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Valve gets lowest possible customer service rating from BBB

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 17 Mar 2015 6:59 User comments (11)

Valve gets lowest possible customer service rating from BBB

Gaming company Valve has received the lowest possible rating for customer service from the Better Business Bureau, an F on a scale that ranges from F to A+.
Reads the BBB's page: "On June 25, 2013, BBB recognized a pattern of complaints from consumers regarding product, service and customer service issues. Consumers allege the games they purchase from Valve Corporation or Steam malfunction, do not work or have an invalid CD key. Consumers also claim the company blocks users from accessing their library of games. Consumers further allege they attempt to contact the company for assistance, but Valve Corporation fails to correct the gaming issues, does not correct credit card charges or issue a refund, or does not respond at all."

Overall, there were 718 complaints filed against Valve and Valve did not respond to 503 of them, a shockingly high figure. Another 17 received a response but were not resolved.

Valve was quick to respond to the low rating, although they didn't seem to care too much about the BBB but did admit that customer support needed some work. "We don't use them for much. They don't provide us as useful of data as customers emailing us, posting on Reddit, posting on Twitter, and so on," said Valve's Erik Johnson. "The more important thing is that we don't feel like our customer service support is where it needs to be right now. We think customers are right."

"When they say our support's bad, our initial reaction isn't to say, 'No, it's actually good. Look at all of this.' It's to say that, no, they're probably right, because they usually are when it comes to this kind of thing. We hear those complaints, and that's gonna be a big focus for us throughout the year. We have a lot of work to do there. We have to do better."



Check the BBB page here.

Tags: Valve BBB
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11 user comments

117.3.2015 19:02

OUCH! This can't bode well for the upcoming Steambox.

217.3.2015 22:05

Back in the day I was very reluctant to make a steam account to play half life 2. I am still not very excited about making an account to just play a game. But when it come to Valve I have became a fan. I love what they offer. That being said I have no idea how to contact them. I am not saying you can't I am sure there is a way but I have never stumbled across it. I have also heard horrible stories form friends that have had issues.

I truly hope they improve in this area.

317.3.2015 23:45

My experience with Steam has been all positive; long after I lost my HL2 discs in a move, I was able to download it again recently for my son to play, and he is hooked. Same with a lot of older titles.. Hopefully they can move forward from this debacle. Valve holds a special place in my heart, ever since my first "gaming" PC with a Voodoo Banshee AGP card and a brand-new copy of Half Life 1.

This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 17 Mar 2015 @ 11:45

418.3.2015 02:41

Not surprising! The guys who started Valve are some of the most arrogant, egotistical d-bag f-tards of the gaming industry I've ever seen interviewed. I woulda been surprised if they DID care.

518.3.2015 08:46

Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Not surprising! The guys who started Valve are some of the most arrogant, egotistical d-bag f-tards of the gaming industry I've ever seen interviewed. I woulda been surprised if they DID care.
Found the console user.

618.3.2015 10:25

Originally posted by thatBeatsguy:
Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Not surprising! The guys who started Valve are some of the most arrogant, egotistical d-bag f-tards of the gaming industry I've ever seen interviewed. I woulda been surprised if they DID care.
Found the console user.
Found the Steam fanboy.

The facts are the facts. Steam's customer support is notorious for being horrible; never responding to support emails, actually advising users to "search the forums" for help, etc.

718.3.2015 20:16

Originally posted by bhetrick:

Found the Steam fanboy.

The facts are the facts. Steam's customer support is notorious for being horrible; never responding to support emails, actually advising users to "search the forums" for help, etc.

Don't be so quick to assume. I've never paid for anything on Steam -- my collection runs from buying PC DVDs. Where I am, I get them notably cheaper.

Steam IMO is crap -- with my mediocre Internet connection, it pisses me off to come back to Steam, only to wait 30 minutes for the client to update, only to wait another 2-3 hours for the games to update. Since I don't use Steam, I don't know what their customer service is like; if this article is any indication, it's giving me the final push to free up ~40GB of F2P games downloaded through there.


819.3.2015 09:19

Originally posted by thatBeatsguy:
Originally posted by bhetrick:

Found the Steam fanboy.

The facts are the facts. Steam's customer support is notorious for being horrible; never responding to support emails, actually advising users to "search the forums" for help, etc.

Don't be so quick to assume. I've never paid for anything on Steam -- my collection runs from buying PC DVDs. Where I am, I get them notably cheaper.

Steam IMO is crap -- with my mediocre Internet connection, it pisses me off to come back to Steam, only to wait 30 minutes for the client to update, only to wait another 2-3 hours for the games to update. Since I don't use Steam, I don't know what their customer service is like; if this article is any indication, it's giving me the final push to free up ~40GB of F2P games downloaded through there.



It's not Steam's fault you have a mediocre internet connection and consequently takes a long time to download updates.
They may have a horrible customer service, but truth is it's rarely needed. Everything is usually smooth sailing.

919.3.2015 11:45

It has taken me almost 20 years it seams to come around to steam. At least they appear to be here for the long haul. That said even horrible support can be waded through eventually. I managed to even get support from ATI and their support had me screaming profanities at times.

1019.3.2015 16:46

Originally posted by thatBeatsguy:
Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Not surprising! The guys who started Valve are some of the most arrogant, egotistical d-bag f-tards of the gaming industry I've ever seen interviewed. I woulda been surprised if they DID care.
Found the console user.
LOL...

Raptr just dropped console support today.

Funny thing is, of the PC gaming aggregators out there, Steam is the best. I think most of their problems stem from all the hacking and cheating that goes on.

If anyone could recommend something better than Steam, SPEAK UP. I know DRM is bad, but what are we to do?

1124.3.2015 14:55

Originally posted by dcmorrow:
Originally posted by thatBeatsguy:
Originally posted by xnonsuchx:
Not surprising! The guys who started Valve are some of the most arrogant, egotistical d-bag f-tards of the gaming industry I've ever seen interviewed. I woulda been surprised if they DID care.
Found the console user.
LOL...

Raptr just dropped console support today.

Funny thing is, of the PC gaming aggregators out there, Steam is the best. I think most of their problems stem from all the hacking and cheating that goes on.

If anyone could recommend something better than Steam, SPEAK UP. I know DRM is bad, but what are we to do?
DRM doesn't stop cheating, building your game engine in away that makes it self aware to outside changes. that stops cheating, it also makes hardware work twice as hard and twice as slow.

if Microsoft wasn't so lazy they'd build an API purely for alleviating the problems with self aware multi-media applications.
unfortunately, Microsoft is ultra lazy and would rather milk something to death than attempt anything new and ground shattering.

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