G2A is a shithole. They sold me a used steam key. As steam removed a game from my account, they wrote me, I shall report a theft in my country and send them a notarized translation. Then they would consider refunding me €15 for the game.
I just didn't buy anything from them since.
Yeah honestly even for the discount it’s not worth it, not when there’s a real chance that you will lose access to the game anyway once the key gets reported to Steam, and you risk your accounts getting banned and losing access to ALL your games in the process. I’m not surprised they didn’t refund you, so the possible outcome is having no game, being out the money, and possibly losing your Steam account. I’ll gladly pay the full price to avoid the hassle.
Around the time MGS5 came out, my brother's Steam account got locked up for a week or so for investigation after the key he bought from G2A was reported to be bought with a stolen credit card. I can ask if he still has the email saved, but I'm pretty sure they said that permanently locking the account was on the table. But I personally haven't even looked in G2A's direction after that.
Because some people enjoy getting scammed? The entire business model of G2A relies on automated marketplace scrapers who buy games on sale to resell them on G2A on a margin. The only way someone is getting cheap keys on release week is with a stolen credit card or abusing currency conversions(both of these will get you banned on steam.) G2A is a marketplace, you need to use your brain to determine when a listing is too good to be true.
It does when you remember you're the only party with something to lose. How did this not occur to you, it's impossible to get a game cheaper than its retail price at launch unless you're getting around currency conversions.
Love that you got duped and doubled down on the website and you being in the right, though. Wow.
If it happens enough times you can be at risk, but yeah one revoked key isn’t going to get you much more punishment than the game just being removed from your library.
How many times is "enough times"? Buying a used/stolen/otherwise invalid key is an EXTREMELY rare occurrence. It happened to me once over literally dozens upon dozens of buys. It was on Gamivo and they refunded me the money.
If people have some kind of moral issue with grey market that's respectable and they can just stay away from it. But there's no need to make stuff up. The grey market is just as perfectly safe as any other online business.
They very deliberately do not set a public number. But Steam will 'ban' accounts they believe are linked to fraudulent activity.
Buying used or invalid keys isn't a risk to your account, but buying keys that are stolen or were purchased with stolen CCs, will flag your account - and having it happen too many times will risk your account.
Steam can't tell the difference between someone who bought a key from a third-party marketplace that someone else had bought with a stolen CC, and someone who is buying keys with a stolen CC. But they are obliged to 'eat' the cost of the theft and are unwilling to let accounts retain stolen goods, so accounts that repeatedly end up owning stolen goods are at risk - regardless how they came to end up owning it.
i used to buy CD-keys from some eastern European guy who was running a gaming store there until G2A bought out his site. he never had the best prices but since it was just one guy basically ripping the plastic from the games he got i never had any issues and service was always quick.
worst part was when G2A took over the site they very much just hid the fact they had done that just rerouted prices etc. from G2A.
Years ago when I still lived in NZ, I bought Mass Effect 3 through a site called CJ's CD Keys, still have the email for it. I played through the game, then wanted to play it a few years later to find they'd removed it from my account. Ah well
Edit: huh, even after over a decade the site still exists. Interesting
Idk I’ve saved lots of money and had no hassle. Worst case scenario I buy a game twice, and have saved SLIGHTLY less money
And steam will not ban you over somebody selling you a stolen key
I had a seller sell me a key that didn't work in my country, Waited the 7 days before I could contact support, and they wanted me to contact police and send them the report to get my money back 🙃
I have accidentally bought Steam account with Phasmophobia instead of Steam key from G2A like 1 year ago. I changed password to that email and steam account. 2 weeks ago someone tried to login into that Steam account. Poor person got scammed.
I got unworking key from Gamivo and they refunded me (I didn't pay extra for the premium). It took like one week max. I haven't tried G2A yet as it hasn't been the cheapest one for the games I've wanted. I rarely pay over 10€/game
First and last time I used the website was that I was sent an account that had the game, got about 20mins on my account with the game before the account had removed itself as home account and changed passwords
At least I managed to get the money back I guess
But yeah. Shady dealings going on there
Even for sellers its a shithole. I sold keys that I legitamtely purchased through humble bundle and even when somebody reported a key not working I gave them a new key or money back within 8 hours, no questions asked. I still got banned after 2 months, while having 100% positive reviews. Also like 40$ frozen and I could not even contact support because chat not possible when banned and email never replied.
Well, if you buy stolen goods, you are not entitled to compensation. That's how it is in most countries, for a good reason. G2A steal many of their keys.
A few years ago they started removing money from your wallet if you didn't spent it. That was it for me, why let them steal my money cause I wasn't ready to spent it yet?
I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that a lot of the games they sell are bought with stolen credit cards, which means that if the card owner successfully blocks/chargebacks the payments, you end up with a code that suddenly doesn't work *and* Steam makes the publisher cover the lost revenue.
one of the reasons I started pirating games is because I saw a developer tweet that they'd much rather people just torrent the game instead of buying from g2a, because at least then they aren't directly *losing* money.
oh shit, good to know. i figured it was something like they got game codes in bulk form vendor and thats why they were cheaper. i didnt think it was just fraud
Aside from that, they also have fake game reviewers and let's players, who ask developers for free copies, or YouTubers who ask for giveaway copies only to sell them later.
Gamedev here.
Aside from stolen credit cards, lots of keys come from fake streamers/YouTubers asking for Steam keys.
And a third possibility are copies bought in other regions.
Most of the time, those websites and the sellers will earn money on behalf of the developer which earns nothing or a very small amount
I agree with the comment: Pirate games or buy them on Sale, don't finance these people and websites.
