this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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Gamers Bombard Visa & MasterCard With Emails and Calls Over Steam and itch.io Censorship (programming.dev)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Pro@programming.dev to c/Technology@programming.dev
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Strategy in Practice:

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[–] Kissaki@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

Holy mother of varying font size, narrow width, image text

Here's the text (including numerous paragraphs, so I'll put it in an expand, respectful to other comments):

Text from images

Currently on the phone with Visa

Instead of starting with a complaint, I approached this as a Confused American Consumer who doesn't understand why they can't buy things off a website they use

The call center rep immediately asked if it was about Steam/itch

I said yes and asked for information, saying I don't understand what's happening, just trying to understand.

Something about Australia? Why is Australia impacting me in the US?

They said to email complaints to an email address

I don't have a complaint though! I don't even know what I'm complaining out.

Email offered again.

I repeated myself. Slower.

Email again.

After a few rounds of this I asked for a manager. I'm now on hold.

My demeanor has been polite but confused. Talking slower than usual, to eat up time.

I've worked call centers before, and I'm not here to lash out at the rep.

I'm playing the part of Polite But Annoying Customer.

I'm causing friction but not giving them any reason to dismiss me.

They just offered me a callback from the supervisor but I said I'd stay on hold

Got a supervisor

Wasted time with greetings / asking how their day is etc

Repeated everything I had told the rep

Said I don't want to waste anyone's time emailing a complaint if I don't know what the complaint is about

Supervisor finally said they've been instructed to only hand out the email and give no further information

They can't tell me anything else on the phone

I say hey, no problem, I know this isn't your fault

I ask to file an internal ticket

Supervisor said all calls are logged with case numbers

I ask for the case number

I now have something I can call back about and waste more time

(since I don't know how email works and I need people to explain things to me slowly on the phone)

Total call length: 25 minutes

I think anyone who has done customer service before wants to be as efficient as possible when calling.

But here, you need to play the part of someone who is incapable of doing any self-service while also embodying the kind neighbor who eats up 15 minutes of your life whenever you pass their porch.

[–] Solumbran@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If only people reacted that much against fascism, huh

[–] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This just seems someone seeking attention to me. Those calls and emails quickly get dumped automatically but the social media posts will be like the post from above.

[–] andioop@programming.dev 1 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

So I shouldn't do this because my call will be ended and I will not be able to take up 25 minutes? I mean this as a genuine question, not as a snarky "gotcha!" reply to put you down for saying that. I did actually call up before, but gave up because I could not find a complaint part of the phone tree and was considering trying again with the strategy in the post, since there is a valid place in the phone tree for that to go.

I do get the comment about "if only people reacted that much against fascism," but as someone who learned about their own queerness via the internet and got their childhood homophobia destroyed by the internet? I guarantee banning all the porn games is going to inch up to the super SFW things that talk about LGBTQ+, and I'm pretty sure that 18+ topics will be redefined to "anything fascists don't like". So discussing your love for hurting those protesting the regime in violent detail is fine, but "maybe this government is bad" is now 18+ and you have to hand over a government ID to age verify. First I was not interested in sexual kink video games, so I did not speak out… This kind of restriction is already censoring protest videos. I don't know quite enough to say if this is entirely fascist but it does fit a nasty pattern fascism does often. So yes, people are showing up both for their game porn and antifascist reasons.