Full break down from the BBB's website: http://www.bbb.org/alaskaoregonwesternwashington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/valve-corporation-in-bellevue-wa-27030704

Cinemablend Article on Valve: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Valve-Knows-Its-Customer-Service-Unacceptable-Trying-Improve-70660.html

If you search for Valve's profile on the Better Business Bureau's website you might be surprised to find that Valve has the lowest possible rating, an F. People are not happy with Valve's customer service, and the company knows it. But like any alcoholic who takes rehabilitation seriously, Valve understands that the first step is admitting you have a problem.

Judging from the Complaint Resolution Log, most of the dissatisfaction revolves around billing issues and software glitches (though, there's an alarming number of fraudulently charged credit cards). The vast majority of these complaints, around 70 percent, have been left unresolved by Valve's customer service, resulting in the failing grade.

Here's the breakdown from the BBB's website:

• 717 complaint(s) filed against business
• Failure to respond to 502 complaint(s) filed against business
• 17 complaint(s) filed against business that were not resolved
• Business has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints

On July 1, 2013, BBB notified the company of the complaint pattern. To date, the company has not responded to BBB's request to address the pattern

By contrast—and this is insane—Wal-Mart has an A+, and Comcast has a B. Yeah. You read that right. Nothing about the world feels right anymore.

According to Valve, a sterling BBB rating isn't really important to their business model. They'd rather have the folks on Reddit and Twitter singing their praises.

One of Valve's "business development authorities," Erik Johnson, explained the company's position in an interview with Kotaku:

The BBB is a far less useful proxy for customer issues than Reddit. 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.

To be fair, the Better Business Bureau has no real authority over a company's success. It's merely a nonprofit organization that acts like a watchdog for consumers. And in a lot of ways, the BBB's approach is outdated.

Steam, for instance, is a decentralized, internet-oriented platform. It acts as a middleman between publishers and consumers. According to Ars Technica, 781 million games are available on Steam, and Valve can be held responsible—at least in the consumers' eyes—for any shifty billing practices and broken games.

So, if any of these BBB complaints are actually the fault of a greedy or inexperienced publisher, and I suspect many are, Valve is taking the brunt of that blame. But instead of shrugging off the responsibility, the company is taking the high road.

Here's Erik Johnson again:

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.

Valve is one of the biggest gaming companies on the planet and is involved in a potpourri of projects that could change the industry forever. So, the fact that they're taking each customer interaction seriously is impressive.

Hopefully the sheer number of complaining gamers doesn't force GabeN's crew to adopt Comcast's philosophy and abandon customer service altogether. Though, they'd probably have a better BBB rating if they did.

(if this was posted already, let me know)

No wonder most games get ignored.

781 million, with an M? Is that, like, physically possible?

Origin has better customer service at the moment, especially in terms of either text or vocal chat and refunding you your money post haste instead of days to weeks later.

Would also help if Valve could stop the flood gates a little since there's quite a few shit games getting through where either the dev gets banned, the dev is scum to begin with (back cata's of old games from 1999 thrown up as new) or the dev is trying to make a quick buck, the actual devs who want to do something new tend to drown with the rest of them.

I dunno why you'd use Cinema blend though, they are hardly hardcore or centric about gaming as much as PCgamer and other gaming related sites.

Can't wait for future Playstation,Xbox and Nintendo service articles though from their respective players.

Serves them right for not making Half life 3.

I wrote a letter complaining that I don't have time to play all those games they sell for cheap... no one responded.. :(

No. But Ars didn't mean games, games. Individual copies.

deskpro2k3 said: Full break down from the BBB's website: http://www.bbb.org/alaskaoregonwesternwashington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/valve-corporation-in-bellevue-wa-27030704     Cinemablend Article on Valve: http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Valve-Knows-Its-Customer-Service-Unacceptable-Trying-Improve-70660.html If you search for Valve's profile on the Better Business Bureau's website you might be surprised to find that Valve has the lowest possible rating, an F. People are not happy with Valve's customer service, and the company knows it. But like any alcoholic who takes rehabilitation seriously, Valve understands that the first step is admitting you have a problem. Judging from the Complaint Resolution Log, most of the dissatisfaction revolves around billing issues and software glitches (though, there's an alarming number of fraudulently charged credit cards). The vast majority of these complaints, around 70 percent, have been left unresolved by Valve's customer service, resulting in the failing grade. Here's the breakdown from the BBB's website: 717 complaint(s) filed against business Failure to respond to 502 complaint(s) filed against business 17 complaint(s) filed against business that were not resolved Business has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints On July 1, 2013, BBB notified the company of the complaint pattern. To date, the company has not responded to BBB's request to address the pattern By contrast—and this is insane—Wal-Mart has an A+, and Comcast has a B. Yeah. You read that right. Nothing about the world feels right anymore. According to Valve, a sterling BBB rating isn't really important to their business model. They'd rather have the folks on Reddit and Twitter singing their praises. One of Valve's "business development authorities," Erik Johnson, explained the company's position in an interview with Kotaku: The BBB is a far less useful proxy for customer issues than Reddit. 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. To be fair, the Better Business Bureau has no real authority over a company's success. It's merely a nonprofit organization that acts like a watchdog for consumers. And in a lot of ways, the BBB's approach is outdated. Steam, for instance, is a decentralized, internet-oriented platform. It acts as a middleman between publishers and consumers. According to Ars Technica, 781 million games are available on Steam, and Valve can be held responsible—at least in the consumers' eyes—for any shifty billing practices and broken games. So, if any of these BBB complaints are actually the fault of a greedy or inexperienced publisher, and I suspect many are, Valve is taking the brunt of that blame. But instead of shrugging off the responsibility, the company is taking the high road. Here's Erik Johnson again: 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. Valve is one of the biggest gaming companies on the planet and is involved in a potpourri of projects that could change the industry forever. So, the fact that they're taking each customer interaction seriously is impressive. Hopefully the sheer number of complaining gamers doesn't force GabeN's crew to adopt Comcast's philosophy and abandon customer service altogether. Though, they'd probably have a better BBB rating if they did.   (if this was posted already, let me know)

BBB is a fraud itself. It's either pay them to represent your business or you are penalized. Then when you are a consumer, as what happened to me, the business is always right as long as they do what BBB wants. No money back, no replacement parts, just a "rebuttal". Absolute scam and it should be illegal to set up a company that requiresd every other company to pay them for reviews or be given an F or no grade.

BBB are completely a private company and who grades them? Pile of nonsense. Not even sure why people give them free advertisement by talking about them. Even if the company doesn't correspond through them, but fixes the issue, BBB say they didn't respond.Anfd to prove my point about what bribes can buy, here is WALMART WITH AN A+

http://www.bbb.org/arkansas/business-reviews/discount-stores/wal-mart-stores-in-bentonville-ar-1864

Wow, that will sting. I hope Gaben has enough $1000 bills lying around to dry his tears.

No surprise about the rating. Clearly any service that produces basically nothing themselves yet gets all the credit for good and bad results will not be able to do much for most of the people complaining.