I downloaded and bought the original Half Life 2 from Valve's Steam Service when it first came out without any problem whatsoever. I loved that game so I was eagerly awaiting the first official expansion for the game, which was released yesterday

However Valve's online payment program is simply abysmal - it refused to authorise ANY of my credit cards! Cards I use to buy things online with all the time

I have a suspicion it was checking the the actual IP address (Thai) against the country where my card is from (UK).

To make matters worse I kept trying to re-enter my credit card info and now one of my cards is not working as it has been reported stolen! ARGGGGHHH!!! <deleted>!!

Has anybody else had a similar experience?

I am now tempted to simply download the game from "elsewhere"

I downloaded and bought the original Half Life 2 from Valve's Steam Service when it first came out without any problem whatsoever. I loved that game so I was eagerly awaiting the first official expansion for the game, which was released yesterday

However Valve's online payment program is simply abysmal - it refused to authorise ANY of my credit cards! Cards I use to buy things online with all the time

I have a suspicion it was checking the the actual IP address (Thai) against the country where my card is from (UK).

To make matters worse I kept trying to re-enter my credit card info and now one of my cards is not working as it has been reported stolen! ARGGGGHHH!!! <deleted>!!

Has anybody else had a similar experience?

I am now tempted to simply download the game from "elsewhere"

They may have reported suspicous usage of your card since you are in Thailand. I had to notify my CC companies that I was in Thailand because I have some joint accounts with one being used back home and one being used here.

Just to avoid possible problems in the future you may want to notify your card companies that you are "travelling" or live in Thailand.

My bank told me the CC companies are tired of having to pay for stolen numbers in SE Asia and Asia so they tend to shut down the accounts at the slightest hint of fraud, which is good, but in your case a bummer.

Some cards wont even work in Thai ATMs till you have rung the bank and told them where u are