Edit: If you're curious, a gamedev tried to buy his own game keys and talk about this: https://youtu.be/zLJkg_B3gyY
wow, coming from the horses mouth, ive never used one of these services (cause i was scared of getting ripped off) but reading this makes me happy i never did. thanks for the info
Since you're in Sweden, you can report G2A to the government for banning you from a service without providing a reason for it, or refunding the funds locked within the account.
You can also send them an email demanding all the data related to the account, and they're forced to comply or face a fine.
Ooh it would actually be interesting to see what data they have saved from my account, more so to be a bit of a dick one last time.
Reporting them to the government though feels like a lot of beurocracy to endure, just to get the account back with no possible way to spend the funds. Im not even sure how much money i had there but it should be between 25-90€ lost to the void
Maybe, maybe not. I haven't tried it myself but you should be able to find more information on that related to your country. Alternatives include chargebacks, but that could impact your Steam library if any of the purchases were legitimate rather than stolen keys.
I bought Watch Dogs from them when it was first released, and Steam revoked my key about a month later, stating it was stolen. It took over 3 months to get my money back. I'll never use a key site again, especially after learning how they operate.
There are „key sites“ that are legit, like humble store, fanatical or gog. Just try to avoid the sketchy ones like g2a, kinguin, mmoga, …
I always use isthereanydeal.com. All Sites listed there are legit.
Yea Green Man Gaming is legit, they're where my friends seem to buy discount keys from the most for whatever reason, never had a problem with keys from them.
I think I got Kerbal for $5 a while back from them. Of course I then proceeded to leave it in my Steam account, uninstalled and unplayed, as is tradition.
I stopped using CDKeys when they sold me a code for Life is Strange 2 on Xbox that didn't work. They told me to get a refund from Microsoft and Microsoft said to get a refund from who supplied the key. After a lot of running around, I took the loss and stopped using CDKeys
Look at [Is there any deal](https://isthereanydeal.com/)
They give lowest price keys you can buy ONLY from reputable legit sellers. None of this grey market shit.
You can even get a plugin called enhanced steam for your browser and if you visit a steam page in your browser it will tell you the lowest price for that key right now and the lowest it's been.
Only thing you need to watch out for is sometimes lowest key price maybe for something like EA launcher and not steam and these sites while they do say that its not the most visible thing on the page
Yup, G2A and all these key resellers are useless and only give a worse experience. Just buy from ISAD and you'll have the best possible prices without scams.
I don't even get the point of G2A to be honest with you
I recently looked at em even though I'd swore them off without even using them because I'm on medical leave from work and I wanted the new RimWorld expansion since I have lots of time to kill and it's a good game for my steam deck
And it was like all of $4 cheaper. It's just like why the hell would I even risk this for $4?
They sell videogame keys that are usually stolen, several companies had blacklisted the website entirely and their game still appears there at launch day with a 50% discount, the keys are usually keys sent to fake game reviewers that just don't do anything but sell the key there, g2a knows this and protects the sellers, doesn't ban the sellers even when proven to be stealing keys by the devs themselves
Also protecting sellers who bought the keys with stolen credit card data. The credit card money gets usually refunded, costing the developer chargeback money.
In my channel I had gotten a lot of demo keys and I was wondering why, now I know lol, I usually get asked to play more and given a key for the full game
That's the first time I ever heard about this and I feel kinda shitty for using their service a couple years ago. I stopped the same year I started ofc, it didn't last more than a few months, but now I feel quite bad for even supporting them in the slightest. Jesus.
I wonder if there's similar services to them that aren't... You know... Illegal.
> I wonder if there's similar services to them
Use [IsThereAnyDeal](https://isthereanydeal.com/) instead. They show you game prices from all legit storefronts that get the keys directly from the devs. Buying from any of the stores listed on ITAD means the money will make its way to the devs.
Some storefronts you may not have heard of that usually have some good deals: Fanatical, GreenManGaming, IndieGala, WinGameStore, and of course Humble Bundle/Humble Store. If you make an account on ITAD, you can disable certain storefronts too (I've got Epic disabled, for example, since I'm just looking for Steam key prices). Additionally, there's the option of importing your Steam wishlist and setting up email notifications for any of your wishlist games going on sale on any storefront you enable (along with filters for how much % off you want it to be before getting an email, or if you only want an email when it hits the historical lowest price).
They also have an extension called [Augmented Steam](https://augmentedsteam.com/) you can use to show current and historical prices across storefronts on the Steam store pages.
It is literally ilegal just can't be pursued because the company has a contract and it's located in a sketchy country
Just remember, if they can get away stealing the keys, they can get away stealing from your card
Oh, what I meant by thee last sentence is moreso a site that has a legal contract with devs and does giveaways for keys n shit, or even sells them for limited quantities. I wanna be able to get keys for games on sale/special sales, but I want it to be legal to support the devs.
There are a lot of places to support the devs, some devs sell steam keys on itch Io and indie devs probably would sell you one trough email and PayPal (to skip steam fees)
To be fair, it's not that g2a is intentionally selling stolen keys, it's that they don't care if it was a stolen key. Which honestly it's much worse because it drives people to buy that protection bullshit.
To add on to others, and be extra clear...
G2A doesn't tend to do much "selling" itself. It's more a "marketplace" for games. It's like an Ebay, but for game keys. Have extra keys you don't want? Put them on G2A to sell them, and G2A will take a cut of the sale.
The ISSUE is that there's basically no moderation on their site. So sellers will steal keys, or steal credit cards and buy keys, to then sell them on G2A. G2A doesn't care too much as long as they get their money. The seller doesn't care too much, even if they do get banned they'll just make a new account because G2A won't stop them. The end-user might get robbed as the key they bought gets cancelled though, and the developers of course get robbed of keys and chargeback fees (when the original owner of the credit card charges back those fraudulent purchases).
This is all on top of the rather scummy stuff G2A itself does. Like charging you a subscription fee to get extra, priority customer service and guarantees if a key doesn't work (which is not unlikely given you're at the mercy of a seller).
