Steam, Origin, Epic, Twitch, Good*, *Games Sales [2007-2021]

[Mize]

Standard warranties in the US are 90-days. Some US vendors give 1 year.
The same items are 2-years in the EU and that applies to almost everything.

You said, growing up the the EU, then moving to the US. At what age did you leave the EU? Since the EU is basically 20 years old I assume you left when you were a child? What kind of experiences did you have with consumer protections and warranty issues?

Also, where in the US do you have "no questions asks returns," particularly on software? Where I've lived (literally all over the US except the deep south and pacific Northwest) software cannot be returned, only exchanged for the same item.

All the big retails chains dropped or capped the $ amount on no questions asked years ago.

Please elaborate.

 

[Grall]

All the big retails chains dropped or capped the $ amount on no questions asked years ago.

"Restocking fees" are par for the course, yes?

 

[BRiT]

"Restocking fees" are par for the course, yes?

No. I haven't dealt with restocking fees in decades for normal items. The only time I had any was on "special orders", it carried a restocking fee of 10%. This was in the mid 90s on computer equipment.

As Mize says, software is a all sales are final event. You can only exchange for identical item in case of defective media.

 

[Davros]

Which is of course wrong and probably illegal but the retailers still do it, I wish someone would challenge them on this.

 

[Mize]

How so? If I tell you the terms of sale and you agree? If you disagree, don't buy from me, right? Let's face it, once upon a time jackasses would buy a game, beat it and then return it one week later. How is that fair? Never mind piracy issues.

 

[Davros]

Er no, there are laws that state your entitled for a refund for faulty goods, you cant just say oh, ps the law doesnt appy in my shop.
oh, ps the laws on medical negligence dont apply in this hospital...

 

[homerdog]

I used to work at Sears in the deep south and we would take pretty much anything back without restocking fees. Store policy was to charge customers a restocking fee on certain items if there was nothing wrong with them, but we had to inform the customers of that and if the customer had a problem with it we had to wave it. Based on conversations with people in the cafeteria, most other stores in the mall had the same or similar policy. I think the store should have been stricter since a lot of the people were clearly purchasing a big screen TV or something just for the Super Bowl and then returning it a week later saying they don't like the TV any more. Dickheads.

There are lots of myths about how much worse things are in the US, but for the most part that's what they are. Hell we had a lady return used tires one time because it turned out the insurance policy that she claimed would pay for them didn't exist. There were definitely questions asked, but at the end of the day she got a full refund and we were left with 4 three month old used tires

Software sales (including DVDs and Blurays) could only be returned if they hadn't been opened.

 

[Mize]

Er no, there are laws that state your entitled for a refund for faulty goods, you cant just say oh, ps the law doesnt appy in my shop.
oh, ps the laws on medical negligence dont apply in this hospital...

That is not what I'm referring to...faulty goods are entirely different than returning for no reason or simply because you brat the game in three days. Faulty good fall under warranty laws, not returned merchandise for refund with no reason given.

 

[Davros]

As Mize says, software is a all sales are final event. You can only exchange for identical item in case of defective media.

Your not referring to faulty goods when you end your statement with the words "in case of defective media" ???

 

[BRiT]

Your not referring to faulty goods when you end your statement with the words "in case of defective media" ???

I purposefully avoided 'faulty goods' as I don't want to get into the discussion if a full of fail, crash to desktop, crash on consoles, random crashes after 4 games such as BattleField4 constitutes "faulty goods". I said "defective media" to mean the case of "the dvd or bluray was broken/scratched and couldn't be loaded" or if the game case is smashed to bits.

It's bad enough we're already this far off topic.

 

[Grall]

There were definitely questions asked, but at the end of the day she got a full refund and we were left with 4 three month old used tires

Sounds like a pretty clear-cut case of fraud to me. A big chain like sears could eat a hit like that and not even notice (not even a rounding error on a day's revenues), but if you're a self-employed person running your own car tire store, I think you'd rather either demand she pay up or else go to the cops...

 

[homerdog]

Sounds like a pretty clear-cut case of fraud to me. A big chain like sears could eat a hit like that and not even notice (not even a rounding error on a day's revenues), but if you're a self-employed person running your own car tire store, I think you'd rather either demand she pay up or else go to the cops...

I would say so, especially when she claimed to have slipped on some grease in the auto shop and was going to sue

She was scum, much like many of the customers I had the pleasure of dealing with. Fortunately that was not my department so I never had to meet the woman.

 

[Davros]

just to point out defective media is faulty goods

 

[Mize]

just to point out defective media is faulty goods

And, as noted previously, you ***CAN*** exchange for a replacement the same item no charge.

got it?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I used to work at Sears in the deep south and we would take pretty much anything back without restocking fees. Store policy was to charge customers a restocking fee on certain items if there was nothing wrong with them, but we had to inform the customers of that and if the customer had a problem with it we had to wave it. Based on conversations with people in the cafeteria, most other stores in the mall had the same or similar policy. I think the store should have been stricter since a lot of the people were clearly purchasing a big screen TV or something just for the Super Bowl and then returning it a week later saying they don't like the TV any more. Dickheads.

There are lots of myths about how much worse things are in the US, but for the most part that's what they are. Hell we had a lady return used tires one time because it turned out the insurance policy that she claimed would pay for them didn't exist. There were definitely questions asked, but at the end of the day she got a full refund and we were left with 4 three month old used tires

Software sales (including DVDs and Blurays) could only be returned if they hadn't been opened.

Hell, I used to worked in a store that was so generous I would occasionally watch people walk into the store, grab an item off the shelf, and then take it up to the register and demand a refund on it. When asked for a receipt that would provide one from a previous day.

They always got their "refund" as it was usually considered too much trouble (police and police reports) and bad publicity (people in line watching a potential confrontation) to confront them on it.

That was about 15-20 years ago. The retail chain had to impose new rules and limits on refunds because of shits like that, which in turn make it more difficult for legitimate customers to get refunds. Especially since in one year there was an organized effort by a group of people to do this. They made out with thousands of dollars a month by having various people do it. They would "dumpster" dive and dig through trash cans looking for receipts.

Regards,
SB

 

[Davros]

And, as noted previously, you ***CAN*** exchange for a replacement the same item no charge.

got it?

never said you couldn't, no idea why your pointing it out to me ?.I was pointing out that brits assertion that fault goods and damaged media are somehow different is wrong damaged media falls under the category faulty goods.

 

[Yemeth]

DayZ standalone "early access" is now available:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/

 

[Davros]

Is that the good one or the bad one ?

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Is that the good one or the bad one ?

It's the good one. IIRC, Day Z started off as a mod for ARMA 2 and got upgraded into a full grown game (sort of like DOTA).

By bad one I assume you're talking about War Z, which coincidentally came out awfully close to the World War Z movie and suffered from all sorts of controversies, from the film's studios threatening to sue the developers to massive bans to all the people who expressed disappointment for the lack of RPG features in their forums. People who had paid full price for the game and protested for the game not having the skill upgrade system that was presented as a feature from the beginning.
That game went down in every e-tailor because of copyright and fraud claims but eventually came back with a different name - Infestation: Survivor Stories.
Nonetheless, the people at Metacritic retained the original game's reviews for the "new game" so Infestation is set with some of the lowest ever Metascores ever.

 

[Mize]

never said you couldn't, no idea why your pointing it out to me ?.I was pointing out that brits assertion that fault goods and damaged media are somehow different is wrong damaged media falls under the category faulty goods.

I must have misunderstood your post. Sorry.