Steam Deck OLED – difficult to obtain (Picture: Valve)
A reader tells a complex and distressing story of incompetent delivery people and lost tempers when dealing with Steam customer support.
Within these paragraphs lies a cautionary tale about Steam. It all started on November 16th, when I pre-ordered the Steam Deck 1TB OLED not long after the 6pm drop. The site kept freezing, a lot of refreshing of the web browser required, but nothing majorly out of the ordinary. So far, so somewhat good.
On November 21st I receive an email from Steam that my order is being prepared for shipment. Every day, I would click on the tracking link to check for progress: dispatching from Amsterdam, received at UK processing centre, etc. The website giving this information was called GLS and stated that ParcelForce would be delivering my order once it arrived in the UK. This is where it all started to go wrong.
I didn’t check my phone for a couple of days, as I was on a night shift the Sunday night (November 26th). I woke up after my sleep on Monday 27th and checked the tracking website. Steam Deck delivered Sunday 26th at 7:30am. No sign of it anywhere. My wife tells me that there is a delivery card with only the words ‘green bin’ written upon it. I checked the green bin and it had been emptied that same morning and my Steam Deck with it!
I called ParcelForce to complain and they said to inform Steam and they would send a fresh one, as it was an error on the courier’s part. Steam would then make a claim to ParcelForce to be compensated for their error. I contacted Steam, outlining the situation and awaited a response.
I went to the local recycling centre that day in the vain hope that my new Steam Deck is lying on a bed of leaves somewhere. The council informed me that it would have been compacted once emptied into the truck. Probably the size of a soft drinks can in nearby Kirkby.
The following day – Tuesday, November 28th – I received a call confirming that they have photo evidence of the parcel being placed in the green recycling bin full of leaves. They apologised and said that the person who delivered my Steam Deck would have to pay for this themselves out of their wages. They also said that the delivery required a signature, so this should never have happened. As we Scousers say, I was fuming.
That same evening, I had an unsolicited visit from the actual person who bungled up the delivery, asking me to lie to his employers about the delivery, to tell them that I found it, so he wouldn’t lose his job. He didn’t do this in an intimidatory way but, still, something you don’t want to experience at your front door. Still no response from Steam.
I sent a second message to update them about what ParcelForce said. Steam took two days to reply, saying they were investigating the delivery. What I was told would be straightforward became far from so.
The following day, November 29th, when trying to sleep before a night shift, I get a call from ParcelForce stating a security expert (an ex-police officer no less) will be round to investigate the delivery, owing to the expense of this luxury item. I haven’t heard anything from them since.
I had lost patience and messaged Steam to say that this would need to be resolved by the end of the day or I would be requesting a refund and dissolving my Steam account, refunding what games they could. I even gave them a stay of execution until I got up at 3pm. I woke up to a message that the investigation would be finished ‘soon’. Not good enough for me.
I followed through on my promise and have requested a refund for the compacted 1TB Steam Deck OLED. Managed to get a refund for one game I bought recently (but in my Steam Wallet). They will not be getting another penny off me ever again. Radio silence since requesting the refund too.
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Steam is not a professional, customer-focused company. They sell expensive luxury items but don’t have the delivery service to match. Even attempts to purchase software on an original Steam Deck often don’t go through properly. How many emails have you received from Steam saying a transaction couldn’t go through? Furthermore, Steam hasn’t worked on my Intel iMac for years. I should have seen the signs.
Steam are a janky site, selling janky games, using a janky delivery system for their products. There’s only so much incompetence that I can take. They have lost me as a customer and I’m sure will lose many others if they do not get their act together. They need to have a proper delivery system for such luxury items, including regular dispatch notifications and delivery times. Beware, fellow gamers! Beware!
By George Heron
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A reader tells a complex and distressing story of incompetent delivery people and lost tempers when dealing with Steam customer support.