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[Messofanego]

Polygon did a story (http://www.polygon.com/2015/2/9/8006693/the-truth-behind-those-mysteriously-cheap-gray-market-game-codes) on where these keys come from.

Stolen keys also hurts the "little guy" like indie devs and smaller studios like Devolver Digital who have also revoked keys and spoken out against the financial burden these stolen keys cause.

Thanks, this was insightful.

Really is like eBay. Damn it, are all these companies based in Hong Kong?!

Those Youtubers and Twitch streamers should really re-evaluate their promotions for these key reselling stores.

Why does this read like some hackers lambasting big companies' security...

"It seems odd to us," Wanli wrote on the Kinguin blog, "that with such big quantities [of keys] involved somebody bought these via credit card or cards from Origin without any suspicion raised during the purchase process.

"We at Kinguin do not claim ourselves technologically more advanced than Ubisoft or Origin, however we do verify big or unusual purchases [through our marketplace]. We believe [EA and Ubisoft] platforms must have access to anti-fraud ecommerce tools that should raise alarm flags in such cases."

I've read this argument used a lot here as the digital stores being anti-consumer for not giving codes to marketplaces that would sell it way cheaper:

Limiting where games are sold and judging consumers based on where they buy them, Wanli says, is antagonistic and anti-consumer.

"It is natural in every economy that companies aim for supremacy and try to achieve monopoly position. ... Steam would want Steam keys to be sold only via Steam. Blizzard does not allow any sales besides Battle.net and physical boxes. ... Gamers don't accept it. And for good reasons."

This international Ping-Pong game of keys is doing my head in:

So far we had tracked our game code from a Kinguin seller in Italy, to his source in the Netherlands and finally to seller C, a user on Steam who told us he was from Venezuela.

Where had he gotten the code? The Humble Store, where he says he received a decent discount by ordering the game just before its release.

So, in something like two weeks, that game code made it around the world and back to Polygon, the eventual buyer. C bought the game through the Humble Store at a discount, traded it to D for another game he wanted, and then D sold it, via PayPal, to R, the owner of the Kinguin storefront.

Hope for bigger publishers to put up the legit sellers just like Devolver Digital has done.

"We’re a small team," Nigel Lowrie, co-founder of Devolver told Polygon. "All tech support emails go through us. So any requests about things not working still come directly to me. ... [when I first learned of G2A in May of last year it was because] a few dozen were coming in over a week saying, hey, I bought this key and it doesn’t work. We asked them where they got it from."

To date, Lowrie says that Devolver has never revoked a key because of where it was sold, but he understands where Ubisoft and EA are coming from and would act similarly if he found fraud was involved in their purchase. But once keys are sold, there's not much he can do about them being resold in the wild. That's why he's gone to efforts recently to inform customers of his authorized resale partners — specifically Steam, Humble Bundle and GoG.com — with a new website.

"When it comes to what you call 'gray market' dealers, we had to figure out a way to communicate to people that they should be careful. It’s obviously popped up a lot more recently and in fact we’re putting up a page now on our website to list authorized dealers. Because it’s not fair for us to say buy from an authorized dealer when we don’t say what that is. We want to be very clear to our users, our community that these are the people that we give Steam keys to and we do have agreements with and anything outside that is buyer beware at that point."

Huh, if these people were legit then why do sound apologetic as if they've been caught

When confronted with this information every single link in the resale chain — R, D and C — said they were sorry. D and C each said that they didn't know about the free code offer, or about how Robinson wanted to spread the love of gaming with it. Each offered to give away a code as a way of making amends, and R himself offered to refund Polygon's money for the transaction that started it all.

C maintains that he didn't sell a code, per se, just a link to a code generator at the Humble Store. Therefore, he can neither confirm nor deny that the code we purchased was from him. He has since pulled down the Steamgifts.com page where he says he traded away his copy of Gravity Ghost and says that he's unable to confirm that he traded it to a user named D.

In fact, C says he's never heard of them before.

 

[HowZatOZ]

Direct your anger to the seller and request a refund. If they don't comply file a complaint with your bank. Companies need to protect themselves against fraudulent keys.

 

[Fbh]

Yes they can.

