If you have dealt with Steam support, how was your experience?
They definitely don't read ANY messages sent to them. Everything's automated and their shitty bot just replies based on how many keywords they see in your message.
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They do read them, but only after you respond to automated message, or two.
We can and should hate it, but unfortunately they receive thousands if not millions mails every month, sometimes they are on a "my cup holder isn't working anymore" level. They have to use automated messages to sieve them at least a bit.
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sorry i had copy and pasted then just forgot to put it in the description
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I haven't had many dealings with Steam Customer Support, so I can't speak to that.
However, you should know that you can't trust the BBB's ratings. The BBB is not affiliated with any government agency (as it is often believed), and it's a poorly kept secret that they use racketeering and shakedowns against businesses. You can pay for a better rating, but if you don't play ball with them they will drop your rating. Notice that on Valve's BBB page it says they aren't BBB accredited, and it keeps mentioning that Valve has failed to respond to the BBB. Hence the low rating.
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I'm not seeing a star rating, but I do they they have an F
http://www.bbb.org/western-washington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/valve-corporation-in-bellevue-wa-27030704
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lol, restarting the computer would have worked. All that needs to be done is terminating the game process that kept running, which shutting down accomplishes.
I wouldn't be surprised if devs of crap-games start doing this new "Keep-it-running" trick to avoid people getting refunds.
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Support might be better, but I have never experienced real problems with it, but heard a lot of complains.
About Culling, you might wanna give it one more chance, it is a good game. I wanted to refund it after first hour, but after playing second hour, I felt like I began to enjoy it, so I have 40 hours in it now.
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125 to 300 million accounts
8 to 13 million active accounts at any one point in the day.
300 to 400 people total who work for Valve, most of which do not do tech support...
I don't know what it is now, but at one point around December there was around 77,000 accounts being hijacked each month. This is why it takes so long to get a reply from steam.
Don't forget there are lots more support tickets going in other then just the hijacked accounts. So even if that went to zero there would be lots of other support tickets going in...
So the simple answer is no don't spam them with more then one ticket about the same thing. It just wastes their time and makes the line up longer.
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Your alternative is to make 1 single support message and wait just like you are suppose to.
But you got your response, you didn't like it so now your only alternative is to just leave it on your account and not play it if it bothers you that much. You can always hide it too, or even just delete it yourself with no refund possible.
They don't accept screen shots of stuff because they can be faked. Its easy enough to show a image of task manager the game running but not open, its as simple as moving it off the screen onto a second screen and taking a screen shot of the first screen only.
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And you will eventually have your account suspended from at least the support section, if not also community banned.
Next time do some research on the game before buying it. Find out if there are any issues, watch game play videos to see if you even like it. The refund system is not meant to "try" games before you buy even though they say any reason, which they should not. And if you refund too many games, they will just deny you in the future so when you really do need it because you can't get a game to actually work, you won't be able to.
And going by your attitude I'm gonna guess you think you will be able to just have paypal or your credit card company help you with a charge back... which will just lead you your account not being allowed to buy anything ever again which I'm guessing will tick you off even more.
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i did do research (youtube, and reviews). but you can't really research how a game feels control-wise unless you actually control it. and the refund policy IS there to "try" games before you buy. it's been mentioned in multiple articles and is even in the steam options for a refund "this game isn't fun". mine is more of a technical issue. (only my second refund ever, last was about 6 months ago)
thanks for the comment about charge-backs, already knew that but that's a very good point to others
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"You can request a refund for nearly any purchase on Steam—for any reason. Maybe your PC doesn't meet the hardware requirements; maybe you bought a game by mistake; maybe you played the title for an hour and just didn't like it."
from steam refund faq.
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That's not anywhere close to "Refund policy is there to try before you buy"
Completely totally different lol.
Early access is there to support developers and offer feedback while the game is developed.
DON'T BUY if you aren't doing it for that purpose.. refund policy is not for trying games out.
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They deserve worse.
They literally broke laws and people had their personal info in danger during the infamous christmas caching error.
They never properly apologized or compensated for their massive mistake. I still don't understand why people forgave them so easily.
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that's a very graphic metaphor...
at least for me it was. I was never comfortable with the idea of steam, I used to buy my all games from D2D, until the launch of New Vegas, when I was given two options - install steam and play or keep drm-free and stay on fallout 3. Forever.
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It was graphic because what they did was not better in any way. They allowed others to see other people's personal info. The consequences could've been very severe for different people. Steam commited a crime and never paid for it, because: "It's Valve, everyone makes mistakes. Doesn't matter m8!"
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I once asked them to remove a game from my library so I could buy and activate the uncensored version of that particular game.
