The customer service of Steam enjoys a particularly good reputation among its community, and the story of a Reddit user shows once again why. He got his money back, even though his request did not comply with the official rules.
What story is it about? In a Reddit thread, the user BabaYodaTheFirst explained that he had bought a game from the “Like a Dragon” series about two weeks ago. However, after about six hours of gameplay, he noticed that SEGA had shortly thereafter launched a discount promotion.
He wanted to return his game to buy it again on sale, along with another title from the series. The problem: According to Steam’s return policy, refunds are only possible within two weeks and with less than two hours of playtime – his request was initially denied.
However, instead of accepting this, the player sent a second message to Steam support, this time with a simple “pretty please,” and lo and behold: a customer service representative from Valve responded with understanding and approved the refund as a “kind gesture.”
When I woke up this morning, I could hardly believe it. My parents were surprised when I, who am usually so calm, was bouncing around like a gremlin.
Not the only good story
Why does this work on Steam? Another user on Reddit sums up the situation fairly concretely: “The 14-day/2-hour rule is the criterion for automatic refunds – it is not an absolute limit for obtaining refunds,” states ialsoagree in the thread. Therefore, it is worth contacting support directly in such cases.
Other players also subsequently shared their positive experiences on the platform and referred to the human approach of customer service:
I told them: “I know I exceeded the 2 hours, but I swear I spent most of my time fighting with the game itself.” The guy wrote back to me about 5 minutes later: “You too, huh? Yeah, I tried it myself last night. What a disaster, lol. You are about the 50th person I had to personally give a refund to this morning, myself included.
Rymanjan via Reddit
For the gamer not-cool-br0, the support was even the reason to turn his back on PlayStation and only buy games on Steam. While Steam easily refunded him after 4 hours of playtime, the PSN store didn’t give him a single cent back 10 minutes after purchase and without playtime.
Why is this so special? The community has often praised that Valve sets the standards when it comes to customer service and leniency, and constantly shows that humanity also has a place in support. For example, through the story of another user, who managed to secure a full-price game with support due to a delayed repair of his Steam Deck: Player sends his device to Steam support, asks a few weeks later for an update, and receives a role-playing hit for free
