Well, that was interesting…

Purchased a $100 pre-paid Visa today (for $105.95 ) so I could buy MS Visio Pro 2007 for $70 from Microsoft’s online store, Digital River.

Went well, which is surprising compared to my previous post (I haven’t installed it yet, though. Maybe the install came wrapped in three layers of expiring passwords, who knows?). But that left me with $30 on it.

So I thought, “Hey, I haven’t purchased Counter-Strike yet! I’ll get that!”

I go to the Steam store, added the Counter-Strike Complete package to the cart, and off I went.

Now, I only had $30 on my card, and that’s in AUD. The Counter-Strike Complete package is $30 USD. Fortunately, I had some cash left over in my Paypal account, so I thought I’d attach my prepaid card to my Paypal account and use up what was left on it.

So I continue through the purchase, deciding to add the credit card when Paypal tells me off for not having enough cash in their piggy bank that has my name on it. Which it does (so predictable).

And then I continue on to the confirmation page for Paypal… and it tells me it will pay for the purchase with my existing Paypal balance and money from my bank account.

Wait, what? You’re telling me, all this time, you wouldn’t allow me to make a complete payment for a game on Steam from my bank account unless I also had a credit card attached to my bank account?! What the hell, Paypal?!

All these cheap deals I missed on Steam, and it’s all because of your fucked up processes, requiring me to have a credit card even though you would end up using my bank account to pay off the transaction when I didn’t have enough.

Ugh!

It’s not that I didn’t want it to come out of my bank account. On the contrary, I’m very happy that I now have a way of buying games off Steam at any time I want to, not when Paypal decides to complete my bank transfer.

I just wish they had told me sooner!! D:!