Steam and Refunds - Don't Ask, Don't Question

[Tebonas]

4 including this one is entirely different than 8, I hope we can agree on that. Thats about half as many and paints an entirely different picture.

Customer support people are just people as well. and even if it shouldn't be the case they have good or bad days. And if they stumble upon a sale history that can be construed as "return policy abuse" and/or emails that gets you on their bad side, they are more likely to interpret their rules more strict and give less leeway.

Would that happen in an ideal world? Of course not. But neither is Steam the new "Evil incarnate" replacement of EA, nor did they abuse you because they are mean sadists or something.

The whole thread is hyperbole by you, as you admitted yourself. So I hope you don't get too annoyed when some of the answers are hyperbole as well.  

[Vaiti]

Nah, I don't. I intend to do a kind of "afterthoughts" thing later when I can drum up the :effort:

Like I said right off. I don't want to paint this entirely as woe is me. I'm disgruntled and annoyed, so of course that is going to come through. But yeah I'm not wholey blameless or without fault.

Robbie there did a good thing in backing his Support Agent for one, I give him kudos for that.

[tgr]

Turns out I'm suddenly in the same position, I purchased Pole Position 2012 at their -75% sale after inspecting the store page very carefully to see if there was any hint of an auxilliary account requirement; I even googled it to see. Nada. So I purchased it, downloaded it, fired it up and was met with the kalypso login page.

I have a few other games which does have an auxilliary account requirement, such as soase, galciv2, r.u.s.e etc, but I haven't bothered asking for a refund on those, since it took a while from purchase until I actually tried it out, but pole position 2012 was tested within an hour of purchase, and the initial request was sent within 6 hours of purchase. Personally I don't think it unreasonable to expect a refund in this case, and I do intend to have a quick chat with norway's consumer agency regarding what exactly our rights are, but if Valve still won't refund me (they've given me the initial boilerplate "no, we don't do refunds after the game has been launched" mail, of course), meh, it's €3.49. It's still disappointing, but I'll live.

But basically I just requested
1) A refund (I don't care how, it's the principle of the thing)
2) A removal of the game from my account
3) An update on their store page to show that the game does, indeed, require a kalypso account, so others who don't care for 3rd party auth systems can see that they should avoid it as well.

[Vaiti]

Despite my issue eventually getting resolved. I've not made a single purchase with Steam since this incident. Managed to avoid all Autumn sales.

Just left a bad taste in my mouth. I've got enough games on my account. They couldn't be arsed to help me here till I made a huge fuss about it. Dunno, just not feeling the impulse buy anymore. Maybe it will fade by the time the Christmas sales roll around.

[tgr]

I don't think I'm going to react that badly, it's just €3,50. On the other hand, it is just €3,50, and you would've thought they would've had no issue with refunding that just for the goodwill.

But I guess my list of no-buy publishers will have to be expanded to the following list: ubisoft, activision, EA (wololol no new games on steam anymore, problem solved), focus home interactive, stardock interactive and kalypso. I do wish I could exclude whole publishers from the storepages, though, so it would be even easier to avoid games from publishers utilizing their own auth systems, but ah well.

[Vaiti]

Yeah, see that is the thing. It is JUST a small amount. The stinginess of it makes me a little more cautious with purchases at the moment since I know if I have a problem they won't willingly help out. Good customer, bad customer, doesn't matter.

Sad thing is, to get them to do the right thing in this case and just refund you that 3.50€ that you are going to end up spending with them again anyways, you would have to go my route. At which case you end up in my position of not knowing if you want to give them that 3.50€ anymore.

[tgr]

I guess I can just keep sending them questions about whatever game I'm pondering on buying, and ask them if they can guarantee that it'll be drm/3rd party auth free, since obviously the store pages can't be trusted to keep this information.

[Vaiti]

If you did that and they said "nope, it has none" then it did. I get the feeling at this point the refund would still be a no. It's your responsibility to research the product fully.

[eldaec]

In the UK there is a statutory 14 day cooling off period for anything bought on the internet. Don't know if it applies across the EU.

[tgr]

In the UK there is a statutory 14 day cooling off period for anything bought on the internet. Don't know if it applies across the EU.

We have something similar with regards to things bought "unseen" on the internet (i.e. through a webshop), but I'm not sure if that's physical items only or if that includes software.

[tgr]

So apparently they've decided to go with the "we don't do refunds, but as a one-time customer service we can issue store credit for the amount of your purchase into your steam wallet", which albeit quirky is fine by me. It'll probably be spent at some point anyways, so it doesn't really matter all that much.

