Steam issue HELP

J

JackSpyder

New member
Ok so my little brother (the tit) askedmy mother if he could borrow her card to buy a £4 game. She said ok. 10 minslater he comes downstairs saying he accidentally bought it twice, but no issuehe will just give her some money. All is ok

one day later (now) £160+ has gone out. 32x £4 and 4 x £10 (he is lucky he wasat school) because naturally mum is FURIOUS!

He claims (after a phone call, sitll at school) that he bought a few things onTF2 through the ingame shop. but admits to the 4 games costing £10 each so..

how do we, if we can, get any of this all back? its all those little £4payments she wants back as that is the bulk. What can we do? We dont have a lotof money, she is a single mum of 6 kids. Its not like she can just say £160gone oh well no biggie.

Please advise!

if it helps. the brother in question is 15
 
I very much doubt you will get anything back. Lesson learned I guess, don't give a kid your credit card.

It could be worse of course. A lady last year got her son a mobile broadband dongle. He then proceeded to use it for leeching newsgroups and torrents and racked up a £4500 bill over the course of a month. It's something like £1 a megabyte if you go over.
 
holy cow

A suggestion on another forum was to contact the bank and reverse the charges. This would result in his steam account being locked until they got the money back though. But my mother is all for that idea, seems suitable punishment. He doesnt have many games on there. It was almost all items bought from the TF2 ingame store.
 
Reverse the charges and let him go without his account IMO. If he were my kid he wouldn't be touching a computer game for a long time. He's 15, he should know better than to rack up that big of a bill when your mother is trusting you. A backhand to the face would probably do him good. I'm sure your mother is hurt as much as she is pissed at him. What a crappy crappy thing to do to your mom. He owes her big time.
 
+1 for reversing the charges if you can.

If any of my kids did this I'd ban them from the pc, (except for school work,) until I felt they'd earned the right again.
 
For the bank to reverse the charges she would need to lie. Problem is she gave him her card and did not watch him whilst using it. Also, to do a snatch back you need to wait something like 30 days minimum and to have exhausted all possibilities of asking Steam for a refund.It's not as easy as it used to be (I tried to do it recently with Scam).

If you do manage to reverse the charges Steam could well protest it and you could end up getting bad credit.

Honestly mate I don't want to sound like a bumhole but he was given the card, she didn't supervise him and TBH? unless she lies and tells her bank that he stole the card and used it then I highly doubt that they will take the money back for you. In Steam's eyes they have done nothing wrong. I don't know how much they would be prepared to fight you over it but I would bet they have their own legal team. (and if she does tell the bank that then it's likely they will contact the police).

I know £160 is a lot of money and I'm not discounting the fact that it absolutely sucks, but I don't know how far you'll get with getting it back. Sadly at that age you can't teach him what happens. With me? I got into debt with a catalogue (Freemans) and ran up £500. IIRC I was about 17. When I put my hand out to Mummy she told me to feck off and then I had to answer the door to the debt collector and pay him £10 a week until it was paid off. It was embarassing, belittling and my credit score was knacked. It took me until 24 to even be able to get a mobile phone without paying a £500 deposit.
 
Definitely reverse the charges, have him locked out of Steam and yes deny him the PC apart from schoolwork. Hopefully he feels remorseful and tries to make it up to her, rather than act out like the world is against him and do something silly... I've seen many do it, so just keep an eye on him
smile.gif
not an annoying I'm watching you one though but you get what I mean. Hopefully the reversal doesn't adversely affect your mum's credit rating though... that's a question for someone with more knowledge. Hope it works out.

Edit: AlienALX's reply seemed to give more info.. I had no idea that reversing charges became more difficult recently. Lot's more to consider and look into it seems :/.
 
ahh man i love these forums already. Before here I mostly used OcUK forums and well, this one is far more mature
wink.gif
really appreciate the info guys.
 
i say sell his pc parts off to recoup the costs! if i had a kid that did that they would also receive a firm size 10 foot in the ass
 
AlienALX said:
For the bank to reverse the charges she would need to lie. Problem is she gave him her card and did not watch him whilst using it. Also, to do a snatch back you need to wait something like 30 days minimum and to have exhausted all possibilities of asking Steam for a refund.It's not as easy as it used to be (I tried to do it recently with Scam).

If you do manage to reverse the charges Steam could well protest it and you could end up getting bad credit.

Honestly mate I don't want to sound like a bumhole but he was given the card, she didn't supervise him and TBH? unless she lies and tells her bank that he stole the card and used it then I highly doubt that they will take the money back for you. In Steam's eyes they have done nothing wrong. I don't know how much they would be prepared to fight you over it but I would bet they have their own legal team. (and if she does tell the bank that then it's likely they will contact the police).
Click to expand...

She doesn't really need to lie. He did essentially steal the card by charging way more than he was allowed to.

It is probably a good idea to start with Steam though and see if they will reverse the charges and close the account. If that doesn't get you anywhere, then talk to the bank.
 
Agreed with hmmblah sounds good, hopefully she's not on too tight a timeframe to get it back (eg. large bill in the next week). The forums are great here yes
smile.gif
 
dont sell those PC parts! I paid for those!
ohmy.gif
Time isnt too big of a deal. try the steam route first obviously. IF it comes to a reversal, is there like a cut off time where it can no longer be done?
 
steam got back to us! they have wiped his backpack and refunded the costs! Because all his purchases were for the INgame TF2 store they have completely cleaned out his TF2 account and refunded it all!

so thats a thumbs up for steam

thanks for the advice and stuff guys! Not the best way to introduce myself to a new forum XD
 
Well it's a big welcome to you and hope you stick around!

That's great news, I'm glad Steam were good enough to do that! Well your brother will need to learn a few things from this I hope. Good news for your mum, and definitely thumbs up for steam, who haven't exactly been the best with their customers all the time, maybe it's just the lottery of who you get to talk to
biggrin.gif
. Ban him from Steam.. Glad it worked out
smile.gif
.
 
i changed his steam name to something inapropriate to post on here
smile.gif
and i will definatly stick around on these forums. been lurking all day looking at peoples lovely builds etc
biggrin.gif
 
hmmblah said:
She doesn't really need to lie. He did essentially steal the card by charging way more than he was allowed to.
Click to expand...

I know it's done and dusted now bro but like the internet you need to realise we live in a different world here (UK).

Before I left OH (spit spit eww) I accidentally signed up for a font service. Basically they said that because some of their free fonts contained adult subject matter than you needed to put in a DC to verify your age (as do a lot of over 18s services and sites). Gits charged me something like $40 for a sub to something I had no idea of
ohmy.gif


I phoned Wachovia and they did an immediate snatch. However, over here it's not that easy any more. They won't do it for 30 or 45 days (can't remember now) and it must be an absolute last measure.

I gotta say there are things I don't miss about the USA (tax returns, everything being so effing manual, the backward date, ETC) but there are many things I miss as a customer
biggrin.gif
 
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