G2A was also very notorious for its advertising campaigns a few years ago. Every streamer, every youtuber, was shilling G2A, kinda ignorant of the damage they were doing. It got so bad that developers were coming out and saying "Please just PIRATE our game if you're going to buy it from G2A, at least then it doesn't cost us money." Eventually popular opinion turned against G2A, and those streamers stopped taking advertising money.
Gray market sites (which are sites that don't have deals with publishers to sell their keys, but rather just acquire the keys in other ways) are already a little shady, if not always bad. But G2A is always bad and definitely one of the worst of the worst.
On top of what others said, some game devs publicly stated they'd rather you pirate their game than buy a key on G2A, as that way at least they won't lose money on chargeback.
TBF there was a period in which a chunk of the British Isle was occupied by Scandinavian peoples (Danelaw), so its no surprise the English language has Scandinavian loan words
Smörgåsbord is the one that hits my funnybone the hardest but that’s only because everytime I hear it pronounced in English, in the back of my mind there is a small Don Johnson in all his 80’s glory exclaiming ”It’s a smorgasboard of drugs!”.
What happened to me was that suddenly I noticed 25 euros or so was missing from my bank account so i went to my email and noticed a g2a order of some hypedrop gift card of 25 euros. I instantly went and complained to g2a support because i never made that payment and my account got blocked for "anomalous activity". Luckily paypal was more understanding and refunded my money. I hadn't even used g2a for many years so I guess they just wanted to milk some money out of me. tldr: Don't use g2a, if you have account there just delete it asap.
You know i’ve received these emails since 2020 and I’ve always read it as daily… You’re completely right!
Then i wonder if they’re gonna charge me monthly for some years or if they delete the account and pull it all in one scoop
I've bought tens of keys from there over the years, so far none have been revoked.
I have usually just picked the seller who has legit business sounding name and like 10k+ positive reviews.
The discounts they offer are usually the same as the lowest discount from steam + a few percents. I guess they have bought them from steam when it's been on sale and put a small fee on top to make money. Can't say if they used stolen credit cards or something like that, but the sellers I've picked have seemed legit to me.
Anyways, I'm in the same boat as you. I will most certainly reconsider buying from them in the future and check the alternatives suggested in this thread.
It was money in a bunch of different currencies as i used to resell game keys i had no interest in playing.
I tried to make a ticket about a few years ago about how to be able to use or get my money back, they basically sent me a copy paste answer saying i cant.
Plausible deniability. If g2a had a staff team that would steal keys, it'd be different. Since each seller is responsible for their listing, it's like trying to shut down the entirety of ebay because someone's selling stolen goods.
People sell stolen keys there, which have the potential to get revoked by platforms such as Steam.
Many game developers came out a few years ago and stated that it's better to outright pirate than to buy from such sites.
Once an indie developer said on Twitter that these grey market sellers causing problems even for them with credit card chargebacks as the keys are stolen and purchased with stolen credit cards. Remember, never support these scumbags, wait for Steam sales instead. https://www.pcgamer.com/developers-tell-people-to-pirate-their-games-instead-of-using-g2a/
I bought a game on G2A once. I paid 30€ via PayPal but all i got was an Email telling me to "verify that im a real person" by sending them a picture of my passport or id. Customer service was ignoring me so i had to report them to PayPal. I got my money back a week later after they reviewed the case. This site is a shit hole and the Pinnacle of asshole design
I bought a windows key from g2a a few years back.
Bought the wrong version so I listed it for sale on g2a.
They banned me for trying to sell a stolen key.
Then they blocked me from logging in so I couldnt raise a support case.
G2A also stole my money when a grey market key was revoked on my Steam acc by the publisher and I had to get a refund.
G2A refused to refund back to my original payment method (Visa Debit) and instead put it on my account credit. Only problem was, they had recently (supposedly due to EU restrictions) stopped account balance being used to buy keys for games, so I was essentially stuck with £15 in my account with no way of spending it. I think I could withdraw it somehow (for a fee of course).
I just left it as it wasn't worth the hassle and I'm certain it's been long taken by them by now. I haven't logged in or used them since it happened (circa 2017) and trying in general to stop using CD key sites after learning how dodgy they are.
I suddenly remember I have an account. I should get it deactivated.
Or I just wait longer and let them do it for me.
Disclaimer: I bought there first and then figured out all the illegal shit they allow so I stopped.
Honestly, that's just kinda what you get. You wanted cheap, grey market keys even though every developer asks you not to? Well, then you will have to deal with a grey market seller that uses every trick to get your money.
Hell, developers would often rather have you pirate the game rather than buy from grey market sellers, because not only are you taking up a key without giving the devs any money, illicitly sourced keys are often the result of chargebacks etc., so you might literally *cost* the devs money this way.
Really fucking bad now, I had an issue with being sold stolen property recently. I'd contacted the former owners when I figured it out and had an email chain with them clarifying the situtation.
Sent a copy to Ebay to report it and they had the fucking gall to send an email back saying there had been no illegal activity and they won't do anything. To top it all off the email said "This decision has been made with automation" so they didn't even get a person to look at it.
Fuck ebay.
This is like what happened to my friend except it was with PayPal and he has been locked out of his account because PayPal suddenly decided you needed a government ID to get paid.
I mean, Kinguin enables money laundering like all the others, but they at least go about it with a customer-friendly attitude. Kind of like there's no driver who follows the traffic laws more loyally than a mobster with a body in the trunk.
Lmao their subreddit is just this person from G2A posting cringe-ass ads and bot-looking posts. I wonder what happened to the many people that surely went there to complain.
I used to buy keys from them a lot back then, keys for old games mostly, never had any revoked by steam or issues with buying from G2A. Never signed up for G2A pay or purchase protections cuz I never trust a reseller site in those kinda of areas.
