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Comment by benologist | Hacker News Reader

This is the same company who's argument for defrauding 20,000+ Australians through refused refunds was they didn't check what the law was, they just blanket-refused refunds and shut down people's Steam accounts if they got chargebacks, until the government consumer protection watchdog sued them. They even claimed to not be doing business in Australia, despite accumulating 20,000+ refund requests which implies 6 - 7 digit quantities of undisputed transactions.

This is the origin of their refund policy today, which is no questions asked within usage limits. Australia is only like 5% of Steam users so they unfortunately got away with the vast majority of their fraud, perhaps several hundred thousand other instances.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/23/valve-steam-fined-2-mill...

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Australian here. I sought a refund for a broken game. Steam refused. I cited the ACL. Steam closed my ticket. I reported it to that ACCC. Along with many other reports, ACCC sued.

One year and nine months later, Steam implemented the refund policy. I asked again for a refund. Steam declined it because the purchase was made too long ago.

I'm glad you did. I wanted a refund of Jagged Alliance 2 back in the early 2000s and they refused, despite crippling bugs with unlimited money in the base game and saving crashed in the expansion but only on the Steam versions you could buy it bug-free on other marketplaces. They sold it like that for years, I wish I'd thought of going to the ACCC but oh well.

I did go to the ACCC a couple years ago when I wanted a refund on GOG - they're more dishonest than Steam as they market a money back guarantee but the only circumstance they will refund is if you prove to their satisfaction that the game cannot open on your computer. It's a "no refund" policy just like Steam used to have.

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000487189-GOG-C...

Stop requesting refunds and just take your money back.

How? With a chargeback request that will get your account shut down?

I don't see what this has to do with this thread.

These "This is the same company that..." type of comments are very low value. Companies operate across dozens of jurisdictions and have to comply with hundreds of laws. I goes without saying that eventually they'll bump up against a law and/or group of people that disagree with their decisions. That's a normal part of doing business and doesn't have any relevance to some other controversy.

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