Steams terrible customer service.

[Beardo]

From my time on steam i mostly play on my brothers account as he has way more games but overall games are good. However once you hit a problem your left out of pocket steam is terrible with their customer service if game rips you of or unlawfully takes your money leaving you with a game you cant play. theres nothign you can do you request/tickets get rejected or your refund get rejected because you got over 2 hours of gameplay that saves them from lawsuits and legally having to pay you back. If had to rate it out of 5 games would be 4, movies would be 2 and their customer service would be a low pitiful 1. Steam pull your finger out and work on your customer skills movies can come later.

[Falro the Great]

First of all, sharing accounts is a violation of the SSA, and can get the account permanently locked.

Second, what game are you having an issue with?

[Satoru]

The refudn policy is clear

Less than 2 hours of playtime and less than 2 weeks since purchase

If you have more than 2 hours that is YOUR fault. not Steam's. YOURS

Just because steam wont give you a refund outside the extremely clear refund policy is not 'bad customer service'. Do you go to a store 3 years after you bought something then demand a refund? No. Steam does not force you to play more than the 2 hour refund window. YOU have to do that.

[Teksura]

Originally posted by Cadeyrn_Llywelyn:

unlawfully takes your money

first, what exactly is "unlawful" about them selling you the product you asked to buy from them on terms you agreed to? Because it sounds to me like you're using the word "unlawful" when you really mean "I want my money back anyway".

Originally posted by Cadeyrn_Llywelyn:

leaving you with a game you cant play... over 2 hours of gameplay...

This sounds like a contradiction to me.

Originally posted by Satoru:

Do you go to a store 3 years after you bought something then demand a refund? No.

Oh! Oh! Fun story! I literally had someone try to do this with a shirt when I worked at a Macy's. Very nice woman. She had bought the shirt for her son, but he never actually got it and she was cleaning out and... I actually kinda suspect that the son was now dead and she didn't want to talk about it. anyway. She came in not expecting us to take it back. Surprise! Macy's has an extraordinarily generous return policy. I tried running it through the system but it was so old, the system couldn't even find the item on record (normal when items have been discontinued for a year). Nor could it find the transation (even my manager was unaware that old transations could be cycled out of the system). I mean, she even had the old reciept but the system did not reconize it as valid. I tried EVERYTHING I could think of to process that return. In the end, she gave up hope of getting the return she never expected, and asked if it was ok to give me (personally) the shirt. Like, for me to take home and wear. she thought it was such a nice shirt, and wanted someone to use it. and it was my size and I had been so helpful... I'm actually wearing the shirt right now. It's a really nice shirt.

[Bob-Klobb]

Originally posted by Teksura:

Originally posted by Cadeyrn_Llywelyn:

leaving you with a game you cant play... over 2 hours of gameplay...

This sounds like a contradiction to me.

Telling me you've never had a game that has had game-breaking updates that they didn't fix? Look at what happened to spintires for the longest time, or GTA4. I had GTA4 work flawlessly for many hours and now I'm lucky if it runs for more than 5 minutes without crashing. Not that hard a concept really.

[Spambot71 (main character)]

Your inability to run the game hasn't hampered the multitudes playing it right now, ergo the game is not at fault.

[Bob-Klobb]

Originally posted by Spambot71:

Your inability to run the game hasn't hampered the multitudes playing it right now, ergo the game is not at fault.

Unless it's one of the many, many broken ass ports on steam.

[Spambot71 (main character)]

No, if it were the game it would affect a large portion or all of the community, since the community is alive and well it thereby follows that if the issue is affecting a samll percentage it is something about THEIR systems causing it. Which falls to them to fix and/or seek help in fixing it. Thats the responsibility of the software user.

Trying to dump that responsibility is far too popular these days so most people just whine and blame the "corporation".

[RedLightning]

I wonder.. I purchased 'bro-force' quite a while ago. A few updates later (not early access as far as I know) they borked controller support.

I cannot play the game proper since that update. What do I do then, considering I cannot remove, or refuse the update? Not play the game that I paid for in working order which was later messed up.

