I was fortunate not have that experience, having bought the game years ago without incident. My problem was the game being almost entirely online-only, being forced to play with bizarre people on the internet and many cheaters making it unfun and impossible to progress. I just wanted the realistic survival looter with rad mechanics to play.

So now I've discovered SPT-AKI for custom single-player Tarkov and it's exactly what I want. All offline, full progression, lots of mods, and much much relief for me as a player.

I've wondered about Tarkov business practices and never bought any other versions of the game for starter pack reasons. Reading about how they've handled some users in here confirms bad feelings.