I know I shouldn't engage, but your comment irks me.
This is the email I sent, make of it what you will:
Mr. Newell,
I figured I would email you as a sort of spiritual goodbye to my fandom of Steam.
I have been a customer for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure it's longer than the 15 years my profile lists as I had a profile that I lost access to before this one. For this entire time I've been a staunch supporter and advocate of Steam. I've slowly built my collection over the years and would always prefer to buy via Steam vs.another platform or even direct. I would always recount my many positive experiences with the Steam platform when discussions online turned negative. Overall I was a very happy customer and advocate.
My son is now 10 and I had finally decided to start a game library for him. We are a multi-PC family and we frequently want to game together or just want to all play games at the same time, even if they are different ones. As the Steam sharing feature means we cannot all play different games I decided I'd just buy him some of the games he asked for or that we could play together. The last two of those purchases is what triggered my loss of faith in Steam. And to be honest, it was such a trivial thing to trigger it in the end. I purchased a copy of Elite Dangerous: Commander Deluxe Edition and a copy of Conan Exiles - Complete Edition. They were both on sale for a good amount off, 75% for ED and 40% for CE. As I seem unable to just purchase a game and hold it as a later gift to someone and instead I have to specify the recipient right away I went ahead and sent it to my son's email address. That address is simply a group that goes to myself and my wife until he's a little older. Apparently I missed the fact that I needed to go and accept the gift or the gift would be REFUNDED. Eventually the gifts were both refunded and I had missed it until the second gift was refunded. I immediately reached out to support to help un-refund the purchases. They said that they were unable to help me.
That is really where the story ends I'd say. Nothing dramatic, but I told them they'd lost a customer for giving me my money back. Pretty ironic really.
I keep getting emails about deals on items on my wishlist and I keep realizing that I meant what I'd said. You guys lost a customer. I've gone so far as to start buying games I already own on Steam on GOG instead now. I won't walk away from my Steam library and I'm not saying I'll never spend more money on Steam. But I'll never do it as a first choice and I'll never do it as a happy customer.
I just wanted to write to you on the off chance that you might read this so perhaps you can do something for the future to not lose another loyal customer over such a trivial thing.
And this was the response:
Hello Mr. [X],
My name is [Y] and I am a developer on Steam. Thank you for taking the time to email us and bring this issue to our attention.
I have reviewed your help request and I am contacting you to apologize for the responses that you received. Your request was not handled appropriately and we will use it as well as your feedback to improve how we handle cases like yours in the future.
We would like to add free copies of the games that were automatically refunded to your son's account. From your email, it sounded like you were hoping to delay giving him these games until he is a little older. So, I have added giftable copies of Elite Dangerous: Commander Deluxe Edition and Conan Exiles - Complete Edition to your account's inventory. You can access your inventory through the dropdown menus near the top of the Steam Client and gift them to his account at any time.
We also think it is great that you are starting a game library for him and we would like to contribute some games from Valve as well. I am including two CD keys which you can register on both of your accounts so that you can play the included games together. These keys include all present and future Valve titles:
[CODE1]
[CODE2]
Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. Please let me know if I can help with anything else.
How so? If the customer doesn't want their money back and didn't intend to get their money back, that seems completely reasonable. There's no reason someone should expect that a purchase they made got removed without their consent regardless of whether or not a refund was issued.
This is the email I sent, make of it what you will:
Mr. Newell,
I figured I would email you as a sort of spiritual goodbye to my fandom of Steam.
I have been a customer for as long as I can remember. I'm pretty sure it's longer than the 15 years my profile lists as I had a profile that I lost access to before this one. For this entire time I've been a staunch supporter and advocate of Steam. I've slowly built my collection over the years and would always prefer to buy via Steam vs.another platform or even direct. I would always recount my many positive experiences with the Steam platform when discussions online turned negative. Overall I was a very happy customer and advocate.
My son is now 10 and I had finally decided to start a game library for him. We are a multi-PC family and we frequently want to game together or just want to all play games at the same time, even if they are different ones. As the Steam sharing feature means we cannot all play different games I decided I'd just buy him some of the games he asked for or that we could play together. The last two of those purchases is what triggered my loss of faith in Steam. And to be honest, it was such a trivial thing to trigger it in the end. I purchased a copy of Elite Dangerous: Commander Deluxe Edition and a copy of Conan Exiles - Complete Edition. They were both on sale for a good amount off, 75% for ED and 40% for CE. As I seem unable to just purchase a game and hold it as a later gift to someone and instead I have to specify the recipient right away I went ahead and sent it to my son's email address. That address is simply a group that goes to myself and my wife until he's a little older. Apparently I missed the fact that I needed to go and accept the gift or the gift would be REFUNDED. Eventually the gifts were both refunded and I had missed it until the second gift was refunded. I immediately reached out to support to help un-refund the purchases. They said that they were unable to help me.
That is really where the story ends I'd say. Nothing dramatic, but I told them they'd lost a customer for giving me my money back. Pretty ironic really.
I keep getting emails about deals on items on my wishlist and I keep realizing that I meant what I'd said. You guys lost a customer. I've gone so far as to start buying games I already own on Steam on GOG instead now. I won't walk away from my Steam library and I'm not saying I'll never spend more money on Steam. But I'll never do it as a first choice and I'll never do it as a happy customer.
I just wanted to write to you on the off chance that you might read this so perhaps you can do something for the future to not lose another loyal customer over such a trivial thing.
And this was the response:
Hello Mr. [X],
My name is [Y] and I am a developer on Steam. Thank you for taking the time to email us and bring this issue to our attention.
I have reviewed your help request and I am contacting you to apologize for the responses that you received. Your request was not handled appropriately and we will use it as well as your feedback to improve how we handle cases like yours in the future.
We would like to add free copies of the games that were automatically refunded to your son's account. From your email, it sounded like you were hoping to delay giving him these games until he is a little older. So, I have added giftable copies of Elite Dangerous: Commander Deluxe Edition and Conan Exiles - Complete Edition to your account's inventory. You can access your inventory through the dropdown menus near the top of the Steam Client and gift them to his account at any time.
We also think it is great that you are starting a game library for him and we would like to contribute some games from Valve as well. I am including two CD keys which you can register on both of your accounts so that you can play the included games together. These keys include all present and future Valve titles:
[CODE1]
[CODE2]
Thank you again for bringing this to our attention. Please let me know if I can help with anything else.