Their response was "If you have trouble logging in, please see the following FAQ article [...]"
Yep, Steam Support.
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Why would they need to improve anything when so many still and will continue to use steam despite the terrible support.
When you dominate the market there is little need to improve anything as long as people are still using and buying on your service and it will stay that way until they lose profits because of support.
The same thing happened to Dell some years ago they out sourced there support and it was so bad that it actually hurt sales so much that they brought them back to the U.S. and sales started to rebound.
Until Valve gets to that point they will do nothing but shovel bs to calm the riot squad.This is why i like DRM Free and i hope GOG keeps adding games and keeps on growing.I hate Steam as client but i do not have much choice when most games i want are on there platform.I did get Witcher 3 on GOG and i have got other games on it.Man i wish there was a GOG bundle...i can dream.
All they did is look at hour played and denied them a refund and while Valve does offer one it a piss poor refund policy so much hate for Orgin yet they seem to be have a better refund system in place and better support.Hell GOG has 30 days and there stuff is DRM Free and if you wanted could abuse it to a point like buy Witcher 3 download it then refund it but keep said game as an example but they still offer the best refund policy around.
They may have taken steps to shorten the wait for a response but what good does it do when all you get is an automated reply like the OP.
Bottom line is as long as so many are married with Steam and they have little threat from other platforms why would they care if they spend more money on support and actually do better if they are still making tons of money.
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"The same thing happened to Dell some years ago they out sourced there support and it was so bad that it actually hurt sales so much that they brought them back to the U.S. and sales started to rebound."
hah! My sister had such a bad time with Dell's support that she's sworn never to touch any of their products again. I guess that explains that.
But yeah, completely agreed. Why would they bother to spend money on improving something when there's no monetary gain to be had from it? Sad but that's life.
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That is what refund should be about is tech issues,i do not think buyers remorse should be part of the deal and i have never used a refund for that purpose nor will i.To be clear what i mean by buyers remorse is play the game and do not like it then demand a refund.
But i have not used Origin refund but heard good things about it,GOG i just went by the 30 days on site as i never used it or know anyone that had or seen anyone comment good or bad.
Still i think GOG refunds are better then Steam even if it is just for tech issues.They are DRM Free so i could see why it would not be for any reason as it could be abused to easy imo.
Valve just added a skimpy refund to you know say hey we offer one and that should smooth things over with the new mobile thing i just feel like they did it as they felt they had to not because they wanted to.
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Good to hear in case i ever need GOG or Origin support.
i do not expect Valve support to be the best or faster then anyone but really you send a ticket and get some automated response then have to send another one so they actually see what you sent the first time is kinda stupid.I get the auto response you know see if the most common answers will fix your issue while you wait for a response.If they are just sending and auto response then close the ticket when someone sends more info about an issue that just shitty support.
That has nothing to do with as some would say how big Steam is that just lazy and bad support to not even look at the ticket,just close it on the basis of to many hours played.If they can not properly handle refund request and look into each one then why offer it?It would like offering free coffee for a day and you only have one coffee maker and just you to make and serve the coffee and then just leaving an auto response of you will get your coffee when i am ready for you.
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My experience with Steam Support so far: the one time I needed it, I couldn't even get a working login to their support to submit a request. So I don't even get to experience their shitty bot-reply hell :(
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And you know why this rating doesn't matter? Because unless you pay the BBB you don't get a good rating.
http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/why-the-better-business-bureau-should-give-itself-a-bad-grade/
[QUOTE]
The expulsion stems back to a pay-to-play scandal unearthed in 2010 by the ABC News show 20/20. The investigation showed extortion-type practices applied to local businesses: Those that paid annual dues to the BBB were handed accreditation and A ratings, while those that didn’t play along were given subpar grades, even if they hadn’t received complaints. Most disturbingly, investigators were able to get accreditation and an A- grade for a fake, totally nonexistent business after paying a $425 fee to the local BBB. (The name of the dummy business was Hamas—yep, the same as the Middle Eastern terrorist organization.)
[/QUOTE]
Also out of the hundreds of millions of accounts, there are less then 900 complaints about Valve on there.
And Origin, who has paid the BBB, has an A+ rating, you know the same company that would it banned people on the forums for even the dumbest thing like a misunderstanding between them and a mod, it banned them from even accessing any of the games they bought. The same company that is owned by one of the most hated companies for a long time. The same one that seems to only have 13 complaints about them... http://www.bbb.org/south-east-florida/business-reviews/computers-dealers/origin-pc-corporation-in-miami-fl-92018296/complaints
So ya, the BBB rating system is a joke.
