Steam Refunds - A How To Guide

[SteveMill]

I asked for my claim to be escalated to a higher level of management. I received a refund email from higher up and another support refusal within minutes of each other.

[SteveMill]

For people in the UK take a look at and quote this if necessary.

Office of Fair Trading: Unfair contracts

[/url]http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/report ... 11.pdf[url]

Any business selling goods to consumers is legally bound to accept certain implied obligations, whatever the contract says. These are the consumer's 'statutory rights'. Goods must match the description given to them, and be of satisfactory quality and fit for their purposes. Contract terms which deny consumers the right to full compensation where goods are misdescribed or defective are liable to be considered unfair under the
Regulations, and are void and unenforceable under other legislation.
2.1.2 As well as potentially being unfair under the Regulations, the use of such
disclaimers is liable to mislead consumers about their statutory rights. As
such, it can give rise to enforcement action as an unfair commercial
practice (see above, page 11).
2.1.3 See Group 1 for the OFT's objections to disclaimers generally. Note that these apply to any term, whatever the form of words used, or the legal mechanism involved, which has the object or effect of protecting the
supplier from claims for redress for defective or misdescribed goods. It is
also important to note that a statement that statutory rights are not
affected, without explanation, cannot make such a term acceptable to the
OFT.

So in the UK don't let people or companies tell you that by accepting Terms and Conditions you have no rights. That is bull. You cannot sign away your statutory rights and anyone that tells you otherwise is either a fool or a crook.

[Aelhis]

Got my refund! Yay so happy! I'm Brazilian so I appealed to my country law that states I can get refund for any product in a 7 days period (especially on internet and phone purchase). After about 10 messages and saying I would chargeback my credit card and start a lawsuit they refunded me (took about 1 month, btw with all messages stating they would not refund).

Oh Also I remembered them from another time they did refund me a game and told the guy to check my steam history... ALso he didn't want to give me a refund because I played the game for 4 Hours... I just told him seriously? 4 hours? and the chageback thing.

It all worked out for me, Good Luck to you all

[bumpinthenight]

Well Mastercard won't proceed with the chargeback because Steam's North American EULA declares no refunds and I wasted over 6 hours alt-tabbed from the game trying to figure out how to make X:Abortion work right so they won't make an exception despite this being the first time I've ever asked for credit in exchange for a crappy half-baked sorry excuse for a game. So that's it for me, I'm out $50 with no recourse but some valuable lessons learned: No more purchasing from Steam and especially Egosoft. I'd sooner pirate Egosoft's future products until I feel parity has been met, if they survive to make another one.

Egosoft: As someone who loyally bought all of your products since X3: Reunion I say F-U, this has been a horrible experience and one I will not forget.

FU and goodbye.

[=VipeR=]

After tech sean punting me trough 17 emails of sheer misery and closing my ticket I promised not to return to these forums but I think I owe it to the OP and every one still trying to get refund to share that I have finally gotten my refund.

After my first ticket got closed, reopened and closed again I was about to give up, I instead opened a second ticket in my native language (Portuguese) to witch tech Ben replayed in English with a first standard refusal.

I then replayed also in my native language to say that I had fully understood that the Steam Subscriber Agreement did not entitled me to any king of refund but because I felt cheated by Egosoft for promising features and not delivering on those same promises I asked if they could make an exception.

On Ben's next email I got the refund in store credit.

Basically what I've learn from this experience is that Steam can pretty much do what ever they want, its up to us paying customers never to pre-order and wait for reviews because clearly game developing companies cant be trusted.

What a shame Egosoft, this could have been such a nice game.

Good luck to you all and don't give up.

[vargata]

After tech sean punting me trough 17 emails of sheer misery and closing my ticket I promised not to return to these forums but I think I owe it to the OP and every one still trying to get refund to share that I have finally gotten my refund.

After my first ticket got closed, reopened and closed again I was about to give up, I instead opened a second ticket in my native language (Portuguese) to witch tech Ben replayed in English with a first standard refusal.

I then replayed also in my native language to say that I had fully understood that the Steam Subscriber Agreement did not entitled me to any king of refund but because I felt cheated by Egosoft for promising features and not delivering on those same promises I asked if they could make an exception.

On Ben's next email I got the refund in store credit.

Basically what I've learn from this experience is that Steam can pretty much do what ever they want, its up to us paying customers never to pre-order and wait for reviews because clearly game developing companies cant be trusted.

What a shame Egosoft, this could have been such a nice game.

Good luck to you all and don't give up.

good to read that, finally more and more of us gets through of this and succeed. grat better luck with next pre-order ^^ (i've learned, never again)

[mrhanman]

What are my odds of getting store credit if I have about 20 hours of play time and received my pre-order as a gift?

