Today I purchased the B247, but as I had some funds left over, I decided to buy an L-39 as well. Unfortunately, as it came up in the content manager I realised I had bought the Russian AF one - and I wasn’t having that! So I immediately requested a refund from Steam, according to their T&C on purchase which states I am eligible for a refund for 48 hours, as long as the product hasn’t been “consumed, modified, or transferred” whatever that means.
In any case, it wasn’t installed or used at all and I even added more funds and bought the correct L-39 model.
Just now I got an e-mail from Steam refusing my refund - stating this as their reason:
We cannot grant a refund at this time. In-game item purchases are not refundable if any items in the purchase have been consumed, modified, or transferred.
Total hogwash. Thanks to their, what I consider as ,scamming me I won’t ever buy any more products for FS2020 via Steam. Congrats, Valve - you shot yourselves in the foot.
With steam and marketplace purchases you are not buying the addon from steam, but rather the tokens needed for the addon. The tokens are consumed for the addon. If you have a way to not consume the tokens before they are used for the addon, then steam would still have to offer the refund. Once those tokens are consumed (almost immediately), Steam no longer offers a refund.
Me sentiments exactly. This happened to me and I got the same response. I bought a plane. After 1 very short flight I found several things not working so I asked for a refund. Long story short, I haven’t bought anything from Steam nor the marketplace since.
It’s a scam on all their parts and I won’t participate in that any more. So they made thier money off me one time but suffer until the end of time on any purchase I make. And I make a lot of purchases so it’s their loss.
I wish everyone would join us taking this position. Then businesses would implement policies that are consumer friendly rather than treating everyone like we’re out to cheat them.
Really, I’ve never understood how anyone would even consider to buy something when there is no proof of purchase. The gaming community is so easy with their money that companies don’t even have to bother to convince them to spend their money on all kind of stuff. Pity really, it’s all in our own hands. If “we” were more carefull with what we do with our wallet all this would have to be a serious and honest business, not only by law and tricks but also by moral.
In fairness, it isn’t obvious that you won’t get a receipt until after you make a purchase.
This was something that I brought up with the community team regularly internally and publically and asked them to provide feedback to their bosses. I’m thoroughly disgusted that it was never addressed, but not surprised.
I would highly encourage all users to stay away from the marketplace, as you are scared five ways till Sunday if anything goes wrong. Oh and even if you get Microsoft to give you a refund, often good luck getting a response from MSFS support in a meaningful timeframe.
Aside from the Steam issue - the fact that you get no itemised proof of purchase from the marketplace (all you get is an advice you bought so many “tokens” no mention of what you purchased) is very problematic.
I struck this issue with a faulty marketplace product that worked fine in the non-marketplace version (the dev had tried for ages to get MS to fix the specific issue with their product to no avail). Luckily for me the developer was happy to accept my advice of “tokens purchased” as proof of purchase and they sent me a copy of the non marketplace version of the product for free.
Unless you are on Xbox or buying a Carenado/Asobo product, avoid the marketplace.
Exactly what I meant with us being easy. It’s just available there so simply forget that it’s a bad business and purchase anyway instead of forcing them to sell outside. They HAVE a webstore. As long as it works out for them it won’t change. Changes will only be made by us customers. I recon that that won’t happen, money’s just not worth enough anymore ^^
Thanks, but I did purchase the one I wanted already as soon as I realised I had the wrong one. I bought the correct one before requesting the refund.
Appreciate the offer, though.
I’d like to mention to the guys commenting that I did get a specific receipt for the purchase (no “tokens”) and it was against that that I requested a refund.
This is the receipt email (obviously without personal info):
and this is the Steam profile account listing where I applied for the refund:
What gets me is that I didn’t even install it - if I had, I would have at least partly understood their position even if I’d have been disappointed (that would be the “Transferred” bit of their refund conditions, I guess).
The reason we are so unhappy with the transactions as displayed through steam is that they say you purchased “X Credits”. Well, that is wonderful, but what were these credits used for? Without any official proof that you purchased the L-39, how are you meant to be able to address issues technical or billing? You can’t!
I suspect this was a deliberate design decision or one that was made through poor design choices that have since been thoroughly accepted by the team behind the marketplace.
We’re lucky that Jayne has the ability to chase the issues and that she does as she becomes aware of them, and the moderator team (speaking from experience) brings up topics like this with her whenever they see them. But that does jack for users who don’t post on these forums, or who don’t get noticed.
Here’s a weird postscript. The L-39C that I stopped from installing and asked for a refund for and was refused is not in my hangar or my content manager.
It’s as if they cancelled it but didn’t do the refund (not saying that’s what happened but it might as well have), so I effectively paid for nothing.
My understanding is … If I buy an addon from Steam for this sim it is not refundable… period… as soon as I click download it becomes a consumed product. I dont know about Xbox. and I’m just sharing my own personal experience.
