PSA: Don't Buy Steam Keys That Seem Too Good To Be True

[Adam8281]

So maybe I'm the only on this forum who would be lured by something like this, but in case I'm not, I thought I'd share my story:

Two months ago I was in the market for Call of Duty: Black Ops. I was loathe to pay the full Steam price, though. I searched eBay for "Black Ops Steam," and some auctions came back advertising new US Steam keys in the $40 range. One of the listings had a link to the seller's non-eBay website, and I checked it out. On the website, he was selling Steam keys to many games, including $35 keys to Black Ops. I bought the key on January 17, 2011, and paid with PayPal.

Within a day I received a "gift" copy of the game through Steam. I also received a friendly e-mail from the proprietor of the website, who is a guy in Vietnam. I didn't realize when I bought the game that it would be a "gift" copy; I thought I would just be e-mailed a Steam key which I could enter to activate. But whatever, I didn't care, so long as I had a working copy. (In case you don't know, "gift" copies are copies that person A buys, and "gifts" through an internal feature of Steam to person B. Person B never actually sees a game key; the game just "shows up" in his account, and he gets a message "You've received a gift of this game!" It is against Steam's terms of service to sell gift copies of games).

The gifted copy worked just fine, and since January 17 I've been playing Black Ops with no problem. This morning, however, I had a pop-up message from Steam waiting on my desktop when I woke up. It said something like, "Your gift copy of Black Ops has been removed from your account. This can happen for several reasons, such as when the purchaser of the gift disputed the charge, when there was a problem with his payment, or when his payment was fraudulent. If you believe this is in error, please take it up with the original purchaser of your gift copy."

Take it up with the original purchaser? Yeah, not so much. The website where I originally purchased the game has closed down. I can e-mail the seller (who is in Vietnam), but who knows if he'll return my money. PayPal says they can't resolve a dispute over the sale, because the transaction is over 45 days old. Maybe I can have my CC do a chargeback? I don't know, I've never done that before.

So I believe I'm out of luck. For what seemed like a $35 "bargain," I basically rented Black Ops for a month-and-a-half. If I actually buy the game on Steam now, it will have effectively cost me like $85 So if, like me, you're tempted to buy copies of Steam games from 3rd party website at prices that seem too good to be true, well, they probably are.

 

[Malak]

You went through a shady website hosted in another country selling something below retail price knowing there is no way they could buy it for less than you could, and you thought everything would work out?

Dude... seriously. Your last comment is the blatantly OBVIOUS thing you should have thought of in the beginning.

 

[gorobei]

i had a guy offer me $200 in steam games in trade for some of my TF2 hats(i got a few rare vintage hats). While i didnt immediately think stolen credit card, i knew it was a scam.

 

[Annisman*]

My thoughts on this are that the person from Vietnam who sold you the game may have purchased many games from steam all at once, sold them to lots of people, and then defaulted on his payment to steam somehow (but doesnt steam take your money immidiately?). So, Adam, there may be hundreds of other who bought from this guy who also now have un-usable copies of games. When I ignore the idiocy of what you did, I feel bad for you and others who got scammed.

 

[llee]

if anything, your experience should remind us why we should adhere to a little something called COMMON SENSE.

 

[Inspector Jihad]

lol

 

[zerocool84]

So if, like me, you're tempted to buy copies of Steam games from 3rd party website at prices that seem too good to be true, well, they probably are.

Hopefully most of us here aren't that dumb.

 

[thilanliyan]

I got scammed a while back buying from a website that I found through ebay as well. Avoid those like the plague.

 

[Malak]

I got scammed a while back buying from a website that I found through ebay as well. Avoid those like the plague.

Most people figured this out years ago. I thought it was pretty common knowledge.

 

[nyker96]

You guys who got scammed you should report the user to the ebay admin. And their website to: http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx [internet crime reporting] so at least they can go investigate, shut down and trace these guys to their new scams and shut that down as well.

It's not unheard of to be scammed, esp because sometimes legit users do sell off their Steam accounts (which violates EULA). So scammer taken advantage by mixed themselves inside some genuine transactions on ebay. Tough to tell. But my advice is, if you cannot afford something, just wait until it goes on sale on legit places.

 

[paperfist]

i had a guy offer me $200 in steam games in trade for some of my TF2 hats(i got a few rare vintage hats). While i didnt immediately think stolen credit card, i knew it was a scam.

How can a digital hat be vintage?

 

[JujuFish]

How can a digital hat be vintage?

In TF2, hats (or any items, for that matter) that are vintage are ones that were acquired before the MANN-conomy update. These items actually have "Vintage" in their name.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

the MANN-conomy update

What the hell is that? I liked TF2 when it was just a simple 9-class, three-weapons-per-class deal. It went to shit not long after the whole hats deal...

