I had the same experience, but instead of giving up, I called American Express and explained Steam's supposed policy to them. They said that was in violation of their merchant agreement and that they'd be contacting Valve for me.
I was refunded the full cost of the game a couple days later. Interestingly, Valve never removed the game from my account. It still doesn't work on any of my PCs to this day.
The real question is, if they disable your account, could you chargeback all of the valve charges over the years? I think you'd be justified if they blocked you out of games that you paid for years ago for a chargeback now.
This is almost certainly dependent on various merchant agreements, but (I'm pretty sure chargebacks have a limit on the timeframe you can do them. The only recourse you'd have would be to try to take Valve to court.
Effectively preventing legitimate chargebacks by leveraging unrelated transactions is a big no-no in basically all commercial agreements for card services. Otherwise, not only are chargebacks not worth anything, but also in quite a few jurisdictions the card company will be left to foot the bill for any disputed transactions themselves because they share liability with the merchant in the eyes of the law (and unlike chargebacks, that liability will not be limited to 6 months or so by a convenient commercial agreement).
Basically, regardless of any legal weasel words in their Ts & Cs, if Valve ever actually tried this on a significant scale and one of the card companies got wind of it, Steam would be toasted faster than a loaf in close solar orbit.
This will therefore never happen, and a judicious word with your credit card provider will almost certainly get any threats to make it happen dealt with quite effectively, as kevingadd observed.
Comments
I had the same experience, but instead of giving up, I called American Express and explained Steam's supposed policy to them. They said that was in violation of their merchant agreement and that they'd be contacting Valve for me.
I was refunded the full cost of the game a couple days later. Interestingly, Valve never removed the game from my account. It still doesn't work on any of my PCs to this day.
Note to self: buy all future Steam games with AmEx.
Things like that and the warranty extension they provide are why I got an AmEx card.
These types of services are offered by a lot of credit cards these days. Just have to call up customer service and talk to them about it.
The real question is, if they disable your account, could you chargeback all of the valve charges over the years? I think you'd be justified if they blocked you out of games that you paid for years ago for a chargeback now.
This is almost certainly dependent on various merchant agreements, but (I'm pretty sure chargebacks have a limit on the timeframe you can do them. The only recourse you'd have would be to try to take Valve to court.
Effectively preventing legitimate chargebacks by leveraging unrelated transactions is a big no-no in basically all commercial agreements for card services. Otherwise, not only are chargebacks not worth anything, but also in quite a few jurisdictions the card company will be left to foot the bill for any disputed transactions themselves because they share liability with the merchant in the eyes of the law (and unlike chargebacks, that liability will not be limited to 6 months or so by a convenient commercial agreement).
Basically, regardless of any legal weasel words in their Ts & Cs, if Valve ever actually tried this on a significant scale and one of the card companies got wind of it, Steam would be toasted faster than a loaf in close solar orbit.
This will therefore never happen, and a judicious word with your credit card provider will almost certainly get any threats to make it happen dealt with quite effectively, as kevingadd observed.