MSFS Marketplace/Steam purchase turned into a mess

[FrankR409 514]

21 minutes ago, RobJC said:

Did that. Did not work. Got the purchase failed message as mentioned above.  

What the heck! I just bought the scenery pack around Newark a moment ago, same process, and no issues.  Maybe your credit card provider will give you relief if you challenge it as a double charge.

[Fielder 3,662]

Using a credit card online when Paypal is available is to my thinking not very safe. Paypal resolves issues by chat and by phone. They have never let me down. Paypal may lose a little money if they refund, but they gain it all back and more by building trust in the system for your future purchases. Paypal's interest is to be on the buyer's side not the seller. 

When I buy from the MSFS marketplace I am never on the Steam site at any point during  the purchase process. It's all done in the marketplace section of MSFS. Including the side trip to Paypal. MSFS just checks with Steam in the background, out of my sight.

Paying by check or money order is ridiculously slow, they're vehicles from the past century. And paying online by credit card is dangerous.

[Beardyman 604]

19 hours ago, Krakin said:

You should consider it for some of the ad-ons to help support Asobo and by extension, the longevity of the sim.

prefer to support small developers instead huge corporation

[vfrpilotck 7]

Just to update that this AM the MS Support desk got my issue sorted out and I now have rec'd my Vision Jet download. It's an awesome day after all my whining and now off to burn some Jet-A, stay safe all 😎

[Krakin 5,748]

5 hours ago, Beardyman said:

prefer to support small developers instead huge corporation

 Buying on the marketplace supports both. Yes, the small dev gets 70% but they are also getting a lot more exposure to potential buyers. Besides, what good is to the small vendor if the platform ends up dying? Some devs only sell on the marketplace anyway. Maybe one of them is selling something you'd like.

[Noel 4,492]

I never wanted to put a 3rd party between my PC and the sim, i.e. using Steam since MS already has a totally effective and reliable installer, and the same goes for the Marketplace purchases.  I value having it all under one roof.  It is so cool to launch and then note if there are any updates pending for ALL software install by this native system.  Since launch I've purchased everything possible thru the Marketplace and of course MSFS direct from the Store. I have done an initial install, and two complete reinstalls of everything and have never had a problem with any of it.  I think despite what Steam does well you are adding a level of complexity and with that comes some increased risk of problems.  100% satisfied MS direct customer here.

[blueshark747 1,843]

I had the same issue when buying the Vision Jet on release day.

Purchased using my Steam wallet and I was charged but had an error in the Marketplace store that the transaction failed.

I made a Zendesk request expecting to wait atleast a week, logged in the sim the next day and the Vision Jet purchase finally went through.

Marketplace purchases through this method are a gamble, eventually you'll get your product either when Zendesk staff help you or the Marketplace store finally decides to work.

Who want's to have their money immediately taken but not have immediate access to the product?

Never again and even though it's not the developer's fault for Marketplace's technical issues, from this point forward I will no longer support developers who do Marketplace only/timed exclusives.

Your issues with piracy aren't the consumer's problem, but having to wait 72 hours to a week to finally access a product I was immediately charged for is.

Edited December 8, 2022 by blueshark747

[s0cks 116]

On 12/7/2022 at 3:51 PM, Fielder said:

Using a credit card online when Paypal is available is to my thinking not very safe. Paypal resolves issues by chat and by phone. They have never let me down. Paypal may lose a little money if they refund, but they gain it all back and more by building trust in the system for your future purchases. Paypal's interest is to be on the buyer's side not the seller. 

When I buy from the MSFS marketplace I am never on the Steam site at any point during  the purchase process. It's all done in the marketplace section of MSFS. Including the side trip to Paypal. MSFS just checks with Steam in the background, out of my sight.

Paying by check or money order is ridiculously slow, they're vehicles from the past century. And paying online by credit card is dangerous.

PayPal is dangerous too. Make sure you have MFA turned on utilising an app. My mate had MFA turned on using SMS message and still got hacked. PayPal hacks have been on the rise recently.

[Zcott 55]

I prefer to buy through the marketplace so that I know when there’s an update available and I can reinstall stuff easily. I don’t really want to have an orbx updater, an aerosoft updater, and a bunch of random website logins for one thing on each. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

On 12/6/2022 at 7:05 PM, RobJC said:

Steam support tells me I need to contact MS because the funds were used. The MS support sight directs me to contact Steam to resolve the issue. 

Your contract is with Steam since that is how you initiated the purchase procedure. Anything that went wrong afterwards is for Steam and Microsoft to sort out between them.

If you don’t get a satisfactory resolution report the matter to your credit card company requesting a refund. You clearly wouldn’t benefit from buying the same aircraft twice.

[hanhamreds 592]

Guys how do we/I request a refund from MSFS - anyone got a link pls?

[Lange_666 167]

15 hours ago, Noel said:

since MS already has a totally effective and reliable installer

Seriously?

Effective and reliable "is installing and updating in one go".
There is no such thing when updating MSFS when bought through the MS store. Depending on the type of the update, it can run entirely through the game launcher (for small updates), partitionally through the game launcher and the rest through the MS Store (why not in one go from the within the launcher without switching to something else (it's late 2022, not late 1980 they should be able to do that right now !!!) or through the Xbox App for gods sake. I already had 2 occasions where the launcher told me continue the update through the Store but then the Store showed all was installed to the latest version which clearly was not the case since the launcher wouldn't continue loading and referred to the Store again and again.
Updating process used to install and download the same file over and over again... reliable and effective?

Edited December 8, 2022 by Lange_666

[RobJC 2,069]

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Your contract is with Steam since that is how you initiated the purchase procedure. Anything that went wrong afterwards is for Steam and Microsoft to sort out between them.

If you don’t get a satisfactory resolution report the matter to your credit card company requesting a refund. You clearly wouldn’t benefit from buying the same aircraft twice.

Hi Ray, the problem is to buy the plane in MSFS i had to do it through steam, but there i just added credits that MSFS redeemed. It was a two step process. From steam’s perspective i bought credits twice and redeemed them in MSFS twice. They have no idea how i used them. 

[Noel 4,492]

3 hours ago, Lange_666 said:

Seriously?

Effective and reliable "is installing and updating in one go".
There is no such thing when updating MSFS when bought through the MS store. Depending on the type of the update, it can run entirely through the game launcher (for small updates), partitionally through the game launcher and the rest through the MS Store (why not in one go from the within the launcher without switching to something else (it's late 2022, not late 1980 they should be able to do that right now !!!) or through the Xbox App for gods sake. I already had 2 occasions where the launcher told me continue the update through the Store but then the Store showed all was installed to the latest version which clearly was not the case since the launcher wouldn't continue loading and referred to the Store again and again.
Updating process used to install and download the same file over and over again... reliable and effective?

1000% dead serious it's been FLAWLESS now since launch.  Unbelievably automated and effective, every single time.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,942]

15 minutes ago, RobJC said:

Hi Ray, the problem is to buy the plane in MSFS i had to do it through steam, but there i just added credits that MSFS redeemed. It was a two step process. From steam’s perspective i bought credits twice and redeemed them in MSFS twice. They have no idea how i used them. 

It still sounds like your contract is with Steam but I accept it’s complicated.

If you can provide evidence to Microsoft - a receipt showing the same product purchased twice - then they should refund your Steam account if that’s how things work. If they can take money from that account then there should be a procedure to issue a refund.

Ask them why you would buy the same product twice unless you had made a mistake or there was a glitch in the process. I’ve done the same with Flightbeam and they willingly refunded my credit card, not a credit note.