Remember that super awesome Steam sale that’s going on right now? I told you about it Monday. Well, it seems that Steam doesn’t want my money. They must be doing pretty well right now and doesn’t need my business. Here is what happened.
Every day until Jan 3rd they offer great deals on select games. Late Sunday night I ordered a set of games for me and was trying to order a set of games as a gift. My purchase didn’t go through, said my credit card was declined. I have a great credit rating, my credit card is paid off, there is no way it’s declined. I called the card company anyway to check and yep.. card is just fine. So I go back and try again… declined.
Okay, let’s try another card… declined.
Hmmm.. this is odd, try a 3rd card… declined.
Okay, something is funny here.. let’s try Paypal.. could not be verified. WTF????
I write to Steam support and ask about the issue. I assume it’s on their end and they’ll fix it.
Steam Reply: Hello Merrie, Thank you for contacting Steam Support. It appears as though you were able to complete your purchase (please log out of your Steam account and log back in to ensure the game appears under your “My Games” tab), however, if you have any further questions please let us know.
Monday I bought another set of games (it went through) and tried to buy more as a gift and same thing. I tried 7 times and still failed each time. I write Steam again. No reply.
Tuesday I bought the gift set first and it went through then I went back to buy my own game. Bioware was $4.99 and I only had 15 mins to get it. Declined on my own purchase. Again.. WTF??? I wrote to Steam again expressing my problem and situation. I finally get an answer back from Steam:
Hello Merrie, I have removed the lock on your account; you will be able to make one more purchase. Your account is currently on an alert status due to the excessive failed purchase attempts. Any unsuccessful purchase attempts will cause your account to be locked again. Your account will automatically be removed from the alert list after a while, each time you make a new purchase it will extend the alert period.
So it seems that even though your credit card is valid and their system declines it, you are punished for trying to purchase games. Not only am I on alert but I will be locked out again if another attempt fails and I’m sure that it will. The sale will be over Jan 3rd and I’ll miss all these good games. If there is a limit on how many times you can purchase games in a day, they should make that very clear when you buy their games.
I sent one last email to support , gave them my phone number and asked them to call me so we can sort this out. I also told them I was blogging about this experience. As far as I’m concerned today, they can stick their system up their butts. Now don’t get me wrong, I like Steam and I know that companies have to protect themselves against fraud but come on, if I’m emailing you about my problem and giving you my phone number, that means I’m legit. At least make an effort.
Update: I just got another reply to my last email, in a very timely manner I must add:
Hello Merrie, I apologize I do not have the details of our fraud prevention system, your account is unlocked for future purchases, let us know if we can be of any other assistance.
I’m afraid to test it now. :/ Anyone else had this problem?
Well that just sucks
I was away the day Torchlight was on sale for $5. Pissed I missed that.
I had the same problem the other day. It turned out to be a problem with the steam client, not the store. Buying through http://store.steampowered.com/ worked fine for me, so give that a shot and see if it works.
Same thing happened to me when trying to buy L4D 1@ $7.49 for some friends. I haven't contacted support yet, but will do so ASAP…
I've been doing the EXACT same thing you have. You're just ahead of me on those purchases
Not only do they lock your account, they spit out CARD DECLINED to other STEAM account holders trying send a gift to your account or your associated EMAIL address!!!
I still haven't tested this since they claim to have unlocked my account. I haven't seen any games come up that I don't have. I'm still sore that I missed Bioshock for $4.99.
Same problem. But for me, my money is being held. Tried 3 times now to get TF2+TF1 for $16.(something) and nothing has worked. I went to my bank and they said that now I have to wait for the charges to "drop off" because "for some reason they aren't posting".
I JUST WANT TF2
Yeah both my friend and I have been dealing with this its total crap
Last day of the sale and I tried again to make a purchase. I made one for myself and it was accepted. I tried to do a gift purchase and again, my card is declined. I tried to use paypal and again, it's declined. It's total bullshit and bad business.
Yup, same here…first card no good, second no good, paypal no good…sounds like an identical experience. i set up a second account for customer service/support (why do they do that???) and will see what happens. Just wasted an hour on this whole thing and am a bit on the pissed side. Yeah, my credit is good, plenty of headroom on the limit, etc. I buy stuff online all the time, never had this issue before…
Are you in Canada? I am, and I had the same problem a few times (got it unlocked each time) and figured out it was because I was coming from a link with the parameter "?cc=us" in the URL. Apparently that sets off the fraud guard each time. I had to close my browser and now I make sure I add "?cc=ca" to my URL, and have had no problems.
While annoying, my dealing with Steam support was quite good — the first time took a half a day to unlock (on the first day of sales) and after that I just re-opened the ticked when needed and they usually had it fixed in an hour or two.
I'm not from Canada. I retried the gift purchase this morning using an email address not Steam ID and it went through. Not trying a second purchase. This was done through the website not the steam account itself. With the sale over I can forget about this for awhile.
Steam is hardly a foolproof system – especially over the holiday game-buying rush.
I've bought probably around 1000$ worth of games on steam (for a fraction of that price), and had pretty much no problems over the holidays.