[eisberg77]

What are my odds of getting store credit if I have about 20 hours of play time and received my pre-order as a gift?

Probably next to nil. I had 3.9 hours and pulling my own teeth out with no pain killers would have been easier. But to add it being gifted to you on top of 20 hours, yeah, I would say just pull out your own teeth with your fingers


Just be glad you didn't have to pay your own money for this garbage.

[eisberg77]

When Steam does refunds on this game, I wonder if Egosoft has to pay the money back from that sale to Steam?

[grimdownload]

Im sure they dont get their money. And every refund is one step closer to the game being pulled from steam.

[mrhanman]

What are my odds of getting store credit if I have about 20 hours of play time and received my pre-order as a gift?

Probably next to nil. I had 3.9 hours and pulling my own teeth out with no pain killers would have been easier. But to add it being gifted to you on top of 20 hours, yeah, I would say just pull out your own teeth with your fingers


Just be glad you didn't have to pay your own money for this garbage.

I didn't say I didn't pay for it. Traded, actually. I still feel like I was robbed in my own home, though.

[sadron]

This asshole Trevor will NOT give me my store credit refund! I've done everything and this piece of crap just won't budge!

[Kaiser Kraft]

If only the computer users had a little bit of self-respect, Steam wouldn't even exist nowadays.

A voice of reason in a wilderness full of suckers. I guess the upside is that a few people in this thread have learnt a lesson and wont allow themselves to be abused by steam in the future. Eggs, Baskets, Short and curlys 'n disempowerlment all spring to mind. Fortunately boycotting egosoft on the grounds of their Steam policy saved me the pain associated with buying into this particular ego declarable. :)

Now there is a no steam patch available for Albion Prelude I may pick up a physical copy if I see one somewhere.

[kurush]

Now there is a no steam patch available for Albion Prelude I may pick up a physical copy if I see one somewhere.

I think you still have to install the damn thing through steam though, just can use that exe to disable the check. Surprisingly, it looks like Amazon can do a better job at sticking it to ES & Valve and actually provide a return.

[Kaiser Kraft]

Thanks for the heads up - I was just trying to find some info about that very issue, as I suspected that was still the case. I was hoping the latest patched removed the steaming pos install requirement.

I guess that counts me out and draws the line under the X-series, as steam will never be installed on a machine by me. Hopefully the new Elite Dangerous will materialise (without steam and on Linux) to fill the void. :)

[Stank]

Once you get your refund from Steam, please post in this thread. That way others can point to this thread to hopefully strengthen their case for refunds.

Took a couple weeks, but just got my account credited.

Thanks!

[Skillionaire]

GUYS DONT GIVE UP, after one month of debating with steam i got my account credited

Message by Support Tech Robbie on Tue, 24th Dec 2013 12:35 am

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

We apologize for the delay.

As requested, the title has been removed from your account and a credit has been applied to your Steam Wallet. The credit can be used for future Steam purchases.

To view your current available Steam Wallet balance:
- Log in to your Steam account.
- The current available balance will be listed in the upper right hand corner next to "[Your username]'s Account".
- In most cases, the new funds will automatically be displayed in your account.
- If this has not happened, please allow two hours for the transaction to fully complete.

Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refundable - this store credit was issued as a one-time customer service gesture.

If you have any further questions, please let us know - we will be happy to assist you. "

[random name one]

I couldn't get past the steam support guy, so I sent a letter to the valve legal department, nothing crazy just a formal request letter. Got a refund in a matter of days. Not sure if it was related to the letter or not as I never heard from the legal department. I mainly pointed out features and stuff that were advertised and not in game as well as some things on the steam store page what were later changed.


Valve Corporation
Attn: Legal Department
P.O. Box 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009
USA

[squicker]

I have bought some awesome games in the Steam sale using my refund money. It's been something of an investment in a way, as I forgot it was even there until 23rd December.

Happy Christmas my fellow refundees!

I couldn't get past the steam support guy, so I sent a letter to the valve legal department, nothing crazy just a formal request letter. Got a refund in a matter of days. Not sure if it was related to the letter or not as I never heard from the legal department. I mainly pointed out features and stuff that were advertised and not in game as well as some things on the steam store page what were later changed.


Valve Corporation
Attn: Legal Department
P.O. Box 1688
Bellevue, WA 98009
USA

[Echkor]

Hey Guys,

I am giving up now. 4 tickets, 4 different support guys, the support guys ignore me and send always the same predefined textblocks.

I'm sick of it. Is there a way to have like "expanding" topics here. Eg:

Ticket 1
Ticket 2
Ticket 3
Ticket 4

Klick on one of them and the text is shown?
Otherwise it would be way to much text .