Try to get in contact with the site to see if they offer you some solution

Caught exercising his right as a consumer to seek out the best deal? That is ridiculous.

The onus should not be on the customer to be aware of reselling sites. There are vast swathes of members of Gaf that aren't aware of it being legally gray at the best of times, how would you expect everyone outside of the immediate core of games coverage to make an informed decission on that matter either? Its not like mainstream media particularly picks up on it.

I don't support key selling sites, but to act as if using them is tantamount to a crime is ludicrous.

If you buy concert tickets from a guy that looks like this:

And then at the entrance you are told the tickets aren't valid you don't go

"Oh but I was only exercising my right as a consumer to seek the best deal!!", "He looked legit! IMO", "I wasn't aware that not everyone selling tickets is legit!!"

 

[Messofanego]

I was well aware of how their site looked funny and off.

I can't get a refund through paypal because I didn't pay with paypal. It supports a payment option called "ideal", a payment method unique to my country. And as far as I'm aware ideal doesn't support refunds like that.

Edit: I recieved a response from the seller. But reading it doesn't exactly fill me with hope. Goodbye $40

Hold up. You were already well aware of how shady this website was, yet went through it anyway and decided to blame Bethesda? C'mon.

These places don't want to refund you or help you out? Welp, lesson learned.

Read that Polygon article about how these anonymous sellers get their stuff and bounce the keys around amongst themselves, will put you off from trying these avenues again.

 

[JinKagekiyo]

Just this past week I had a similar thing happen to a friend. She got a key for Guild Wars 2 through G2A and then her account was locked within about 2 days. They told her that the key was stolen and so they locked the account. She's forced to buy a new account and hopefully get a refund from G2A.

I would definitely put the blame more on the seller than the game in this case.

 

[llotus]

When Valve starts cracking down on people who use those sites, you're gonna see a lot more of these topics.

 

[Cipherr]

NEVER TRUST KEY RESELLING SITES

G2A, gamedeals, etc. You have no recourse for fraudulent keys. Nuvemn, GMG, gamergate, are authorized and give you much better support.

We need to put this on a banner at the top of the site TBH. I dont even use authorized resellers anymore. Not worth the damn headache and risk of this stuff happening. Buy for the normal price FROM the game company directly or go buy a physical version.

This nonsense with bad keys has become an epidemic.

 

[hemo memo]

Yes they can.

Try to get in contact with the site to see if they offer you some solution




If you buy concert tickets from a guy that looks like this:

And then at the entrance you are told the tickets aren't valid you don't go

"Oh but I was only exercising my right as a consumer to seek the best deal!!", "He looked legit! IMO", "I wasn't aware that not everyone selling tickets is legit!!"

Worked for Leon.

 

[Gattsu25]

Guess what? Probably a good idea to make sure that, when you spend money, you spend it with a trustworthy retailer.

 

[Forsaken82]

Sure they have the right too, surely by their TOS...but it seems like a weird way to treat someone who got ripped off while in the process of trying to buy access to their game.

I know there are those who probably get these keys through shady channels etc, but can't Bethesda offer some kind of recourse for those who've seemingly been ripped off?

If nothing else, it's just good PR.

What recourse do you think Bethesda should take? Refund the user who was scammed? Then bethesda loses money (compounded over the loss they take because of the sales these sites offer)

I think they are doing the best thing they can under the circumstances... Telling the user to contact their credit card and to lodge a complaint against the retailer is the best course of action.

 

[Derpcrawler]

We need to put this on a banner at the top of the site TBH. I dont even use authorized resellers anymore. Not worth the damn headache and risk of this stuff happening. Buy for the normal price FROM the game company directly or go buy a physical version.

This nonsense with bad keys has become an epidemic.

Why would you avoid authorized resellers? This just doesn't make any sense. Why would I avoid Amazon or GMG if they had good deals?

 

[AdmiralSnackbar]

So the keys come straight from steam? Can't valve just set up a block for any account trying to buy games in bulk?

 

[Coolsambob]

Got mine from CDKeys and got the email. Spoke to customer services and got a refund within 4 minutes at 11pm and they said they're investigating this with Zenimax. So guessing it's affected keys bought from them.