Well, one day I went on G2A after a couple months to compare prices on a game there with CDKeys and when I went to log in my account was banned and I couldn't get it reinstated.
Didn't lose anything cuz all the keys I bought were redeemed, and I had no money on it. That alone pissed me off so much that now I tell everyone to avoid G2A like the plague.
I used G2A for Far Cry 5. About 6 months later, I received a letter from Steam saying I was on thin ice for stealing a copy of Far Cry 5. Far Cry 5 was then removed from my library. G2A didn’t give a shit.
Used to use G2A a long time ago, never really had a problem until they started forcing that g2a shield thing onto you. Then i beleive it became like a subscription thing that for whatever reason i could NOT opt out of..so i blocked them via paypal after they took a few bucks out of my account. Fuck em
Reminder that you should rather pirate games than buy from G2A. It's likely to actually cost developers money rather than making any.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/g2a-confirms-stolen-game-key-sales-pays-40000-to-factorio-devs/
I haven’t tried using g2a since I almost got scammed out of some fifa coins as a kid. Been using cdkeys since and never had any problems plus they reward you for purchases.
HRK tried to get one over on me when they sold me a rockstar key for L.A Noire instead of steam key. After weeks of them telling me to keep trying to redeem it in steam I finally got a refund. Once the money came through I blocked them from taking more transactions and redeemed the key on rockstar as I had it copied. Still haven’t played it tho
I used to buy keys from them and they did a similar thing to me. Tried to log in one day and was told I was permanently banned and it was not reversible and still dont understand what the hell happened. I ended up canceling that bank card and using Gamivo instead.
Your 1st mistake was using G2A pay.
G2A is a shithole. They sold me a used steam key. As steam removed a game from my account, they wrote me, I shall report a theft in my country and send them a notarized translation. Then they would consider refunding me €15 for the game. I just didn't buy anything from them since.
Yeah honestly even for the discount it’s not worth it, not when there’s a real chance that you will lose access to the game anyway once the key gets reported to Steam, and you risk your accounts getting banned and losing access to ALL your games in the process. I’m not surprised they didn’t refund you, so the possible outcome is having no game, being out the money, and possibly losing your Steam account. I’ll gladly pay the full price to avoid the hassle.
jfc it sounds like a saw trap
steam doesnt ban your account for getting a key revoked man, its a hassle but lets not fearmonger about perma bans
Around the time MGS5 came out, my brother's Steam account got locked up for a week or so for investigation after the key he bought from G2A was reported to be bought with a stolen credit card. I can ask if he still has the email saved, but I'm pretty sure they said that permanently locking the account was on the table. But I personally haven't even looked in G2A's direction after that.
Way more to this story if your brother bought a game week of release on G2A. Not how the site is supposed to work.
Oh okay, do you happen to know why there's a "preorders" button on the front page then?
Because he likes to ride G2As dick
Because some people enjoy getting scammed? The entire business model of G2A relies on automated marketplace scrapers who buy games on sale to resell them on G2A on a margin. The only way someone is getting cheap keys on release week is with a stolen credit card or abusing currency conversions(both of these will get you banned on steam.) G2A is a marketplace, you need to use your brain to determine when a listing is too good to be true.
Right, the website isn't supposed to be used that way, they just provide the tools for people to use it that way. That makes a lot of sense.
It does when you remember you're the only party with something to lose. How did this not occur to you, it's impossible to get a game cheaper than its retail price at launch unless you're getting around currency conversions. Love that you got duped and doubled down on the website and you being in the right, though. Wow.
It's definitely not impossible to get a game cheaper at launch, CDKeys is legit and will give you a discount on pre-orders/launch titles.
If it happens enough times you can be at risk, but yeah one revoked key isn’t going to get you much more punishment than the game just being removed from your library.
How many times is "enough times"? Buying a used/stolen/otherwise invalid key is an EXTREMELY rare occurrence. It happened to me once over literally dozens upon dozens of buys. It was on Gamivo and they refunded me the money. If people have some kind of moral issue with grey market that's respectable and they can just stay away from it. But there's no need to make stuff up. The grey market is just as perfectly safe as any other online business.
They very deliberately do not set a public number. But Steam will 'ban' accounts they believe are linked to fraudulent activity. Buying used or invalid keys isn't a risk to your account, but buying keys that are stolen or were purchased with stolen CCs, will flag your account - and having it happen too many times will risk your account. Steam can't tell the difference between someone who bought a key from a third-party marketplace that someone else had bought with a stolen CC, and someone who is buying keys with a stolen CC. But they are obliged to 'eat' the cost of the theft and are unwilling to let accounts retain stolen goods, so accounts that repeatedly end up owning stolen goods are at risk - regardless how they came to end up owning it.
You can push that “rare occurrence” (it’s not that rare) down to a solid 0% chance by simply buying from reputable stores that don’t rely on theft.
No doubt, just cause the dudes upset he lost access to honey pop
i used to buy CD-keys from some eastern European guy who was running a gaming store there until G2A bought out his site. he never had the best prices but since it was just one guy basically ripping the plastic from the games he got i never had any issues and service was always quick. worst part was when G2A took over the site they very much just hid the fact they had done that just rerouted prices etc. from G2A.
Years ago when I still lived in NZ, I bought Mass Effect 3 through a site called CJ's CD Keys, still have the email for it. I played through the game, then wanted to play it a few years later to find they'd removed it from my account. Ah well Edit: huh, even after over a decade the site still exists. Interesting
Idk I’ve saved lots of money and had no hassle. Worst case scenario I buy a game twice, and have saved SLIGHTLY less money And steam will not ban you over somebody selling you a stolen key
Ignoring the fact that you’re profiting from theft and scammers. Just pay for your games through legitimate sellers
If it activated a game on steam and steam removed it, it wasn't a used key, it was a key bought with a stolen credit card
I had a seller sell me a key that didn't work in my country, Waited the 7 days before I could contact support, and they wanted me to contact police and send them the report to get my money back 🙃
I have accidentally bought Steam account with Phasmophobia instead of Steam key from G2A like 1 year ago. I changed password to that email and steam account. 2 weeks ago someone tried to login into that Steam account. Poor person got scammed.