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I never said it does, Steam support is crap, it needs to be better, they have said that themselves and they have said they are working on it, though from what I have read the majority have not seen a difference. But as I have pointed out 125 to 300 million accounts and only 300 to 400 workers, most of who don't do any kind of work with the support system. Even if all 400 were dedicated to it, the 77,000 hijacked accounts every month would be over whelming and that does not include all the other issues and spam and other stuff people have issues with that they contact support for.
To make a proper dent into the support messages, they need at least 10 times the amount of workers and most of them have to be dedicated to support.
And just for a reference, Origin and Steam are no where near close to each other. Origin has about 40 to 50 games and all of them are EA games and cuts support for them after only about 3 or 4 years if I remember right. While steam has somewhere around 10,000 to 20,000 games (or more) and only about 30 or 40 or so belong to Valve. Origin also doesn't have as many users, but it does have more workers as its Electronic Arts that owns Origin and they are a big company. Not sure how many though, tried to look it up but could not find a number.
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Still no excuse for crap support I hate to say it but i do not care if they have 30,000 games,the money they make is enough for better support.
That like saying a guy who runs a company with 10 games should have better support then say Bethesda because he only needs to handle 10 games vs how many ever they have.
Support comes down to having enough people,in fact the guy with 10 games should have worse support as less money to afford support it.Valve makes enough to deal with support a lot better then what it does and it has been terrible for some years way before it was this big.
Steam has 8,668 games in it's DB give or take a few as game get added daily.The average user has 14 games.So i doubt games owned is a big factor in support,I think the issue at hand is just the lack of spending money on it as support has been horrid for a very long time before Steam was even close to this big.The bigger you get the more support you have to add and something tells me it been the same support since it started Steam.
Though even then not everyone has needed support or will.I have been on Steam for about 2 years and not once needed support thankfully :).In the end support could be a lot better if Gaben would stop counting ways to make money and actually spend some of it on support.Though why bother when no matter how shitty it gets people will still use it.
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Well, it's obvious Origin has much better support. Not sure if A+ though, never had to use it. It's much harder to find someone writing a post hating Origin Support than one praising Steam Support :P.
And SteamForums also banned people for disagreeing with mods, but at least SteamLibrary isn't linked to SteamForums, I'd give them that.
And I'd argue EA isn't most hated company - if they were, nobody would buy from them and we'd be hearing about their bankruptcy. Just because there are few hundreds gamers who hate them and made them get Golden Shit doesn't really say much, as in same time EA announces another great year of selling DLCs...
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http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/24/5543738/ea-voted-out-of-consumerists-worst-company-in-america-race
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ea-talks-worst-company-in-america-controversy-and-/1100-6427763/
To their credit they have changed at least some things which has made them better. If only Valve would do something like that, but the problem with Valve is that its not setup like a typical company. People can pretty much do what they want there, work on what they want, when they want, where ever they want. While this works for a smaller company, its not so great when you start getting over 100 or more people and when you start growing as fast as Steam is growing.
If I was to ever visit Valve there is a list of thing I would love to sit down and talk to the top people about and make suggestions on how to fix it. It would tick off the customers less.
And just because they were voted most hated a few years in a row, doesn't mean people still didn't buy from them. Look at the hate spewed at Steam and people still buy from them. People don't seem to care what a company is doing as long as they get the game titles they want. Maybe if people did actually speak with their wallets instead of posting swearing filled rants that solve nothing cause their ideas would only actually screw people and not help them, then maybe Steam might start doing something. But it would take a huge shift. Seeing as how there are somewhere between 8 to 13 million active accounts at any one point in the day, its more then likely impossible for that shift to happen.
As to the Steam forum mods banning people who disagree with them, I have only seen people who break the rules being banned. I have disagreed with steam mods a number of times, I have always been respectful (not swearing), and didn't break rules. I have never been banned.
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Like I said, "there are few hundreds gamers who hate them and made them get Golden Shit doesn't really say much, as in same time EA announces another great year of selling DLCs". Heck, I found it funny how gamers decided being forced to buy DLCs is worse than allowing practically-slavery.
"As to the Steam forum mods banning people who disagree with them" - not saying it's norm, but it happens. Just like on Origin forum.
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I had a "good" experience with support
a game disappeared from my library and they restored without problem
The only thing I complain about is the time it took to do something so simple
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You know what?
I'm fine with the support.
It took me a week to get a response last time I needed it, but I waited patiently and my problem was solved as soon as they could dedicate a support member to my support ticket.
When you've got countless support tickets about issues that can be solved by simply reading the F.A.Q, I wouldn't blame Valve for shovelling so much shit and assigning mail bots to their system.
Sure, they could hire more staff but that would only shorten the response time by a few hours/a day when you contrast it against the huge steaming pile of shit support tickets that they have to wade through.
