Valve Now Allowing Banned Players Access to Games

[matt_b]

[citation][nom]hoofhearted[/nom]Or create a virtual prison where they can only play with other banned players.[/citation]
Hands down, the best plan I've ever heard pertaining to multiplayer exploiting/cheating.

 

[zeppelin101]

[citation][nom]ggfhyhyhg[/nom]This is the type of ban Valve used to institute on people who did something like a chargeback on their credit card. Essentially, they would disable people's accounts.[/citation]

Nice copy & paste, ggfhyhyhg!

 

[Guest]

Just last week I had my account 'restricted' which is their current term for what happens when a chargeback happens via Paypal. My bank (Natwest in the UK) put a stop on the Direct Debit authorisation due to several small amounts going out in one fortnight - Steam sales! - which their fraud team saw as fraudulent activity.

This meant over a week after I had downloaded and been playing the purchases on Steam I had a series of emails from Paypal saying disputes had been initiated by them and then an alert from Valve support came up on Steam as I logged in to inform me I'd had my account restricted and the purchases in question removed from my games list. I am still able to access over 250 other titles (I've been on Steam since 2005) in single or multiplayer but I can't purchase anything, trade anything or redeem codes like the recent Humble Bundle that came out.

I've cleared the problem with Paypal by re-authorising the Direct Debit with my bank and am waiting for the long slow response cycle between Paypal and Steam to complete so I can have full functionality returned to me.

Long story short - Paypal are dicks, don't use them unless you need them for ebay, they are the ones who authorised a payment to Valve and 'stole' the items from them essentially.

 

[hoofhearted]

Maybe there needs to be some sort of digital consumer protection legislation in place. And I mean something where there has to be actual human to human conversation for some specified amount of time before any banning or denial of paid-for service takes place.

 

[hoofhearted]

That is the problem today. Too many big companies rely on blanket en masse automation to determine their justice and this lacks necessary checks and balances to truly determine right from wrong.