 

[MUnited83]

]So the keys come straight from steam[/B]? Can't valve just set up a block for any account trying to buy games in bulk?

No, they do not.

 

[Warm Machine]

Heh. Our DRM Free versions of our games have been sold on grey market sites. They just grab the installer and start selling it even though they have no right to.

 

[AdmiralSnackbar]

No, they do not.

going back through the polygon article actually had this quote

"We at Kinguin do not claim ourselves technologically more advanced than Ubisoft or Origin, however we do verify big or unusual purchases [through our marketplace]. We believe [EA and Ubisoft] platforms must have access to anti-fraud ecommerce tools that should raise alarm flags in such cases."

So its publishers like EA that are getting scammed directly, but it still seems like a pretty simple fix.

 

[baphomet]

Of course they can and should ban keys bought with fraudulent funds.

 

[Gunslinger]

People are greedy and the scammers like G2A and gamesdeal are exploiting them. Seriously guys don't be greedy and buy from amazon or steam or origin. Even greenmangaming is kind of iffy now due to the whole CD projekt thing. And people receiving keys that don't workfor witcher 3. So stick to what's proven to be authorized dealers.

 

[Aureon]

going back through the polygon article actually had this quote



So its publishers like EA that are getting scammed directly, but it still seems like a pretty simple fix.

The going rate for stolen CC numbers is pretty low.
I very much doubt people are loading stolen CCs with 5k+ of purchases, and those are likely stamped out pretty fast.

It's likely 30-40€ of purchases per vendor.

 

[Cipherr]

Why would you avoid authorized resellers? This just doesn't make any sense. Why would I avoid Amazon or GMG if they had good deals?

Because saving a few bucks doesn't nearly rank for me in comparison to finding out theres some problem down the line. Its not worth the mere possibility when faced with a meager savings of $10 here and there.

I just flat out don't care enough about saving such a small amount in those already rare situations that I buy a digital key of some sort. That's my scenario and feelings though and I'm not forcing anyone else to adhere to it.

People are greedy and the scammers like G2A and gamesdeal are exploiting them. Seriously guys don't be greedy and buy from amazon or steam or origin. Even greenmangaming is kind of iffy now due to the whole CD projekt thing. And people receiving keys that don't workfor witcher 3. So stick to what's proven to be authorized dealers.

Yeah, that type of thing is just ridiculous. Even trusted sources have an occasional issue here and there. Im not going to bother with trying to keep an updated list on who has good keys and who doesn't over small discounts. More headache than its worth.

 

[pompidu]

Are these publishers really this incompetent when dealing with fraud? If someone is buying a shit load of cdkeys from you, you would think something fishy is up specially from an unauthorized reseller.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Are these publishers really this incompetent when dealing with fraud? If someone is buying a shit load of cdkeys from you, you would think something fishy is up specially from an unauthorized reseller.

What?
Industrial credit card fraud - which is what this is - doesn't just sign up an account under the name "Mrs Shady K. Reseller" then buy 10,000 keys.

They use automated scripts to make multiple transactions using multiple stolen cards with information sent to multiple harvestable junk email accounts created as they buy.
Then a lot of them keep the credit card details of anyone foolish enough to use them to fund the next wave of fraudulent purchases.

It's literally organised crime.

 

[ttech10]

That About Me section made my sides fly into orbit:

People really need to do research on places they buy from. The site is registered to some Hong Kong company (Glory Profit International Limited) that is claimed to be associated with other cd-key reseller sites and gold farming sites.

Or maybe not be so surprised when the key from the shady site they buy from gets banned?

I bought from them because they where the cheapest I could find without getting into ridiculous cheap territory. And I bought a few small other games from them, which I never had any problems with. I was well aware of how their site looked funny and off.

Let this be the lesson, then. Just because other keys were legit or weren't banned, doesn't mean any in the future won't. You admit the site looked funny and off, that should have stopped you from doing business with them immediately. I get wanting cheap games, but you play with fire...

