Be Excellent To Each Other

So I have this friend that I game with online and chat to via Skype. Good lad too.

Well at Christmas during the Steam sale he decided to buy a few games, one of them being a Crysis pack that was on sale. This was on the 4th of Jan.

However, he forgot (because he hadn't used it for so long) that his Paypal account had his old debit card on. He had also changed banks so the card number was different ETC. So yes, he checked out on Steam and the games appeared and he downloaded them.

This was about two weeks ago.

Yesterday evening my Skype went off and he asked me if I wanted to play Goldeneye (the free one that uses the HL2 engine). I said yeah, because it's awesome. When he tried to log into Steam (which holds many hundreds of pounds worth of his games, unplayable otherwise) he got a message saying that his Steam account had been disabled. He tried again, and again, and again, but still the same message, this account has been disabled. We spent a while trying to figure out how this could have happened and just figured it was a server issue. However, just to be safe he emailed Steam about it and got this in reply.



So in a panic he went to Paypal to change this debit card and reissue the payment, but when he got there the dispute had already been closed by Paypal and according to Steam there is nothing he can do about it

Kinda sounds like it can be easily rectified by sorting things with PayPal. I mean "the dispute was already closed"? Just email PayPal support and they'll sort it out. As for Valve locking Steam down - saves some scrote hijacking your account and transferring all of your games to their own. Perfectly understandable - it's just a typical downside of a perfectly legitimate security measure.

I dunno, it was alright, but it wasn't as scary as Event Horizon.

He's going to phone Paypal tomorrow.

You'd think though that they could just like, delete the games in dispute off of his game list and take them back, not fucking stop him playing any of the games he has paid for.

Probably less work and with less risk of error to just switch the "can this person play" setting to "no" for everything on that account.

Score one for gog though, eh?

Hang on. You FRIEND disputed the payment, not PayPal? It's his fault.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/s ... ?t=1696031

My FRIEND didn't do anything. He got no email from Paypal, no email from Steam or bugger all. He simply tried to log in last night and found his account had been disabled.

HE had to email Steam after his account had been disabled to find out why they had disabled it. That's when he got the explanation above. He had nothing AT ALL from Paypal, no email, nada. When he logged in to change his card tonight Paypal had already closed the 'case' (of the lack of funds in his old account I would imagine) and that's that.

Well here's hoping he manages to get access back to all his old games.

I think that is pretty fucking shitty actually. He has legitimately purchased many games to an account, and due to a relatively minor mistake, he could lose them all. Now granted, it seems easy to rectify, but similarly, so too for steam without this level of lockdown.

So... he'll get it resolved, right? A simple email or two, a phonecall perhaps. It's a security measure brought into play because your chum made a boo-boo - he forgot that his card had expired. Perfectly everyday mistake, with a perfectly everyday response from the parties involved - parties whose customers are hacked and defrauded on a daily basis. It'll get fixed, not really worth slating the Steam folk over, annoying as it probably is for your mate.

Seeings as the dates and purchases don't tie up, either JC has put quite a twist on the tale or that's not his friend.

He will. He just needs to tell PayPal to give Valve the money...




It's pretty fucking shitty in the way it has been described. In reality, it's not really that bad. And he won't lose his games. No chance.

What sucks is how he can't pay by any other method whatsoever. I just don't get that

Joans. He hasn't posted about it anywhere on forums or whatnot because last night their servers were down. We basically figured that his disabled account was a server glitch, but when the forums ETC went back up today and nothing had changed he emailed them.

No I wasn't suggesting that was his actual friend - it's just the same situation. I Googled the contents of the email JC quoted. There are loads of people with the same problem - all of them are resolved - assuming the party involved wanted to resolve it/posted an update.

Actually WTB, take off your knock JC hat for a second. Not providing the games he didn't pay for is a perfectly everyday response . Removing access to games he has previously paid for is bordering on theft.

BECAUSE, JC, there is the possibility that his Steam account has been hacked by a chancer who tried to download a game using the attached payment method - PayPal. If Steam allowed him to use any other payment method to resolve the issue, it'd all be sorted out yeah, but the "hacker" would then have access to all of the Steam account again, with £100s worth of games, for the price of however much the games he actually bought with a different method were. Then he transfers the games to another account/whatever these Steam hackers do.

If your mate fixes the PayPal issue, Steam know he's legit. (Or someone has hacked his Steam AND PayPal account )

And this is why I dislike Steam (and any other service that you must have online access to in order to play legitimately paid for games). It's piss poor that he couldn't access the games that were paid for before this dispute, irrespective of whether his access has been denied for days or simply hours.

Give me a physical disc with no online access required. Online access/downloads admittedly have their benefits, but I'd far prefer to actually OWN the physical media.

