WARNING: Steam Market Is Blocked When Changing Payment Method

[Amit]

Since early 2010 I have been using my Paypal account to buy games from Steam. That account is tied to my bank account so it would do instant transfers. There is an item that I want to buy from the Steam Market that is very rare for a very low price and I'm sure it'll be gone within the next 2 hours. I only have around $3 in my Steam Wallet and the item costs quite a bit more than that. So, I needed to add funds to complete the purchase. No problem.

Today I decided to use my Virtual Visa Debit card which is essentially the same thing as what's going on in my Paypal account, but it's in a Visa credit card format. Put in my details, hit proceed, and BAM. I get a success email from Valve and it's all good. I refresh the page and go back to buy the item. What do I see? All the prices of any market item greyed out which is weird. So I clicked on the price of the item I wanted to buy and nothing happened. I hovered over it and I got this message:

3240

I'll be out of the country from the 8th of August and not be able to get internet access for a week after that so if by some magic the item is still there a week from now, it'll be an additional week from then that I can finally use the funds in my account. I have zero doubt that the item will be gone by then.

ADDITIONAL NOTE: DO NOT disable Steam Guard if you are having this issue. It'll add an additional 7 days to your wait period.

So, by the anguish you see in this post, heed this warning! Change your payment methods only when you are absolutely sure you won't need to buy anything on the Steam Market for a week.

The real kicker in all of this? You can purchase games to your heart's content from the Steam Store. Funny how this bullshit works.

Now for the grovelling. Is there anyone who is willing to purchase this item from the market for me if I give you the funds to do so and then trade it back to me? I guess whatever is currently in my Steam Wallet will be reserved for the DayZ Standalone.

[Amit]

Anddd it's gone :downsgun:

What did I tell ya folks? Gone in 2 hours like I said.

[Amit]

Two adventurers have stepped forward to help me in my time of need. The_Plague is the first. Unfortunately he had never used the Steam market before and fell into the same trap I did, rendering him crippled and unable to help.

There is another version of the same item up for $2 more. To this task I employed the service of Kornman00 (he's a Steam profile fiend and Steam Market veteran). Unfortunately, the item servers are having some trouble handling requests thanks to heavy traffic from what I assume is the Dota 2 International tournament going on.

These two brave souls have dedicated their time and efforts and one has already lost his ability to use the market. This is the price we pay for Valve's retarded policies. Why Gaben? WHY?

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/09/Valve-Gabe-Newell.jpg

[Higuy]

Why not just use your debit card to checkout fully? I have a paypal account but I dont use it for stuff like Steam, just ebay and other "big" transactions.

[ThePlague]

Couldn't with what he was buying. Since it was a community item (right? something like that.) it only accepted a steam wallet payment.

[Amit]

Why not just use your debit card to checkout fully? I have a paypal account but I dont use it for stuff like Steam, just ebay and other "big" transactions.

Debit Cards aren't a valid payment method for Steam. It'd have to be your bank account connected through Paypal. That counts towards my debit transaction limit per month. I wanted to avoid this by using the Virtual Visa Debit which is the same thing, but acts as a credit card and doesn't count towards the monthly transaction limit.

[Donut]

Are you sure you can't use debit cards with Steam? Every purchase I have made with Steam has been with a debit card.

[Kornman00]

Marketplace requires you to use ye steam wallet. If you don't have enough funds in it, it will prompt you to Add Funds when you go to Buy Item. After you add the funds, you have to navigate back to the listing to try and buy again.

[Amit]

I find the wallet system so stupid. Instead of having a separate "wallet" that holds cash on it, just let us pay directly to the item if we so choose. Could pose a bit more risk to people, but if you get scammed using your wallet, you're still getting scammed out of the money, so...

Instead they have this system where Korn's cash is in limbo with Steam's wallet system because the DOTA 2 item servers are fucked and won't let people purchase stuff. They should notify people of that BEFORE grabbing their money and dumping it uselessly into the Wallet.

[Higuy]

Debit Cards aren't a valid payment method for Steam. It'd have to be your bank account connected through Paypal. That counts towards my debit transaction limit per month. I wanted to avoid this by using the Virtual Visa Debit which is the same thing, but acts as a credit card and doesn't count towards the monthly transaction limit.