 

[Goldenroad]

Not much different than buying any other stolen piece of property. It didn't belong to the person who sold it to you, so it doesn't belong to you.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Make sure while you're contacting your credit card company about refunding your original purchase you go ahead and charge back all the subscription fees you paid to Bethesda as well.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Make sure while you're contacting your credit card company about refunding your original purchase you go ahead and charge back all the subscription fees you paid to Bethesda as well.

Why are you encouraging someone to knowingly commit fraud?

 

[Moon_frogger]

Sucks man. I was pressured by a steam buddy to buy dying light for like 15 bucks at release...except the website he linked was all in Russian and I had to use a vpn to activate the steam key? Of course I said 'nope' and that's when I discovered shady key resellers. Hope you learned a valuable lesson.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

How do these grey market companies generate the keys to begin with? Surely they must originate from Bethesda themselves?

Who knows, maybe they bought the keys with fraudulent credit cards that were later reported

 

[TheYanger]

Everyone in these threads that brings up 'games as a service' comes accross as completely ignorant. We're not talking about a Call of Duty game here where they strip out hosting so that they can run the servers, we're talking about a fucking MMO. It *IS* a service.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Why are you encouraging someone to knowingly commit fraud?

He can more than likely truthfully explain exactly what happened to the bank and they will authorize the charge back. No need to worry about fraud. He paid Bethesda for a service they are not providing him.

 

[Aureon]

He can more than likely truthfully explain exactly what happened to the bank and they will authorize the charge back. No need to worry about fraud. He paid Bethesda for a service they are not providing him.

He may have grounds PERHAPS for the current month, and that's it.

 

[Moon_frogger]

He can more than likely truthfully explain exactly what happened to the bank and they will authorize the charge back. No need to worry about fraud. He paid Bethesda for a service they are not providing him.

No he got to use a piece of software they never received payment for. His character and progress are intact. If he tried to chargeback the sub fees, assuming he even payed beyond the free month then I would promptly delete his account.

 

[flatearthpandas]

He may have grounds PERHAPS for the current month, and that's it.

He ought to let the bank decide that and recover as much of his now worthless investment as possible.

Edit: missed that they would reactivate the account with a new key, thought it was all fine forever. In that case, yeah, get the original purchase back and ask to have the account credited for any time lost. My bad.

 

[Alebrije]

It seems Gamesdeal got a deal !!!

Sorry OP.

 

[Silent Chief]

Can they just do that, leaving my account deactivated? Aren't they the ones that should be dealing with the resellers not me, the customer?

They are dealing with the resellers by invalidating the keys they stole.

I presume the credit card company is canceling the transaction that was done with the stolen credit card. So now that the keys are no longer paid, they suspend the accounts.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

He ought to let the bank decide that and recover as much of his now worthless investment as possible.

Edit: missed that they would reactivate the account with a new key, thought it was all fine forever. In that case, yeah, get the original purchase back and ask to have the account credited for any time lost. My bad.

Even if it was all lost forever, doing a chargeback for a service you have already used is a shitty thing to advise someone to do.

 

[VibratingDonkey]

Thanks, this was insightful.

Really is like eBay. Damn it, are all these companies based in Hong Kong?!

cdkeys is owned by Omnyex, which is in Dubai.

Those Youtubers and Twitch streamers should really re-evaluate their promotions for these key reselling stores.

Yeah pewdiepie's partnered with G2A, the worse store in that Polygon article. Pretty shitty.

Wow, look at this shit. Or don't, site's been banned. It's that store I just mentioned.
They've basically turned referrals into some sort of gross pyramid scheme/viral marketing. Oh, there's an actual term for it, multi-level marketing.

 

[Alebrije]

What?
Industrial credit card fraud - which is what this is - doesn't just sign up an account under the name "Mrs Shady K. Reseller" then buy 10,000 keys.

They use automated scripts to make multiple transactions using multiple stolen cards with information sent to multiple harvestable junk email accounts created as they buy.
Then a lot of them keep the credit card details of anyone foolish enough to use them to fund the next wave of fraudulent purchases.

It's literally organised crime.

Yep , people trend to think this fraud is made by one or two guys behind a PC. We are talking about organized people with software and hardware resources enought to get millions $$$ per year.

 

[flatearthpandas]

Even if it was all lost forever, doing a chargeback for a service you have already used is a shitty thing to advise someone to do.