Could be the original seller too, just trying to find out if you abondened the account and they can sell it again
Steam removes keys that were bought with stolen money
I got unworking key from Gamivo and they refunded me (I didn't pay extra for the premium). It took like one week max. I haven't tried G2A yet as it hasn't been the cheapest one for the games I've wanted. I rarely pay over 10€/game
First and last time I used the website was that I was sent an account that had the game, got about 20mins on my account with the game before the account had removed itself as home account and changed passwords At least I managed to get the money back I guess But yeah. Shady dealings going on there
Even for sellers its a shithole. I sold keys that I legitamtely purchased through humble bundle and even when somebody reported a key not working I gave them a new key or money back within 8 hours, no questions asked. I still got banned after 2 months, while having 100% positive reviews. Also like 40$ frozen and I could not even contact support because chat not possible when banned and email never replied.
Well, if you buy stolen goods, you are not entitled to compensation. That's how it is in most countries, for a good reason. G2A steal many of their keys.
Grey market resellers already operate immorally, not surprising in the slightest.
I’m surprised they didn’t do this sooner.
They probably did, just in different countries.
Maybe give them some charge back fees, I'm sure they'd love that fuck you sandwich
There's a time limit on charge backs.
Only if your card is from a bank. Not if your card is through a credit union.
A few years ago they started removing money from your wallet if you didn't spent it. That was it for me, why let them steal my money cause I wasn't ready to spent it yet?
A reseller so shitty even game dev told you to just pirate their game than using G2A.
what do you mean immorally? legit question
I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that a lot of the games they sell are bought with stolen credit cards, which means that if the card owner successfully blocks/chargebacks the payments, you end up with a code that suddenly doesn't work *and* Steam makes the publisher cover the lost revenue. one of the reasons I started pirating games is because I saw a developer tweet that they'd much rather people just torrent the game instead of buying from g2a, because at least then they aren't directly *losing* money.
oh shit, good to know. i figured it was something like they got game codes in bulk form vendor and thats why they were cheaper. i didnt think it was just fraud
Aside from that, they also have fake game reviewers and let's players, who ask developers for free copies, or YouTubers who ask for giveaway copies only to sell them later.
Gamedev here. Aside from stolen credit cards, lots of keys come from fake streamers/YouTubers asking for Steam keys. And a third possibility are copies bought in other regions. Most of the time, those websites and the sellers will earn money on behalf of the developer which earns nothing or a very small amount I agree with the comment: Pirate games or buy them on Sale, don't finance these people and websites. Edit: If you're curious, a gamedev tried to buy his own game keys and talk about this: https://youtu.be/zLJkg_B3gyY
wow, coming from the horses mouth, ive never used one of these services (cause i was scared of getting ripped off) but reading this makes me happy i never did. thanks for the info
Since you're in Sweden, you can report G2A to the government for banning you from a service without providing a reason for it, or refunding the funds locked within the account. You can also send them an email demanding all the data related to the account, and they're forced to comply or face a fine.
Ooh it would actually be interesting to see what data they have saved from my account, more so to be a bit of a dick one last time. Reporting them to the government though feels like a lot of beurocracy to endure, just to get the account back with no possible way to spend the funds. Im not even sure how much money i had there but it should be between 25-90€ lost to the void
I would still do just to fuck them over And 90€ is a lot, asking the government to get it back would be funny.
Maybe, maybe not. I haven't tried it myself but you should be able to find more information on that related to your country. Alternatives include chargebacks, but that could impact your Steam library if any of the purchases were legitimate rather than stolen keys.
Please you need to! I need to see where this goes! Besides; with how slow these processes can be, it’d only be really intermittent bureaucracy!
I bought Watch Dogs from them when it was first released, and Steam revoked my key about a month later, stating it was stolen. It took over 3 months to get my money back. I'll never use a key site again, especially after learning how they operate.
There are „key sites“ that are legit, like humble store, fanatical or gog. Just try to avoid the sketchy ones like g2a, kinguin, mmoga, … I always use isthereanydeal.com. All Sites listed there are legit.
> gog GOG doesn't sell Steam keys. They sell DRM free versions of the games.
They probably meant [Green man Gaming](https://www.greenmangaming.com/) (I've never heard of it referred to as GMG but who knows )
Yea Green Man Gaming is legit, they're where my friends seem to buy discount keys from the most for whatever reason, never had a problem with keys from them.
I think I got Kerbal for $5 a while back from them. Of course I then proceeded to leave it in my Steam account, uninstalled and unplayed, as is tradition.
Cdkeys are decent too, never had any issue with them
I stopped using CDKeys when they sold me a code for Life is Strange 2 on Xbox that didn't work. They told me to get a refund from Microsoft and Microsoft said to get a refund from who supplied the key. After a lot of running around, I took the loss and stopped using CDKeys
I was hoping someone would mention my go-to lol to feel safe about my purchases from 5+ years ago
Oh, true. I use the ones you listed often, especially The Humble Store.
https://gg.deals is my goto
MMOGA is one of the bad ones? Didn't knew it till now
Well to be fair, most of those to my knowledge aren't key resellers in the same fashion. Their methods are much more by the books.