That simply can't be true what so ever, all I ever use is my debit card to buy games off of steam. I just used it last night to buy Fallout New Vegas for example.

[Tnnaas]

That simply can't be true what so ever, all I ever use is my debit card to buy games off of steam. I just used it last night to buy Fallout New Vegas for example.

It's the Steam Community Market they're talking about. I just checked and yes, it wouldn't let me use anything else except my Steam wallet to buy... anything, really. Unlike a Steam Store purchase, I couldn't change my transaction method for the Market.

To me, their reasoning behind this isn't quite clear. Perhaps because it's a player to player transaction (with a little tax added towards the game and Steam) and they want to ensure people receive payment on the spot rather than wait for banks to confirm. I dunno, it's just different. vOv

[Amit]

That simply can't be true what so ever, all I ever use is my debit card to buy games off of steam. I just used it last night to buy Fallout New Vegas for example.

I guess Americans can but the rest of us can't. For those of us outside the United States the only methods for payment are Paypal, Credit Card, Webmoney, and a few others.


It's the Steam Community Market they're talking about. I just checked and yes, it wouldn't let me use anything else except my Steam wallet to buy... anything, really. Unlike a Steam Store purchase, I couldn't change my transaction method for the Market.

To me, their reasoning behind this isn't quite clear. Perhaps because it's a player to player transaction (with a little tax added towards the game and Steam) and they want to ensure people receive payment on the spot rather than wait for banks to confirm. I dunno, it's just different. vOv

I don't think you guys are understanding the situation, but it's not your fault. It's Steam's retarded system that gets people confused so I'll lay it out here.

You want to buy an item on the market. You must add the amount required to your wallet. To add the money you use any accepted method of payment. CC, Paypal, Debit(?), etc. That amount is permanently in your wallet and cannot be refunded. It's similar to purchasing currency for F2P games, but instead it's the actual USD amount. So, you need to be absolutely sure that you want what you're putting the amount into your wallet for. Once the amount is in your wallet, you go back to the item and purchase it. It uses your wallet's funds to purchase the item. Done.

Specific to my situation, the funds are in Kornman's wallet which he has added for the item. I have compensated him that same amount through Paypal. The issue is that Dota 2's item servers are not functioning for the market currently. Therefore, he receives the following message when trying to purchase the item:

"We were unable to contact the game's item server. The game's item server may be down or Steam may be experiencing temporary connectivity issues. No items or wallet funds have been exchanged. Refresh the page and try again."

And he is still getting that message as of this hour. I sent in a Steam Support ticket about it this morning and have yet to receive a reply. This shit sucks.

[PlasbianX]

Kinda makes sense from a business stand point that they follow a somewhat F2P model with how it works. With the games, you pay for exactly what its worth. If you wanna use money in your wallet, you're more than likely going to put in more than what item you're spending on so you don't have to wait again. This ensures that they get all of their money and not just what you need to spend, assuming steam makes some profit from the store. It's similar to say, League of Legends, where you can only buy in like $5 increments but things are always priced at like $7 or some weird number in between.

[Amit]

Well, actually, Valve allows you to spend the exact amount you need for the item rather than having to put in more than you actually need. That part they at least got right.

[PlasbianX]

Well, actually, Valve allows you to spend the exact amount you need for the item rather than having to put in more than you actually need. That part they at least got right.

Ahh, well even then if I was in this situation id put more into the account than what im going to spend for future use.

[Amit]

Okay, with the help of Korn's brillant idea and yet another middleman getting involved, I have managed to get the item I wanted for an even better price, although Korn earned some commission. Since the funds were stuck in his account and we determined that only his account was getting the item server error, I brought in another one of my trusted buds to help. He would sell a steam game card to korn for the amount required to purchase the item. My friend would then use those wallet funds to buy the item and send it back to me. Shit worked. I am happy.

And what has Valve made of Korn's item server issue? (I sent in the support ticket, tho):

http://i.imgur.com/p8NZ417.png

They sent this to me almost 3 hours ago; well before we even did the plan outlined above.

Well, Support Tech Jimmy, this is clearly incorrect since I still do not have access to the Steam Market. Good job, Valve. Best Support Team 2013.