First of all, I'm one of the only people on this forum who routinely sticks up for JC, so I'm not going to be "called out" for picking on him now - when I actually think he's wrong for a change.

Second, it's not theft, it's a security measure - for all Steam know, the account has been hacked. Take off your pitchfork and flaming torch hat!

I know having an account shut down like this is annoying - similar things have happened to me before (I couldn't access my bank account for a week due to some fraudster) - but at the end of the day it's there to prevent these pesky fraudsters from stealing your shit. I certainly wouldn't condemn Steam or online digital-only software purchases of any kind because of something like this - that's crazy. It was the guy's fault for trying to buy something with an expired card. Just like it's your fault (although fucking abhorrent, don't get me wrong), when you don't do your maths properly and go into unauthorised overdraft with your bank. You just have to hold your hands up, admit your mistake and jump through the hoops.

edit: Maybe the unauthorised overdraft analogy isn't a good one. But you get what I mean.

1) You came in shouting ("FRIEND") at JC, and accused said friend of doing something, when it wasn't said friend. Your posting style is aggressive, no passive in this one, and you are refusing to acknowledge his point; a quite common response to JC (although he does someties deserve it ). So, I apologise for thinking you were having a go, but if I did, you can assume JC did also.

2) How is locking down games for which he has the "physical" data for (you have to d/l games on steam and store them locally) a security measure to stop a purchase of a further game? There are so many alternatives to this, I can't be bothered to list them.

"FRIEND" is an aggressive posting style now? Also, am I wrong? How am I refusing to address his point? He doesn't have a point. He's basically moaning (not wrong in itself, but don't be surprised if someone wants to set things straight). It's a security measure for his friend's benefit that has backfired due to unfortunate circumstances. Get over it.



Yeah okay, he has them on his HDD. I can't argue with that one, but it's just the way Steam is set up - something I totally agree is very shitty, but everyone knows how Steam works at this point. You have to be logged-in to play the games, physically stored or not, and Steam aren't letting him login because they're worried someone has hacked his account.

Without somehow changing the way Steam works, I don't know you could get around it though - any ideas? If Steam was just a shop which installed the games on your HDD which could then be played without any further interaction with Steam (like a traditional PC game), wouldn't that chuck the whole DRM/anti-piracy measures out the window?

I'm genuinely interested to know how you think Steam could feasibly solve the whole "you have to be logged-in to play" thing without compromising their business model by making it easier to pirate the purchased content. I'm not a Valve shill or anything, I couldn't give a toss - I'm just being devil's advocate.

I described "FRIEND" as shouting, it is capitals, generally accepted in internet terms as "shouting". Exactly the sort of unnecessarily aggressive posting I was referring to. And he does have a point. They know he hasn't been hacked because he has the games.

Edit: Steam need not have locked his account, they could have cancelled the purchase of the games he bought erroneously, leaving the rest of his account alone.

Who knows he hasn't been hacked? How could they possibly know? What do you mean "because he has the games"? Eh?

"Get over it" aggressive as well? Come off it man.

I'm still not sure what's happened here, so if you have an empty Paypal account, tied to an expired bank card, they'll just happily authorise the purchase and then take the money back after they realise the bank hasn't authorised it?

NO. They couldn't have. As I've said above. You're not reading what I've said. If PayPal sends this sort of dispute across, the immediate reaction by Steam is "something fishy is going on, lock it all down". Because, as I said above - someone may have hacked the Steam account and tried to buy some games using the attached payment method - PayPal. Turns out this PayPal account has an expired card on it. The sort of thing Steam expect the actual owner of the account to, you know, know.

Something a hacker wouldn't know. That's why it's fishy. Do you have any idea how complex some of the fraud detection algorithms these companies use are? They notice patterns, and if you fit one, you're locked down. This is presumably one of the patterns.

My apologies if I'm coming across as aggressive via text on the internets, but I'm not going to join in with the "BURN IN HELL VALVE", "THAT SUCKS FOR YOUR MATE - HE'S THE VICTIM HERE, FUCK VALVE", "THIS IS THEFT!!" stuff because it isn't like that, and I wanted to explain why. The forum would be pretty dull if everyone just accepted what someone was telling them and agreed unanimously.

Yeah it looks that way Joans!

Also, I tend to use CAPS for emphasis instead of italics out of laziness. My apologies if it comes across as shouty - I'll try not to do it in future.

Agreed.

Also, I don't see how this is a horror story.

The paypal email came from inside the house.

Fuck! GET OUTTA THERE, JC'S MATE!

I'm wondering if the people who think this is an outrage have a similar reaction when they enter their forum password incorrectly five times and have to re-authenticate their account. This is essentially the same thing, only instead of an incorrect password entered five times, it's a PayPal account without a functioning payment method attached (like a password, something the account holder should be aware of), and instead of five chances, you only get one because of the seriousness of the situation were hacking actually taking place.