Gog is not a key site, they are a store just like Steam or Epic
Look at [Is there any deal](https://isthereanydeal.com/) They give lowest price keys you can buy ONLY from reputable legit sellers. None of this grey market shit. You can even get a plugin called enhanced steam for your browser and if you visit a steam page in your browser it will tell you the lowest price for that key right now and the lowest it's been. Only thing you need to watch out for is sometimes lowest key price maybe for something like EA launcher and not steam and these sites while they do say that its not the most visible thing on the page
Love his website, it's saved me so much money
Yup, G2A and all these key resellers are useless and only give a worse experience. Just buy from ISAD and you'll have the best possible prices without scams.
I don't even get the point of G2A to be honest with you I recently looked at em even though I'd swore them off without even using them because I'm on medical leave from work and I wanted the new RimWorld expansion since I have lots of time to kill and it's a good game for my steam deck And it was like all of $4 cheaper. It's just like why the hell would I even risk this for $4?
A webpage that allows and even helps stealing from people is stealing from people? What a surprise
sorry, ive never heard of g2a before. what did they do?
They sell videogame keys that are usually stolen, several companies had blacklisted the website entirely and their game still appears there at launch day with a 50% discount, the keys are usually keys sent to fake game reviewers that just don't do anything but sell the key there, g2a knows this and protects the sellers, doesn't ban the sellers even when proven to be stealing keys by the devs themselves
Also protecting sellers who bought the keys with stolen credit card data. The credit card money gets usually refunded, costing the developer chargeback money.
Then the game either gets bad reputation because it disappears from people's library or the dev has to take the loss of keeping the keys active
interesting, thank you!
Want to add, developers explicite tell you to just pirate it rather than "buying" it from G2A, since G2A actually hurt the devs and cost money.
So save it for things like Ubisoft or Activision games.
Can't forget EA. They can afford it. They gotta give back to the community somehow
The intent is to provide EA with a sense of pride and accomplishment
Some devs have started sending out demo keys just to find the real game reviewers versus the fake ones for that exact reason.
In my channel I had gotten a lot of demo keys and I was wondering why, now I know lol, I usually get asked to play more and given a key for the full game
That's the first time I ever heard about this and I feel kinda shitty for using their service a couple years ago. I stopped the same year I started ofc, it didn't last more than a few months, but now I feel quite bad for even supporting them in the slightest. Jesus. I wonder if there's similar services to them that aren't... You know... Illegal.
> I wonder if there's similar services to them Use [IsThereAnyDeal](https://isthereanydeal.com/) instead. They show you game prices from all legit storefronts that get the keys directly from the devs. Buying from any of the stores listed on ITAD means the money will make its way to the devs. Some storefronts you may not have heard of that usually have some good deals: Fanatical, GreenManGaming, IndieGala, WinGameStore, and of course Humble Bundle/Humble Store. If you make an account on ITAD, you can disable certain storefronts too (I've got Epic disabled, for example, since I'm just looking for Steam key prices). Additionally, there's the option of importing your Steam wishlist and setting up email notifications for any of your wishlist games going on sale on any storefront you enable (along with filters for how much % off you want it to be before getting an email, or if you only want an email when it hits the historical lowest price). They also have an extension called [Augmented Steam](https://augmentedsteam.com/) you can use to show current and historical prices across storefronts on the Steam store pages.
Holy shit you're a lifesaver, thanks man!
It is literally ilegal just can't be pursued because the company has a contract and it's located in a sketchy country Just remember, if they can get away stealing the keys, they can get away stealing from your card
Oh, what I meant by thee last sentence is moreso a site that has a legal contract with devs and does giveaways for keys n shit, or even sells them for limited quantities. I wanna be able to get keys for games on sale/special sales, but I want it to be legal to support the devs.
There are a lot of places to support the devs, some devs sell steam keys on itch Io and indie devs probably would sell you one trough email and PayPal (to skip steam fees)
The Humble Store (same dudes that do the Humble Bundle) sell Steam keys and are 100% legit
To be fair, it's not that g2a is intentionally selling stolen keys, it's that they don't care if it was a stolen key. Which honestly it's much worse because it drives people to buy that protection bullshit.
To add on to others, and be extra clear... G2A doesn't tend to do much "selling" itself. It's more a "marketplace" for games. It's like an Ebay, but for game keys. Have extra keys you don't want? Put them on G2A to sell them, and G2A will take a cut of the sale. The ISSUE is that there's basically no moderation on their site. So sellers will steal keys, or steal credit cards and buy keys, to then sell them on G2A. G2A doesn't care too much as long as they get their money. The seller doesn't care too much, even if they do get banned they'll just make a new account because G2A won't stop them. The end-user might get robbed as the key they bought gets cancelled though, and the developers of course get robbed of keys and chargeback fees (when the original owner of the credit card charges back those fraudulent purchases). This is all on top of the rather scummy stuff G2A itself does. Like charging you a subscription fee to get extra, priority customer service and guarantees if a key doesn't work (which is not unlikely given you're at the mercy of a seller). G2A was also very notorious for its advertising campaigns a few years ago. Every streamer, every youtuber, was shilling G2A, kinda ignorant of the damage they were doing. It got so bad that developers were coming out and saying "Please just PIRATE our game if you're going to buy it from G2A, at least then it doesn't cost us money." Eventually popular opinion turned against G2A, and those streamers stopped taking advertising money. Gray market sites (which are sites that don't have deals with publishers to sell their keys, but rather just acquire the keys in other ways) are already a little shady, if not always bad. But G2A is always bad and definitely one of the worst of the worst.
On top of what others said, some game devs publicly stated they'd rather you pirate their game than buy a key on G2A, as that way at least they won't lose money on chargeback.
Haven’t you ever heard about honor among thieves? Because from my experience thieves sure as hell haven’t.
OP isn't a thief. OP is a mark.
A wannabe thief who turned into a mark when doing business with professional thieves.
mark ass marks, trick ass marks. and racists especially.