[𝕙.𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕒𝕤]

It's always funny to see how fast at least one staunch defender of Steam surfaces. Steam sells
games that are broken beyond belief and dumps the responsibility to get them working on their
customers or gives you the run around to argue with the publishers and developers where you are told to contact Steam support:
What would you say if you buy a car and the dealer would say: Well if something goes wrong
you could always contact the manufacturer.
Steams attitude is unacceptable. If a product doesn't work pull it from the store until it's fixed.
Services like Origin, Uplay and GOG offer games that work for Windows 7/8/10 without
forcing their customers to jump through hoops to get their products working.

[Teksura]

Originally posted by h.barkas:

What would you say if you buy a car and the dealer would say: Well if something goes wrong
you could always contact the manufacturer.

Let's ignore the fact that this is a real thing that happens for a minute. Let's instead talk about those scary before times, when we had to go to a store to buy our games.

Go back to the days before Steam. You buy a game from your local Kmart or something, and it doesn't run on your computer. Remember, their policy on software is it can't be returned if it's been opened. It doesn't matter if you've had it for less than 2 weeks. It doesn't matter if you've played it less than 2 houes. It doesn't matter if all you did was discover your system can't run it. So you go there and want the guy behind the counter to solve your problem for you and get your game working. Then after you go away, he goes to his buddies and they have a good laugh at the idiot who wanted him to personally help figure out what's wrong with your system. Remind me again how Steam is somehow worse than this?


You want to bring up other services? Let's talk about gamersgate. I bought Crusader Kings II from them a while back. My system met all the required specs, but it still wouldn't run. The gamersgate return policy said this was enough to justify a refund. They refused the refund, and directed me to the developers saying they could not authorize a refund until the devolpers said I should seek a refund. So I spoke with the developers, who looked at my post and informed me that there was really no reason why it shouldn't run on my system, and if the problem persists, I should seek a refund. Gamersgate reviewed this, and refused the refund. I pointed them to the "7 day no questions asked" policy they had at the time with reguards to refunds and asked that they please honor it, and they closed my ticket and marked it as resolved. No refund given.


I've never heard of a story where Valve refused to honor something which was within their refund policy. And I've never heard of a retail service- online or in store -which provides this free tech support you seem to think Origin, Uplay, and GOG all offer.


And you should really learn the difference between a "staunch defender of steam", and a "casual basher of idocy".

[The Rock God]

Originally posted by h.barkas:

What would you say if you buy a car and the dealer would say: Well if something goes wrong you could always contact the manufacturer.

Things must be different in Germany. In the US that's actually how the law works.

[𝕙.𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕒𝕤]

Originally posted by The Rock God:

Originally posted by h.barkas:

What would you say if you buy a car and the dealer would say: Well if something goes wrong you could always contact the manufacturer.

Things must be different in Germany. In the US that's actually how the law works.

My bad sorry for my ignorance of the situation in the United States. In Germany a car dealership is responsible not only for sales but also service and repair (which is free during warranty).

[cinedine]

Originally posted by h.barkas:

Originally posted by The Rock God:

Things must be different in Germany. In the US that's actually how the law works.

My bad sorry for my ignorance of the situation in the United States. In Germany a car dealership is responsible not only for sales but also service and repair (which is free during warranty).

Uhm, no. Only for warranty cases. And that's only because the seller is your contract partner. Which Steam isn't. You get two licenses on Steam - the Steam subscription with Valve as contract partner and the game license with the game's publisher as contract partner. So for game related issues, Steam is not the place to go to.

[𝕙.𝕓𝕒𝕣𝕜𝕒𝕤]

I get your point cinedine and you are right. No doubt Steam acts according to law.
What I want to point out though is that Steam knows they are selling games which are utterly broken or have broken features. Although this might be legal it is highly unethical business practice.
So I think it is amusing to see people defend a company as if it were a philantropic institution.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Bob-Klobb:

Originally posted by Spambot71:

Your inability to run the game hasn't hampered the multitudes playing it right now, ergo the game is not at fault.

Unless it's one of the many, many broken ass ports on steam.

Agin.. the point is. If it is broken, how are so many other steam users playing it?