That's true, however that email is extremely badly worded and makes it sound like unless PayPal drop the dispute and cough up, he'd lose access to the games forever with no way of getting them back. As you've demonstrated, that's not the case, but that is a terrible email.

I think the issue here is that the person in question has made a genuine mistake and wishes to sort it out however Steam have referred them away while simultaenously blocking his account (couldn't they have got him to verify his identity to confirm he made the purchase? Ask some security questions and for the security code off his card or something similar? Then he could have played his Steam games but been banned from purchases or transfers between computers until the payment dispute was resolved.) Meanwhile he goes the company who have to sort it and it appears they have ended the dispute without to hear from him. Although it may be the case that he can reopen it, it seems unfair that Paypal didn't contact him and that he can't use his other Steam games.
The reason JC describes it as a horror story is because this person has spent a lot of money on games and now can't play them while he waits for Paypal to respond. I'm sure that if he's a very active gamer he probably plays a lot at night. If so, he can't do any of that during Paypals closed hours. I think relatively, that is a decent enough reason to describe this as one of the horror stories of Steam. JC, himself an obvious huge fan of PC gaming is pointing out one of the flaws of a particular gaming system/store on PCs and showing how can it can have quite and effect or they can have a lot of control over your game collection. It also raises the issue of what could happen to your games in the future.

I think that this action wouldn't be accepted if it was a sort of mainstream service. If I attempted to pay my Sky bill with an out of date card and so they took everything off the air immediatly and refused to restore it until my bank had told them I had fixed it I would be pretty furious.

Yeah, I was actually wondering whether it was copied and pasted or JC had transcribed it, but it looks as though that's the official word. However, it's not like JC/his mate won't have done a little bit of Googling and found out what I did.

Nope! Because he used PayPal, therefore all Steam can do is say "talk to PayPal". He could give them all of the details in the world, including his CC numbers, but because he paid with PayPal, none of that means anything to Steam. Steam don't have his card details - they only see "money from PayPal user X", so there's very little they can do to "verify" things as you say. Had JC's mate used a credit card directly with Steam, this would've been sorted out immediately in the way you suggest. It's one of the drawbacks of using PayPal to be that little bit more secure (which I totally understand), I guess.



So basically, if anything, it's PayPal's fault. Steam are just following security protocol. If PayPal are tardy about fixing it and JC's buddy spends a few days without access to his games, it's PayPal's fault for dragging their feet. If anything, this is a PayPal "horror story*". If Steam didn't have these security measures in place, people would soon complain about that as well.

*A horror story where the victim is also equally to blame, for forgetting about his debit card expiry situation in the first place. Does anybody want a copy of the screenplay?

So why don't Steam set up a security verification thing?! I can't think of any service I use that would ban me (even temporarily) until I dealt with another company to resolve something. Even if they don't hold payment details they should have some sort of security system to restoe his Steam accoutn without having to send him away.

That's what I mean when I said
If this was service used in most households across Britain, they would have been forced to have come up with a better system by now because customers wouldn't accept it. It's terrible service. I undertsnad the point that they're trying to be security conscience but to me it looks like they are being incredibly lazy, dismissive, disrespectful and arrogant about it.

Apologies for my typing by the way, I've drank to much fizzy juice i think and so im thinking faster than i can type. Not that I normally think slow when I'm not dirnking! I can't be bothered going back to fix my mistakes though.

What do you mean by a security verification thing, Gill? They've locked his account down because there's the possiblity that it has been hacked. Had it been hacked, this would be great. Unfortunately it hasn't, and this is the rough to the smooth. Lots of online-only services work like this because there is very little else that can be done.

If JC's buddy doesn't get his games back, like, within a few weeks, possibly never, then this is a horror story. Until then, it's just a security measure as you'd see on any major e-commerce site, or anywhere where money is changing hands online and stored payment methods are involved.

edit: I get what you mean now Gill - like some sort of other verification, fingerprints, important documents, etc. But the thing is - Steam are also owed money in this situation as well. Or, more accurately, they've had money forcibly reclaimed by PayPal, so they probably have a legitimate legal right to put a hold on things until everything is sorted out for that reason as well (I have no idea if, legally, those rights exist, but it wouldn't surprise me), add in the possibility of hacking/fraud, and it's understandable that they'd wait for the PayPal thing to get fixed first.

It gets muddy because arguably Steam have supplied a service, although "intangible" in that it's a digital download, and then had the consideration for that service reclaimed. But yeah, I don't know about the legality of internet digital-downloady stuff. If it were a TV, you could give it back for a refund. There's little use "giving back" a digital download to the distributor. I dunno. CHRIS?