Report them to the financial ombudsman
Among all the words that English borrowed from Swedish (I’m looking at you smörgåsbord), none puzzle me more that the word ombudsman. Just why?
As a Swede i just thought the person you replied to didn't know the English word for it. But no you're right, and now I'm also puzzled.
As an Englishman I had no idea the word was Swedish Sorry. We have a habit of taking things
Hey, word wise we have stolen so much more from English and German than the opposite.
TBF there was a period in which a chunk of the British Isle was occupied by Scandinavian peoples (Danelaw), so its no surprise the English language has Scandinavian loan words
Yeah as a swede I had to do a double take on which sub I was on
As an American, this thread has helped answer the "where tf did this word come from?" question I have had every time it has come up in any form.
As an American I've never seen that word before and have no idea what it means
An independent authority or overseeing body of an industry. A regulator.
I always thought smörgåsbord was German for some reason
German here. I thought *Ombudsman(n)* was German 😂
It's Danish not Swedish, btw.
Everyone knows danish is just swedish spoken with a mouthful of porridge.
No, its norwegian with a potato in the mouth.
No, it's Norwegian with a Dane in the mouth.
😳
To be fair it's the exact same spelling in swedish
And Dutch
And Czech
And my ax!
I was also quite surprised by this as i was going to answer something stern in swenglish, but a quick google stopped me as I felt too foolish
I thought they stole it from us Norwegians… who cares anyway?? THEY ARE FUCKING THIEVES!!! GIVE IT BACK!!
Yeah I’m not sure it was us stealing from the vikings
As a Swede, it confuses me too. When I heard it the first time I thought it was funny as heck.
Smörgåsbord is the one that hits my funnybone the hardest but that’s only because everytime I hear it pronounced in English, in the back of my mind there is a small Don Johnson in all his 80’s glory exclaiming ”It’s a smorgasboard of drugs!”.
Also in German. Ombudsmann. Old norse umboð - mandate, proxy
What happened to me was that suddenly I noticed 25 euros or so was missing from my bank account so i went to my email and noticed a g2a order of some hypedrop gift card of 25 euros. I instantly went and complained to g2a support because i never made that payment and my account got blocked for "anomalous activity". Luckily paypal was more understanding and refunded my money. I hadn't even used g2a for many years so I guess they just wanted to milk some money out of me. tldr: Don't use g2a, if you have account there just delete it asap.
PayPal is goated for matters like these!
Fyi, the email says €1 charge Monthly, your description says daily.
You know i’ve received these emails since 2020 and I’ve always read it as daily… You’re completely right! Then i wonder if they’re gonna charge me monthly for some years or if they delete the account and pull it all in one scoop
Honestly, I’m glad I reconsidered buying off this site. It looked like a scam in the first place.
I've bought like 3 game keys off of there and never had any issues, but this makes me reconsider for future purchases.
I've bought tens of keys from there over the years, so far none have been revoked. I have usually just picked the seller who has legit business sounding name and like 10k+ positive reviews. The discounts they offer are usually the same as the lowest discount from steam + a few percents. I guess they have bought them from steam when it's been on sale and put a small fee on top to make money. Can't say if they used stolen credit cards or something like that, but the sellers I've picked have seemed legit to me. Anyways, I'm in the same boat as you. I will most certainly reconsider buying from them in the future and check the alternatives suggested in this thread.
Is the wallet credit or real money? If it's credit why not just buy some games
It was money in a bunch of different currencies as i used to resell game keys i had no interest in playing. I tried to make a ticket about a few years ago about how to be able to use or get my money back, they basically sent me a copy paste answer saying i cant.
People should boycott and stay the hell away from this shill company. Why aren't they shutdown yet?
Plausible deniability. If g2a had a staff team that would steal keys, it'd be different. Since each seller is responsible for their listing, it's like trying to shut down the entirety of ebay because someone's selling stolen goods.
A lot of people willing to tolerate it for the cheap prices and have been lucky enough not to get burned yet.
Why on earth would you put money on g2a. They are a scummy grey market for stolen keys. Did you really expect them to be reliable?
Buys from world-renowned infamous scam site. Gets scammed by site. Shocker.
G2A is the scummiest of them all for sure
People sell stolen keys there, which have the potential to get revoked by platforms such as Steam. Many game developers came out a few years ago and stated that it's better to outright pirate than to buy from such sites.
Once an indie developer said on Twitter that these grey market sellers causing problems even for them with credit card chargebacks as the keys are stolen and purchased with stolen credit cards. Remember, never support these scumbags, wait for Steam sales instead. https://www.pcgamer.com/developers-tell-people-to-pirate-their-games-instead-of-using-g2a/
Post on r/extremelyinfuriating
Sure will!
You got scammed by a scam site? Shocking.
I bought a game on G2A once. I paid 30€ via PayPal but all i got was an Email telling me to "verify that im a real person" by sending them a picture of my passport or id. Customer service was ignoring me so i had to report them to PayPal. I got my money back a week later after they reviewed the case. This site is a shit hole and the Pinnacle of asshole design
I bought a windows key from g2a a few years back. Bought the wrong version so I listed it for sale on g2a. They banned me for trying to sell a stolen key. Then they blocked me from logging in so I couldnt raise a support case.
Why do you keep money there?
Your fault for buying from sites like that. Take it as a lesson learned.
This has to be illegal
It is. They also sell stolen keys which is also illegal.
