The title pretty much sums up this entire post. Despite trying several times to give them money, they refuse to accept it.

As some of you may know, Steam is having their summer sale. All games are drastically marked down for a week or so and then there’s daily deals as well. I’ve been enjoying this sale immensely…until yesterday.

The two daily deals that caught my eye were Thief: Deadly Shadows and Grand Theft Auto: San Andras. Sure I already own both of them on a console, but for $3.00 and $4.00, I’d be crazy not to jump on that deal.

So I put the items in my cart and proceeded to checkout. Filled out my PayPal info and clicked the final button only for some text to tell me that they couldn’t verify my PayPal account and I can’t buy games using it. I’ve been having some problems with PayPal as some of you may know from my constant complaining on my twitter feed, so I just brushed this off as PayPal making a boo-boo again and entered my Visa card info instead.

Guess what? Yep…I got the same message. Well, it was different but the point was the same; I can’t buy shit. The text said my credit card company declined my payment. Right about then I didn’t know what to believe. PayPal has fucked me over, I’ve never had issues with my Visa, and I’ve been handing Steam my money as soon as I load it on my card or PayPal account.

I started calling places. Started with PayPal and then my card company. Both of their verdicts were the same. There is nothing wrong with my accounts. Both are verified and there’s no reason for them to keep a hold my money.

Yep, so either Steam has encountered an error that prevents me from buying games from them, or they are deliberately blocking me from handing them my money and preventing me from stabbing medieval folk in the back with a dagger.

To be on the safe side, I did everything from change my password to reinstall Steam. Crossed my fingers as I attempted to buy a game and…drumroll please…I couldn’t buy a damn thing.

Upon googling I found out that I’m not the only person that have had this happen to them. Here’s a blog post from Merrie over at Loot Ninja. Not only did she experience the same problem as myself, but almost every commenter did as well!

They contacted Merrie and told her that her account has been blocked by Steam’s fraud prevention system. Yes, she was blocked by Steam for buying games and giving them money…just like me.

I was not aware Steam punishes faithful gamers that choose to purchase games legally though their wonderful system. I was never told there was a limit on how many games or the amount of money I was allowed to hand them. If there truly is a limit, they should put that in the fucking client. If they can put a “Daily Deal ends in 10:14:38″ ticker on the client, they can implement a goddamn “4 game purchases left. Resets in: 04:21:33″ ticker.

A couple commenters mention contacting the Better Business Bureau over the way Steam gave a false update (Blamed PayPal/Card for holding funds) and handles their business. To be honest, I can’t blame them. I’m considering doing that myself, but I contacted Steam twice now and I expect them to reply at some point with a fix. If they don’t, I’m not sure what to do.

You know what you don’t do? You don’t lie to the customer and try to brush off what you’re responsable for on someone else. One day there will be repercussions from running your business this way. Steam, I sure hope you get your shit together before that day comes.