I could compare the slow response time to a real life situation.
Applying for a passport or a provisional license in the UK takes well over a month after you've sent in the application just because of the sheer number of people doing the same thing. Most people provide all the information needed so the application goes through quicker than the others that don't bother providing everything needed as the government employees have to cross-check information and make sure that you're a real UK resident.
If you've given the correct information, you WILL eventually get your Passport/License.
But again, the quantity slows the process down by a LOT.
You should be considerate that people can exploit the refund system, and they're denying your cases because there are plenty of people out there that would take advantage of those exceptions and situations.
Sure, they should fix that bug as it is present with a lot of games with certain configurations but if you really wanted a refund you could have easily checked the task manager and ended the necessary processes before it passed that time limit.
Note: Who the fuck spends 4-5 hours refunding a game? If you wanted to refund it why did you wait so long?
I've never had a problem with the refund system and I've contacted support 3 times as of this comment. Each time my problem was solved, albeit after a few days/a week.
Other platforms have better support because the quality and quantity of the support tickets are much better in the favour of the support team.
I feel sorry for anybody that has to work as a Steam Support Member, I really do.
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i didnt wait 4-5 hours for the refund...i did the tutorial in the game...quit out and went to dinner with my family...got back and played a couple matches then tried to refund immediately. considering the refund policy gives 14 days im not sure why you would be hung up by that.
and the "check the task manager" comment...it's my fault that Steam's client is faulty? never expected to see such a white knight response.
i consider myself a pretty smart consumer (i.e. not blindly loyal to a brand and does research beforehand)
i follow steam's policies and so should they.
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The policy also states that if you've played over 2 hours then you cannot refund.
This is in compliance with the card drop system and prevents people from buying a game for 10p, and then profiting from the card drop sales.
(Cards only drop after 2 hours)
You snooze you lose.
Never said it was your fault that the client is faulty. I blamed them for that, but you could have made your own work-around.
They're following their policies to the T, you're mad because they can't bend them.
Personally I feel you should get a refund, but because Steam is such a large-scale thing and the support system is so clogged up you can't. They won't accept your exception because they can't.
The Culling is a good game anyway, suck it up.
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Yeah sorry for white-knighting so hard, I'm sure if the support team could help occasions like yours but it's just a shame that there are people out there that ruin it for the rest of us.
I tried refunding an old purchase of Civ Beyond Earth recently because I regret spending £30+ on it when I can just play a very similar if not better game (Civ V), but I had logged just over 2 hours on the game so support had to decline my request which was a real shame.
It is how it is
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That could be easily fixed with if you sell or trade the cards and ask for a refund then you have to pay a small fee.That just one way it could be handled.If you do not sell the cards then they could simply just remove them but that would take more effort then Gaben cares to take the time on.So it just easier to allow one of the worse refunds out of all the platforms and then say hey look at us we now offer refunds.
It just an example my idea might not be the best but the point being is if they wanted to they could come up with a better way to handle this.They just took the simple and easy route which Valve tends to do which is why even with refunds in place they still some how manage to be one of the worse around for refunds i guess they do not want to out do the bad support by offering better refunds.
That being said if there are still bugs in Steam where Steam fails to kill a process then maybe using hours played is not the best way to handle this.Maybe 3 day grace period from time the game is purchased to play without card drops.
Either way still hope the OP gets a refund,as i do not think if Steam still till this day can not always depend on them killing a process like it should,that they should be using hours played and need to do something to allow suspended drops or something.
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http://steamcommunity.com/groups/idlemastery#announcements/detail/203007488879621804
Discussion already happened, go away.
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Inconsistent results, must be enabled on games that you couldn't exploit the refund system for a little bit of extra cash.
We're both right.
Again, discussion already happened.
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http://steamed.kotaku.com/valve-is-not-psyched-they-got-an-f-in-customer-service-1691308332
That was a year ago and nothing has changed.
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i'm not really surprised about that now that i'm in a dispute over a refund. Long wait times to only receive a scripted reply doesn't endear you to your customers.
my problem is i bought a game and played it for about an hour then went to refund it only to notice that the Steam client thinks the game was still running. so it displays i have 6 hours of gameplay time. i sent a screenshot of Steam client showing the game is running but it's not running on my taskbar. then i sent 2 links to the games tech support forums showing other people had the same problem.
what do i get in return?
"Hello,
Your purchase of The Culling is not eligible for a refund as it has been played for over 5 hours.
We will not be able to assist you with this refund request. "
it's like they didn't bother to even read my messages or look at the screenshot or read the discussions on this issue.
So much for Gabe stating that they would be focusing on improving customer service.
edit: fixed when to what
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