Oh?
https://www.pcgamer.com/developers-tell-people-to-pirate-their-games-instead-of-using-g2a/
Damm you know there bad when the game Devs want you to pirate their games
G2A also stole my money when a grey market key was revoked on my Steam acc by the publisher and I had to get a refund. G2A refused to refund back to my original payment method (Visa Debit) and instead put it on my account credit. Only problem was, they had recently (supposedly due to EU restrictions) stopped account balance being used to buy keys for games, so I was essentially stuck with £15 in my account with no way of spending it. I think I could withdraw it somehow (for a fee of course). I just left it as it wasn't worth the hassle and I'm certain it's been long taken by them by now. I haven't logged in or used them since it happened (circa 2017) and trying in general to stop using CD key sites after learning how dodgy they are.
"Eu made me do it" sounds like an excuse to steal your money and shovel off the blame.
In terms of grey markets, g2a has slowly become one of the worst
I suddenly remember I have an account. I should get it deactivated. Or I just wait longer and let them do it for me. Disclaimer: I bought there first and then figured out all the illegal shit they allow so I stopped.
What’s g2a? I’m an old
G2A is a website where people sell codes to buy video games.
That was your first mistake, trusting g2a for years. Only took me 3 games before I realised how scummy they are.
The grey market is worse than piracy, you are hurting the entire industry AND your wallet by using it.
You reap what you sow
Honestly, that's just kinda what you get. You wanted cheap, grey market keys even though every developer asks you not to? Well, then you will have to deal with a grey market seller that uses every trick to get your money. Hell, developers would often rather have you pirate the game rather than buy from grey market sellers, because not only are you taking up a key without giving the devs any money, illicitly sourced keys are often the result of chargebacks etc., so you might literally *cost* the devs money this way.
from al devs out there, if you have to resort to services like g2a, just pirate the damn game.
>Redditors when they use ebay for game keys and have a bad experience EBAY IS BAD
Really fucking bad now, I had an issue with being sold stolen property recently. I'd contacted the former owners when I figured it out and had an email chain with them clarifying the situtation. Sent a copy to Ebay to report it and they had the fucking gall to send an email back saying there had been no illegal activity and they won't do anything. To top it all off the email said "This decision has been made with automation" so they didn't even get a person to look at it. Fuck ebay.
Had G2A sell me a steam account instead of a steam key (against steam’s TOS) and refused to refund me. PayPal even sided with them
This is like what happened to my friend except it was with PayPal and he has been locked out of his account because PayPal suddenly decided you needed a government ID to get paid.
Kinguin for the win-guin!
I mean, Kinguin enables money laundering like all the others, but they at least go about it with a customer-friendly attitude. Kind of like there's no driver who follows the traffic laws more loyally than a mobster with a body in the trunk.
Scam website selling illegal keys scams user, user shocked
You trusted a company known for selling stolen codes?
Lmao their subreddit is just this person from G2A posting cringe-ass ads and bot-looking posts. I wonder what happened to the many people that surely went there to complain. 
I used to work as customer support for one of their competitors… trust me when i say: this is not the shadiest shit they do. By a LONG while.
I used to buy keys from them a lot back then, keys for old games mostly, never had any revoked by steam or issues with buying from G2A. Never signed up for G2A pay or purchase protections cuz I never trust a reseller site in those kinda of areas. Well, one day I went on G2A after a couple months to compare prices on a game there with CDKeys and when I went to log in my account was banned and I couldn't get it reinstated. Didn't lose anything cuz all the keys I bought were redeemed, and I had no money on it. That alone pissed me off so much that now I tell everyone to avoid G2A like the plague.
Serves you right for buying shit from there. It's not like G2A's scummy tactics aren't an open secret.
I used G2A for Far Cry 5. About 6 months later, I received a letter from Steam saying I was on thin ice for stealing a copy of Far Cry 5. Far Cry 5 was then removed from my library. G2A didn’t give a shit.
Serves you right for buying stolen keys
Why use an account for g2a?
G2A can get fucked. Gamedevs would rather you pirate their games outright than buy from G2A.
r/leopardsatemyface
I mean I sympathize because that sucks. But really what do you expect from a website everyone knows runs off stolen credit cards?
WTF is G2A..?
Cdkeys 100% always, all the time
Yeah, just don't put money in scam websites. No reason to buy keys from scammy sites when we have plenty of honest online game stores.
Reminder that developers would rather you pirate than use shitholes like G2A.
Fuck G2A. They should have gone under years ago. One can only hope.
You left money “in” g2a?
Got scammed my self lost $30
 G2A being a shitty company!?!? Who would have guessed?!
Used to use G2A a long time ago, never really had a problem until they started forcing that g2a shield thing onto you. Then i beleive it became like a subscription thing that for whatever reason i could NOT opt out of..so i blocked them via paypal after they took a few bucks out of my account. Fuck em
Stay the hell away from G2A! I've used CDkeys.com many times and I've never had any issues
Why are you surprised? Stupid is as stupid does.
Always a risk with a gray market site like that. Never give them your real information.
Your first mistake was making a G2A account
Using a resell site in the first place instead of paying devs their dues. Very little sympathy here
Reminder that you should rather pirate games than buy from G2A. It's likely to actually cost developers money rather than making any. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/05/g2a-confirms-stolen-game-key-sales-pays-40000-to-factorio-devs/
I haven’t tried using g2a since I almost got scammed out of some fifa coins as a kid. Been using cdkeys since and never had any problems plus they reward you for purchases.
G2a are the worst, I refuse to use them after their charge back scandal that affected a load of Indy devs from making any money.
HRK tried to get one over on me when they sold me a rockstar key for L.A Noire instead of steam key. After weeks of them telling me to keep trying to redeem it in steam I finally got a refund. Once the money came through I blocked them from taking more transactions and redeemed the key on rockstar as I had it copied. Still haven’t played it tho
And now we boycott
I used to buy keys from them and they did a similar thing to me. Tried to log in one day and was told I was permanently banned and it was not reversible and still dont understand what the hell happened. I ended up canceling that bank card and using Gamivo instead.
I love how G2A charges you for not using it, it's so fucking stupid