As for "it's your responsibility to research the product fully", I did. I read their page, I googled "pole position 2012 drm" etc, and I found absolutely no indication whatsoever that there was anything of the sort there. The only way I could possibly research this any more thoroughly, would've been to download a pirated copy and run it.

Somehow I don't think that's how the whole process is supposed to work.

[Rendakor]

A pirated copy would have some means of bypassing the third party login screen anyway, so even that might not have helped.  

Edit: Spelling on a touch screen is hard.

[tgr]

Only if I applied the crack prior to firing it up the first time.

[jakonovski]

If you did that and they said "nope, it has none" then it did. I get the feeling at this point the refund would still be a no. It's your responsibility to research the product fully.

In the EU, it's the seller's responsibility to represent the product truthfully. How else could it be, if we don't want snake oil salesmen everywhere?

 

[apocrypha]

Steam just ignores these customer rights.

A law is only any use if it's ever enforced.

[jakonovski]

Steam just ignores these customer rights.

A law is only any use if it's ever enforced.

To a point the fault lies with us, their customers. How can enforcement happen if no one makes a complaint?

[apocrypha]

Yeah, agreed. And I'm sure Steam aren't alone in flaunting consumer protection law, by a long way.

[Ingmar]

I know why I wouldn't give you a refund on Pole Position 2012. Because when I go to the store page for it, it very clearly says "3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso Account" right on the sidebar.

[Rasix]

Title: Pole Position 2012
Genre: Action, Strategy, Simulation, Racing
Developer: Destrax Games
Publisher: Kalypso Media Digital
Release Date: Apr 26, 2012
Languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso account

Maybe they added the notification due his interaction with them.  Doubtful.

[tgr]

I know why I wouldn't give you a refund on Pole Position 2012. Because when I go to the store page for it, it very clearly says "3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso Account" right on the sidebar.

Oh, so you're saying I'm lying, now?

Listen, I checked and re-checked repeatedly that it did not contain any hint whatsoever that there were any sort of 3rd party DRM or auth mechanism before I sent the refund request, and I rechecked it repeatedly afterwards just to make sure it hadn't changed yet. I'm not sure if it was still missing earlier today, but it was certainly missing late last night.

Now, whether or not it was my interaction with them which caused that store page to be updated is, quite frankly, irrelevant at this point, the important bit is that it has been changed, so that others who are also not happy about games requiring an additional auth system to steam's won't make the same mistake in future.

[Vaiti]

I know why I wouldn't give you a refund on Pole Position 2012. Because when I go to the store page for it, it very clearly says "3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso Account" right on the sidebar.

Every Steam Store page is done on core rope memory and is unchangable  Common fact. 

[Ingmar]

I know why I wouldn't give you a refund on Pole Position 2012. Because when I go to the store page for it, it very clearly says "3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso Account" right on the sidebar.

Oh, so you're saying I'm lying, now?

No, just questioning your vision. 

[tgr]

I know why I wouldn't give you a refund on Pole Position 2012. Because when I go to the store page for it, it very clearly says "3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso Account" right on the sidebar.

Oh, so you're saying I'm lying, now?

No, just questioning your vision.  

I have 2 copies of the store page up here in my browser, one from 26th of november 2012 20:42:17 norwegian time, and one from 27th of november 23:37:12 norwegian time. The copy from the 26th has no mention of any 3rd party DRM, whereas the one from the 27th has the mention of 3rd party DRM.

My eyes are working just fine.

[koro]

Title: Pole Position 2012
Genre: Action, Strategy, Simulation, Racing
Developer: Destrax Games
Publisher: Kalypso Media Digital
Release Date: Apr 26, 2012
Languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish
3rd-party DRM: Requires a Kalypso account

Maybe they added the notification due his interaction with them.  Doubtful.

Huh. Yesterday after reading tgr's story about it, I looked up Pole Position on Steam, and there was no "3rd-party DRM" line at all whatsoever.

So yeah, maybe they did.

[Rasix]

Screenshot or it didn't happen.

[koro]

[Paelos]

Oddly specific DRM.

[Samwise]

I LOLed.

[Rasix]

I see pixels.

[5150]

Actually if I put my cynical-but-probably-true hat on I suspect the reason their customer support sucks so much is due to flatland (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=22091.0) because Valve probably don't have any dedicated customer service staff and it's whatever poor code monkey drew the short straw that day (but he gets stuck with his tickets until they are resolved - hence long delays and shitty service)!

[ezrast]

I just assumed they contracted out everything that wasn't actually making games.