, you should call them to make sure they don't do that on your future transactions.

[美的]

Surely they can reverse the decision to permanently terminate my account if I've initiated a reversal of the chargeback and closed the dispute, especially if it was due to bank error. The customer service rep. that I spoke with from my bank barely spoke English and may have just misunderstood me but I clarified during the call that anything from Steam was me and wasn't fraudulent, however, she insisted that all transactions within the timeframe were potential fraud and went ahead and did it anyways despite what I had told her.

[d3str0y3r]

Originally posted by Aesthetic:

Surely they can reverse the decision to permanently terminate my account

Can they sure, but will they could be a different story. All businesses handle chargebacks differently. Some have a zero tolerance policy and if AGS is saying no then that is most likely the case. Even if you did get the chargeback reversed, payment processing providers still charge a fee which the company had to pay. So they may now just see you as a risk and do not want you back.

[IFIYGD]

You need to contact your bank again, and ask to escalate- talk to her supervisor. If the agent you've been dealing with is following the bank's standard procedure, they may not be able to isolate specific transactions and keep them out of the chargeback or contestation actions. A supervisor may be able to.

I had to go through this back in 2013 when I was a victim of ID Theft thanks to a data breach at Facebook, where I had a connected PayPal account that was linked to my bank. Standard bank procedure was to contest all transactions during the time period where my PayPal account was being used fraudulently. PayPal would not stop the payments, but my bank stepped up to deal with it because my bank account was connected to my PayPal account. It was a mess. But because standard procedure at the bank was to contest all transactions, I had to escalate to a supervisor who had the ability to single out transactions that I verified were made by me, not by the hacker/account hijacker and remove them from the list of contested transactions.

It took months to get it straightened out- but it was also 2013. It might go faster for you- but *you* have to request a supervisor or manager who has the permissions to remove transactions from the dispute. The support person you are dealing with will not do so on their own, and most likely cannot do so on their own.

As far as the Lost Ark ban, I can offer no advice- my situation did not involve anything like that.

[Bee🐝]

Wait for the chargeback reversal to totally clear first and then contact the developer’s support team again. No point in trying to contact them until that happens.

Once that happens, at least you’ll have some more “leverage” - they’ll have a record of the reverse charge - but it might still be a futile task depending on their rules.

Remember their support might see quite a few people every week claiming they “totally reversed the chargeback” when they never did.

[美的]

I spoke with my bank, two managers to be exact, and the transactions chargeback reversal is already set in motion. It seems that it is now a matter of waiting for Steam to receive the funds back—however, the Steam support team has mentioned countless times that it could take between 60-90 days, which doesn’t make sense considering the managers that I spoke with both said that the funds have already been sent/posted to Steam.

I also spoke with an Amazon representative over the phone who was able to internally get in touch with the Game Studio team and essentially had her guarantee that the ban will be lifted once the chargeback reversal has been completed. I had her send me an email detailing our conversation in writing, as well, so that I could use that as leverage in the appeal ticket that I’m going to submit after the transaction reversal has cleared through Steam.

Thanks for the insight so far, will provide an update regarding this issue as soon as I know more so that if it happens to anyone in the future, they’ll know which direction to go.

[Bee🐝]

Originally posted by Aesthetic:

I spoke with my bank, two managers to be exact, and the transactions chargeback reversal is already set in motion. It seems that it is now a matter of waiting for Steam to receive the funds back—however, the Steam support team has mentioned countless times that it could take between 60-90 days, which doesn’t make sense considering the managers that I spoke with both said that the funds have already been sent/posted to Steam.

I also spoke with an Amazon representative over the phone who was able to internally get in touch with the Game Studio team and essentially had her guarantee that the ban will be lifted once the chargeback reversal has been completed. I had her send me an email detailing our conversation in writing, as well, so that I could use that as leverage in the appeal ticket that I’m going to submit after the transaction reversal has cleared through Steam.

Thanks for the insight so far, will provide an update regarding this issue as soon as I know more so that if it happens to anyone in the future, they’ll know which direction to go.

Glad to hear you were able to get some more confirmation.

Looks like you’re playing the waiting game now - nothing to do until it actually clears.

[美的]

Originally posted by Bee🐝:

Originally posted by Aesthetic:

I spoke with my bank, two managers to be exact, and the transactions chargeback reversal is already set in motion. It seems that it is now a matter of waiting for Steam to receive the funds back—however, the Steam support team has mentioned countless times that it could take between 60-90 days, which doesn’t make sense considering the managers that I spoke with both said that the funds have already been sent/posted to Steam.

I also spoke with an Amazon representative over the phone who was able to internally get in touch with the Game Studio team and essentially had her guarantee that the ban will be lifted once the chargeback reversal has been completed. I had her send me an email detailing our conversation in writing, as well, so that I could use that as leverage in the appeal ticket that I’m going to submit after the transaction reversal has cleared through Steam.

Thanks for the insight so far, will provide an update regarding this issue as soon as I know more so that if it happens to anyone in the future, they’ll know which direction to go.

Glad to hear you were able to get some more confirmation.

Looks like you’re playing the waiting game now - nothing to do until it actually clears.

Seems that way, the waiting game begins. Thanks again!

[davidb11]

Valve doesn't terminate accounts for Chargeback. LOL wut.
What they do is black list the account's payment method, and a few other things.

[美的]

Originally posted by davidb11:

Valve doesn't terminate accounts for Chargeback. LOL wut.
What they do is black list the account's payment method, and a few other things.

Lost Ark isn’t under Valve. It’s under Smilegate/Amazon Games, which is why they’re two separate support teams that I have to deal with.

[davidb11]

I thought he was specifically talking about Valve
My bad.

[Virgil]

Did u end up getting unbanned?

[美的]

Yes ^ I was unbanned. Took about a month or so.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Saw this, just want to give my piece, and those that read this, I keep it short best I can for each point

- Ensure your bank don't do things without your consent, as most services has a policy to either limit, lock, or even terminate said user account if chargeback happens. Banks that do action either did it because either had reports from another customer for fraud claims, or because of other reasons.

- If any bank does do chargeback, you can have it reverse chargeback simply just by contacting your bank, as well inform support of the service you're using that punish your account that the chargeback being undo, so may take couple days, or longer depends how long the banking process takes to finish everything to solve the issue.






Now side note to anyone that being contacted by random online be aware of scams online like someone contacting you from discord, twitter, reddit, email, or etc beaware of scames as some people online send fake images, gifs, or videos, and will send you phishing links to steal account, money, or info from you, to know if there an issue with your account you go to the site itself don't click the link in said email, and login, there should be message of some sort from the system, or notice, or if didn't get anything, can message support via the service you're with to asking them the question, and they will answer the question if there anything wrong. Now you wonder how would you know if got fake email, you have to read the address on email, sometimes they use exploits to mask their email to only show you one part of the email that extenal of their email address to trick you, either way be aware what goes on online. For Steam case they do not contact anyone period, they only reply to you if you went made a manual ticket under help section, they don't do live chat, or anywhere else only via ticket system on steam website.

[Abhi]

Originally posted by Aesthetic:

Yes ^ I was unbanned. Took about a month or so.

Hey man, I just got banned for the same issue as yours. Chargeback initiated without notice by Visa. Could you dm or tell me how to deal with this?

Thanks for the help in advance.