What kind of internet connection are you on, just out of curiosity? Your locale, ISP, firewall, and general computer health may be of issue. Also, you should talk to your bank – I know my roommate had problems with his Credit Union limiting where his cards can be used in online transactions, so that in itself might be the issue (if, say, your bank stopped the online payments on your cards, which lead to the account lock)
They pretty much admitted I was on an alert list and that my account was locked from buying. I've never had a problem with steam before this last week and I've bought lots of games from them. I did talk to the credit company and all other avenues, it's not that. Great to hear that you haven't had an issue, hopefully most people didn't.
I had the same problem, I tried buying max payne 1&2 when they were on sale along with left for dead 1, It rejected my two debit cards and paypal account, tried buying torchlight for 4.99 yesterday and same problem. Sent message to support still waiting for response. Bullshit.
I decided to file a complaint with the better business bureau over how steam is handling their billing issues. I encourage everyone to do the same, here is a handy link to the BBB site, https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx
I'm not upset that I missed out on the sale prices, I am upset that I was misled into believing that my Credit Card company was refusing charges, when steam never attempted to charge my card.
They responded today with
"Hello Corbin, Thank you for contacting Steam Support. Your PayPal transaction has been flagged by our fraud prevention system. For the protection of the account holder, we request that you verify the following information: Steam account name you are attempting to purchase on: Complete PayPal account holder billing information (name and address): Valid daytime phone number including country code (if applicable) or area code: Once we receive this information we will notify you and you should be able to make your purchase. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Unfortunately, as our billing system is automated we have no method available to "rollback" a sale price once that sale has expired. This means we will be unable to extend the previously discounted prices for these items. While we understand this is an inconvenience, we regrettably have no recourse to allow the discounts to be extended. If you have further questions please let us know. "
Unbelievable, the BBB sounds like a good start. If they can't even run there store client reliably ESPECIALLY when they are having sales like this when that's ALL this thing is made to do. Then they need to shut there app down until fixed. This was like going to a store and seeing a limited time sale item in the window everyone wants to buy, but can't because they never opened the door.
I've read on forums that others had the same issue so I think this problem is more widespread then we know. I think they must have limited the amount of transactions per day but failed to tell everyone. Not a good way to do business.
Hi, I am suffering from the same problem now. It is wide spread and I think there must be something wrong with STEAM.
It sounds like a fraud detection lock out. Sometimes there can be issues with credit card verification which will cause a card to fail, or for one reason or another the institution declines the charge. When that happens the fraud detection system will lock you out. Where I work we use something similar, and if a customer fails on several transactions we will cancel any successful transactions to prevent fraud. So far only 1% have been legitimate customers with legitimate cards. Have you contacted your card issuing institution to see why the transaction was declined? Also I do not think it is bad business for Valve to do what they are doing to prevent fraud. Unfortunately there are many fraudsters out there trying rip off both you and Valve. We have had to bad transactions to a whole region (Singapore, Indonesia etc) in order to prevent attempted rip offs. I am curious how many of the declined transactions are due to Valve's system, and how many are due to your Credit Card's system.
I've been getting the “Your PayPal transaction has been flagged by our fraud prevention system…” message after trying to purchase for myself & gift a few $5 games through a Paypal credit card. I know that the problem isn't with Paypal because I can still purchase items from ebay via Paypal.
I'm not sure if Valve bases their fraud detection program more on a dollar amount or on number of purchases in a given time, but I've purchased two games under $10 in the last 5 days before being locked out on an unsuccessful $5 purchase.
I'm currently waiting for Steam Support to unlock my account
Hi all, I'm having the same problem. I suspect this is a bait-and-switch attempt to not sell the products at the low advertised prices. Complaining to the BBB sounds good: https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/getstarted.aspx
Had a similar experience with Steam. Transaction errors, credit card declines. Steam is useless in my book.
Just updated their wikipedia page for them-
see here (Payment problems): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_(content_deliv...
I have this problem too, I'm afraid I'm going to miss GTA IV for 7.49€ and Osmos for 1.74€ =(
I had the same problem. I contacted support, explaining the problem and linking to this blog, and they solved it in minutes. I encourage anyone having this issue to do the same, and i thank this blog for helping me solve the problem
I'm having this problem too in this summer sale!
I was able to buy several times in the first days, but now i can't get Bioshock for $5!
I know my card is okay, but steam won't complete the purchase.
I'm having the exact same problem and I suspect that they put a limit on the amount of games that are on sale an account can buy.
Wow, it's amazing to me how many people are having this problem. This tells me that it is an issue within Steam itself and not my credit card company or with me personally. My only suggestion if this happens to you is to email customer support and keep the pressure on. They need to fix this.
I hád the same problem with l4d2 for 10 dollars …
Just tried buying 3 games and 2 DLC packs.. got the same damn error for 2 different cards. Called cc company, nada. Cards in good standing, this is a problem within Steam.
i had this just now i tried to buy l4d+l4d2 and it rejected bothe amrican express and master card then i used my brothers account(his birthday)and same thing happened i first though it was my emails problem.so i just decided to wait and nothing happened so i just decidid to wait a day or 2
From Indonesia here and been trying to buy the L4D2 4 packs. 3 of us (2 friends and my self) used our paypals and credit cards and none succeeded. Problem is, all of our credit cards are in good standing and has been used for our World of Warcraft monthly charges and I used mine to buy several books from Amazon other stores.
Way to go Valve!
Same for me, PayPal and Credit Card payments declined. My bank has no record of Steam even getting in touch with them… Tempted to go elsewhere…
Hi Iim deeon and i have this same problem now could you maybe tell me how to cantact steam
Thx