If it was all gone forever, I would advise everyone affected to do that and sleep peacefully. Let the bank sort it out.

This is moot though because Bethesda is restoring accounts so no use getting too worked up about hypotheticals.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

If it was all gone forever, I would advise everyone affected to do that and sleep peacefully. Let the bank sort it out.

This is moot though because Bethesda is restoring accounts so no use getting too worked up about hypotheticals.

If you ever at any point in your life sell a service or a product online and are hit with the triple sting of refunding a fraudulent purchase, paying a penalty fee for the chargeback AND suffering a threat to your potential future purchases via a credit card penalty notice I hope you follow that "just let the bank sort it out" advice.

 

[Silent Chief]

This is literally buying goods on the black market.

 

[flatearthpandas]

If you ever at any point in your life sell a service or a product online and are hit with the triple sting of refunding a fraudulent purchase, paying a penalty fee for the chargeback AND suffering a threat to your potential future purchases via a credit card penalty notice I hope you follow that "just let the bank sort it out" advice.

I'll save my corporate sympathies for whenever I decide to start selling services online.

Until then, if you think a vendor has screwed you and you can make a truthful appeal to the bank with accurate information, I think that should always be on the table.

 

[iLLmAtlc]

If it was sale of tangible goods, tc may not be required to return them, at least under the common law. In a contract created with fraud, the innocent party could choose to void it ("voidable"). Under the sale of goods law if a purchaser in good faith buys the goods before the innocent party voids the contract, they do not have to return them.

See section 23 of the sale of goods act: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/54

Personally I don't think buyers should be expected to check a buyers corporate history before buying. In addition, aren't games bundled all the time? That would be a legitimate resale right? Should buyers really have to check whether a game has ever been bundled before buying?

 

[Red Mage]

Not trying to be rude, but why would anyone buy a key from a third party site to begin with?

 

[Minions]

If it was sale of tangible goods, tc may not be required to return them, at least under the common law. In a contract created with fraud, the innocent party could choose to void it ("voidable"). Under the sale of goods law if a purchaser in good faith buys the goods before the innocent party voids the contract, they do not have to return them.

See section 23 of the sale of goods act: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1979/54

Personally I don't think buyers should be expected to check a buyers corporate history before buying. In addition, aren't games bundled all the time? That would be a legitimate resale right? Should buyers really have to check whether a game has ever been bundled before buying?

Might work in the UK as I don't know the laws there. In the USA it wouldn't work. Stolen property is stolen. You can't sell something you don't own, and ownership cannot be transferred without the actual owner.

 

[JaseC]

When Valve starts cracking down on people who use those sites, you're gonna see a lot more of these topics.

There's not really anything Valve can do to crack down on key reselling. "Legitimate" resellers just sell keys taken from physical stock bought in bulk. Publishers have always had the ability to region-lock keys, though, both at the activation level and runtime level.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Not trying to be rude, but why would anyone buy a key from a third party site to begin with?

It's kind of a grey area, there are a bunch of legitimate resellers like GMG, Gamersgate, Nuuvem, etc who have better deals than Steam most of the time.

Then there are sites masquerading as legitimate resellers.

 

[Anustart]

Just remember to always allow everytime improve protection steamguard.

 

[Messofanego]

Why would you avoid authorized resellers? This just doesn't make any sense. Why would I avoid Amazon or GMG if they had good deals?

GMG already got into hot shit with CD Projekt over Witcher 3 over where they got the keys from, and then changed their price back up to the usual price in other stores which implied they might have been doing something shady actually by getting the keys illegitimately or then they would've gone whole hog on that case to show CD Projekt might have been price fixing. In fact, the keys seemed to have been invalid for quite a few.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I had my CC stolen from Gameholds.com. I told Zenimax that I used them. They even said they don't know who they are. I had someone buy two copies of ESO and MineCraft with my card. They told me not to trust them. Gameholds send you an email saying to use VPN to unlock and download their keys. Some work and mine did for what I bought. I don't advice using VPN. It goes against Steam's ToS.

GMG has always been a trusted site from what I've seen and they're Steam approved. It's just what happened lately was awful to hear about.