I agree with the general idea that there are things that could be done by all parties to avoid this sort of "necessity", but right now the situation is what it is, and calling it a "horror story" and Valve/Steam "thieves" is jumping the gun quite a bit.

Something you setup when you initially sign up, like a password, a variety of security questions, something like that. Then if this situation occurred you could verify with Steam that you were aware of it and that any activity they suspected of being fraudelent was actually you. This would resolve any issues with Steam and leave only the issue with Paypal. If Steam still wanted to enact some additional measures until they heard from paypal, they could suspend new purchases on the account, game transfer, whatever.


As mentioned above, the email is worded terribly and does make it sound like that's it. Jcs first reaction to that was that it was shocking and as you agree, if the case was that the games were never returned, it is understandable to describe it as a steam horror story. Jc heard this story, saw the email and assumed this was the case. I don't think that was unreasonable.

Yeah this is what I mean. My problem is that Steam haven't put a hold on things pertaining to this transaction, they have blocked every item ever purchased despite these previous purchases being paid for in the normal way and no disputes arising. That's really crap, even if he does get full access back.

Ah-ha! But, what if you're trying to be fraudulent? They don't know that. You might be trying to con them out of games with your dodgy PayPal account. They simply don't have the means to verify this, so they're not going to let things go any further until they get what they're owed back, absolute number one, then they can verify that it's properly you.

Saying "chill out guys, it's just me!" doesn't mean anything to them. You've used a PayPal account that doesn't work properly, downloaded some games from them, and then they've had the money you paid them with taken away.

Yeah it's crap, but as above, it's because you have to be logged into Steam to play Steam-bought games. Therefore, if they disable your Steam account (which they have to in case somebody has indeed hacked it), you can't login and you can't get to your games. They can't just lock you out of selected games because the account would have to remain active and if it had been hacked, the hacker could carry on with his hacking fun. There's no way around it, short of, as above, Valve allowing people to play games without logging into Steam, which, as above, compromises their anti-piracy measures.


My only problem with this thread is that is has been described as a "horror story" and "Steam is shit and evil". Were it a "GRRRRR! My friend is locked out of Steam because X, Y and Z. What a load of horseshit! Hope it gets sorted out ASAP" moaning thread, I'd probably agree with it.

I still think that's unreasonable! If I miss a bill for any company I pay money to, be it mobile phone, Sky, gas, electricity etc etc. They don't automatically assume I'm being fraudulent! All Steam had to was withhold the transaction in question and leave it there, if they had the verification system in place that they surely would have if enough people kicked up a fuss about it. I still maintain it's crap service.
My point is that the horror story comment is melodramatic but not ridiculous. The email was crap, the service in response seems crap, the attitude to the customer is crap. They should have a better system in place and if they don't right now then they should implement one. Disable certain functions on your account if a payment dispute arises but leave the old games section unlocked or something.
So basically, the situation sucks and Steam should be better at dealing with this type of thing. Or what JC said.

I fair enjoyed this thread. Off to bed now

Yeah but, you missed a payment, you didn't use a faulty PayPal account to pay the bill, then forcibly took that money back off them. I don't think it's unreasonable to analogise that a "faulty" PayPal account to Steam in the situation JC posted is like a stolen credit card would be to, for example, Sky. You use a stolen card to pay Sky. Fraud squad come in and freeze the card, and take the payment back from Sky. Sky have supplied you a service, you paid for it, then took the money back from them. Do you think Sky would continue to allow you full use of your TV channels until they'd got to the bottom of it? Would they bumcrack!

But as I've said - that's impossible. A would-be hacker would still have access to the old games, which is obviously the opposite of good.

My card expired recently. I tried to buy something through Paypal. It failed. This is what I would expect. I cannot fathom why Paypal would auth the transaction, then later do a clawback; are we definitely getting the whole story there, I wonder.

I can see why Steam would react the way it did, but would criticise them for not being more contactable and speedy to resolve this kind of thing (going more by the forum thread on the Steam forums than by JC's experience).

Yeah they are notoriously slow when it comes to communication - and you're right, the PayPal thing does seem rather strange, but it's a bit like the situation I had with Amazon a little while back:

I was moaning about a bank charge because Amazon had taken a payment (debit card) when I didn't have enough in to cover it (my own dumb fault, but in my defence, I was caught out by the old "we only charge you when we ship the item" - the item was delayed and they didn't charge it until a week or so later when I'd forgotten all about it and hadn't bothered to drop some money in to cover it). But using the same card in Tesco with no money on it would yield a rejection message and no unauthorised overdraft nonsense. It seems that in some situations, the charge will go through regardless, and in others it won't.

That's down to your bank though, which has some sort of complicated policy in place for what they will and won't honour. But an expired card is different - that's black and white.