 

[pugh]

if anything, your experience should remind us why we should adhere to a little something called COMMON SENSE.

This right here..

 

[Lonyo]

It probably was a legit purchase and everything was "above board" except for being against the TOS, but Valve found out and shut down his account and revoked all keys he'd given out.

There was a thing a while ago about buying cheap keys from eastern countries and adding them to Steam accounts. Steam pulled them all because those keys weren't supposed to be used outside that region. Could be that they noticed all these gifts from this one guy and revoked them all.
Even if it hadn't been a guest pass you could still have ended up losing the game. Valve doesn't like people gaming the system and avoiding their unbalanced prices.

 

[Adam8281]

You guys who got scammed you should report the user to the ebay admin. And their website to: http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx [internet crime reporting] so at least they can go investigate, shut down and trace these guys to their new scams and shut that down as well.

It's not unheard of to be scammed, esp because sometimes legit users do sell off their Steam accounts (which violates EULA). So scammer taken advantage by mixed themselves inside some genuine transactions on ebay. Tough to tell. But my advice is, if you cannot afford something, just wait until it goes on sale on legit places.

Yeah, this Vietnamese site, from the little bit of "research" I did, did appear to be legit. Before I bought Black Ops from his website, I checked out his eBay feedback, which was all for sales of Black Ops and other "A-list" games. He had all positive feedback (and not the scammy sort left by eBay users with hardly any feedback themselves), with people saying things like "game worked perfectly, activated on Steam no problem."

From this feedback, it seemed pretty clear the guy was selling actual legitimate Steam-activated copies of the game. But I didn't know Steam could "revoke" a game once it was already in your account, so that wasn't a consideration I thought about. But the fact that Steam CAN revoke games out of your account is a strong caution against EVER buying "gift" copies of games. I know Anandtech Forums don't allow sales of Steam gift copies, but I also know it's a common practice, especially when Steam is selling "4-packs" of games, like Left For Dead 2 and Borderlands. There are plenty of forums where you can easily hook up with other players, pool your money, and buy a Steam 4-pack together. But if you're not the guy actually making the purchase with your CC, well, you should know there's a chance the guy who DOES place the purchase will have a problem with payment, and you'll get your copy of the game revoked out of your account at some time in the future.

 

[SunnyD]

My EADM keys I bought from the ebay chinaman are still working quite nicely after a year and change. Of course I went into it with my eyes open - the prices were in my "disposable funds" range, so if they got banned after a few months, I'd have already gotten my money's worth.

 

[Texashiker]

PSA: Don't Buy Steam Keys That Seem Too Good To Be True

People get stung like this all the time - only buy your games from sites with good reputation.

Personally, I watch the local sales papers, amazon and steam. The first place that has the game on sale, that is where I will buy it from. When I bough left 4 dead, the local best buy had it $10 cheaper then Steam did. So I bought the boxed copy, went home at activated the cd key on my steam account.

 

[Barfo]

Well, ate least it cost you only $35 to acquire this knowledge, though it should be common sense for most people.

Now, if you want to recoup it and earn a few million on the side, my cousin was the prime minister of Nigeria a few years ago and needs some help taking 50 million out of the country, pm me for details.

 

[Macamus Prime]

Don't buy anything digital from Asia, Russia, Africa, Middle East, India,... etc. etc.

Just buy it from a trusted source,... like Steam. And, was it worth it to save $25? Just be on the look out for sales. They eventually come around.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

You're lucky, actually. I've heard of Steam disabling entire accounts in cases like this.

 

[boozie]

*Gulp* Well then. By chance do you know the username of the person you bought the game from? I got my copy for $30 on ebay from "steamgames" (I think) who was from Vietnam. I am perfectly okay with losing the $30 but I honestly wasn't aware you couldn't buy these keys.

If I lose my steam account; however, I will probably stop gaming.

What I don't understand is how do they get their money back from steam after 45 days of sale to you. That seems odd to me. I haven't had the game for 45 days yet so if he did a mass pull of his "gifts" I should be okay. If he's biding his time, well then I'll lose $30 which is not too bad as I will probably have played 80% of total game time by then anyways.

 

[ViviTheMage]

if it's too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Most people figured this out years ago. I thought it was pretty common knowledge.

Context in everything.

Found a couple on eBay who lived a couple towns over from my dad. They run a day care and sell custom-made arts'n'crafts.

They didn't have what I wanted in their eBay store, but I emailed them, and they whipped up a set of matching lightswitch/outlet plates for me really quick. Nice folks.

But yeah, at least follow the same rules for off-ebay transactions as you would for Craigslist, imho.

 

[AstroManLuca]

Wow.

Well hey, at least you learned your lesson instead of bitching and trying to blame it on everyone else. I know a lot of people would have cried that it was Valve's or Activision's fault.