Steam + Paypal glitch = bullshit

[AniThyng]

So paypal has some glitches on the 28th http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/29 ... _glitches/

I happen to get caught in this, Paypal takes my money twice for a game, Steam claims paypal auth failure.

Fine. I contact Steam support (I did not realize the issue was on paypal's end) , they acknowledge paypal has had issues, they refund my duplicate purchase and accept my payment for the game.

All is well, I thanks steam for their good customer service.

Then the next day, Paypal, as part of their attempts to fix the fallout from their glitch, REVERSES my payment to Steam.

Steam then sees the reversal, removes the game from my account, and places my account under restriction.

It's been a day now and Steam has not yet responded to my support ticket, while paypal has merely choosen to contact steam to inform them this reversal was initiated by them as part of the fixing the glitch issue.

And of course my account is still restricted because I might be a filthy scammer trying to scam them or something.

Fuck steam.

[Dartzap]

Surely that's a case of 'fuck paypal'

[AniThyng]

Well fuck them both anyway. I resent being treated like a inherently dishonest person by Steam.

I'm still waiting for someone from Steam to get back to me and manually just let me pay the bloody debt with my VISA and forget teh whole thing happened. Appearently, based on what STEAM itself has told me in their form reply, and the internet, NOTHING LESS THAN PAYPAL somehow reversing their reverse IN THE SAME TRANSACTIOn will do. No just voiding teh payment and the game and letting me use my VISA or whatever, or paypal just dumping in a fresh batch of teh monies.


The kicker is i could have gotten the game from GOG and saved myself all this crap about account lockouts. Christ.

[Vendetta]

The kicker is i could have gotten the game from GOG and saved myself all this crap about account lockouts. Christ.

I believe there's a lesson in there.

I've gotten to the point where I don't buy from Steam if any of the non-DRM carrying stores has the thing I want.

[Stark]

Y'know how last time a guy said 'why should I have to use more than one client to run my games', inadvertently revealing how captured their manner of thinking was by steam since you can just use the start menu like a normal person?

I bought the last add-on for a long-running game, and it uses steam for DRM (sorry, non-intrusive 'just works' back massages). So now, to run this game I've owned for like six years, I suddenly need to use steam, which has to start up before the game will work, unlike the zero DRM it had before. Turns out the only platform doing the thing the steam fan complained about... was steam.

UH OH.

[AniThyng]

What really gets my goat is that Steam ("wisely") has no phone support so I can't even vent my displeasure by calling them to force an escalation and LET ME PAY THEM. I'm trying to understand the rationale here - they've already docked the game, is it too hard to just let me pay for it some other way, instead of punitively locking down my account and preventing me from adding or purchasing any other games for 9 weeks? (I'm not even clear if this means I can't register games I bought retail)

Granted, I still have access to my older games, and 9weeks is not all that long, but still.

[CaptHawkeye]

If Valve can't fix Steam's problems, then you're supposed to shut up and deal with it because Valve's fans love Valve. Have a bad customer service experience? Got screwed by a blatant scam like War Z or Sword of the Stars? Don't like invasive DRM? Too bad keep using Steam, otherwise you're "hurting" the industry by using or encouraging the growth of other services.

[Wing Commander MAD]

To be clear, you filed a second support ticket regarding the locked account correct?

[AniThyng]

To be clear, you filed a second support ticket regarding the locked account correct?

Yeah.

Well, they finally got back to me with a short "i appears this was indeed paypal reversing your successful transaction, I have unlocked your account, sorry for the inconvenience caused."

Well, lesson learned and all that. I will certainly be much more cautious now with what and when I buy from Steam, and only if there's no comparable alternative.