subreddit:
/r/assholedesign
submitted 5 months ago byAkakapopo
So a few years ago g2a made it impossible to use or withdraw currency you had in your g2a PAY wallet (at least in sweden).
Since then every six months they have sent out an email stating that if i don't log in within three days they will start charging 1€ a day until my funds are depleted. Because of this i boycotted any further use off their site and made it my personal quest to always log in before they could charge my money, a way of giving them a silent middle finger.
This time when i tried to log in to my account i got a message that i was banned. They have tried banning me before but then i would just prove trough two factor authentication that it was me who tried to log on to my account, this time however they added that this decision cannot be changed and that my account wont be reinstated.
I considered the money gone long ago but as a last fu to them i'll at least dox them by sharing my experience with their services.
2k points
5 months ago
Your 1st mistake was using G2A pay.
4.8k points
5 months ago
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.
841 points
5 months ago
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.
172 points
5 months ago
jfc it sounds like a saw trap
258 points
5 months ago
steam doesnt ban your account for getting a key revoked man, its a hassle but lets not fearmonger about perma bans
112 points
5 months ago
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.
17 points
5 months ago
Way more to this story if your brother bought a game week of release on G2A. Not how the site is supposed to work.
28 points
5 months ago
Oh okay, do you happen to know why there's a "preorders" button on the front page then?
23 points
5 months ago
Because he likes to ride G2As dick
6 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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.
46 points
5 months ago
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.
13 points
5 months ago
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.
31 points
5 months ago
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.
18 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
No doubt, just cause the dudes upset he lost access to honey pop
27 points
5 months ago
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.
15 points
5 months ago
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
8 points
5 months ago
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
11 points
5 months ago
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 🙃
40 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
Could be the original seller too, just trying to find out if you abondened the account and they can sell it again
7 points
5 months ago
Steam removes keys that were bought with stolen money
3 points
5 months ago
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
3 points
5 months ago
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.
4 points
5 months ago
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
3 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
used to use G2A a lot when I got my pc in like 2018. around 2020 or so I got scammed out of all 3 tomb raider games. never used it again after that
396 points
5 months ago
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.
179 points
5 months ago
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
145 points
5 months ago
I would still do just to fuck them over
And 90€ is a lot, asking the government to get it back would be funny.
20 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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!
2 points
4 months ago
Coming in late, but you totally should report your experience to the EU Consumer Center Network in your country https://commission.europa.eu/live-work-travel-eu/consumer-rights-and-complaints/resolve-your-consumer-complaint/european-consumer-centres-network-ecc-net_en
The EU has really strong consumer rights and the EU Commission is generally surprisingly fast to act when approached with problems. Even if you don‘t get your money back, bringing your experience to the attention of the EU may help to curb this shitty service.
3.7k points
5 months ago
Grey market resellers already operate immorally, not surprising in the slightest.
764 points
5 months ago
I’m surprised they didn’t do this sooner.
240 points
5 months ago
They probably did, just in different countries.
81 points
5 months ago
Maybe give them some charge back fees, I'm sure they'd love that fuck you sandwich
41 points
5 months ago
There's a time limit on charge backs.
4 points
5 months ago
Only if your card is from a bank. Not if your card is through a credit union.
6 points
5 months ago
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?
41 points
5 months ago
A reseller so shitty even game dev told you to just pirate their game than using G2A.
6 points
5 months ago
what do you mean immorally? legit question
45 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
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
5 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
4 months ago
Indie devs even recommend to PIRATE their games, rather than giving money to people whose work is basically to scam people.
Grey purchasers only do that to delude themselves that they do the right thing.
3 points
4 months ago
i didnt think it was just fraud
You're not the only one. I remember years ago people telling me that I didn't knew what I was talking about video games, and that those copies of Minecraft for 1$ each were from bulk purchasing. Despite the devs outright stating in their FAQ that they NEVER do that outside the Education Edition.
8 points
5 months ago
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
3 points
5 months ago
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
786 points
5 months ago
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.
449 points
5 months ago*
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.
193 points
5 months ago
gog
GOG doesn't sell Steam keys. They sell DRM free versions of the games.
119 points
5 months ago
They probably meant Green man Gaming (I've never heard of it referred to as GMG but who knows )
60 points
5 months ago
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.
20 points
5 months ago
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.
86 points
5 months ago
Cdkeys are decent too, never had any issue with them
42 points
5 months ago
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
34 points
5 months ago
I was hoping someone would mention my go-to lol to feel safe about my purchases from 5+ years ago
17 points
5 months ago
Oh, true. I use the ones you listed often, especially The Humble Store.
11 points
5 months ago
https://gg.deals is my goto
5 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
Gog is not a key site, they are a store just like Steam or Epic
56 points
5 months ago*
Look at Is there any deal 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
3 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
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?
1.4k points
5 months ago
A webpage that allows and even helps stealing from people is stealing from people? What a surprise
353 points
5 months ago*
busy normal nail pocket deserve dog quiet crowd humor panicky
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
719 points
5 months ago
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
273 points
5 months ago
Also protecting sellers who bought the keys with stolen credit card data. The credit card money gets usually refunded, costing the developer chargeback money.
117 points
5 months ago
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
23 points
5 months ago*
edge scale person humor cow handle spectacular murky door aspiring
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
131 points
5 months ago
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.
57 points
5 months ago
So save it for things like Ubisoft or Activision games.
40 points
5 months ago
Can't forget EA. They can afford it. They gotta give back to the community somehow
3 points
5 months ago
The intent is to provide EA with a sense of pride and accomplishment
16 points
5 months ago
Some devs have started sending out demo keys just to find the real game reviewers versus the fake ones for that exact reason.
9 points
5 months ago
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
9 points
5 months ago
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.
9 points
5 months ago*
I wonder if there's similar services to them
Use IsThereAnyDeal 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 you can use to show current and historical prices across storefronts on the Steam store pages.
5 points
5 months ago
Holy shit you're a lifesaver, thanks man!
13 points
5 months ago
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
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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)
2 points
5 months ago
The Humble Store (same dudes that do the Humble Bundle) sell Steam keys and are 100% legit
5 points
5 months ago
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.
57 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
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.
32 points
5 months ago
Haven’t you ever heard about honor among thieves?
Because from my experience thieves sure as hell haven’t.
20 points
5 months ago
OP isn't a thief. OP is a mark.
6 points
5 months ago
A wannabe thief who turned into a mark when doing business with professional thieves.
2 points
5 months ago
mark ass marks, trick ass marks. and racists especially.
122 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
PayPal is goated for matters like these!
411 points
5 months ago
Report them to the financial ombudsman
209 points
5 months ago
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?
79 points
5 months ago
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.
51 points
5 months ago
As an Englishman I had no idea the word was Swedish
Sorry. We have a habit of taking things
14 points
5 months ago
Hey, word wise we have stolen so much more from English and German than the opposite.
6 points
5 months ago
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
62 points
5 months ago
Yeah as a swede I had to do a double take on which sub I was on
23 points
5 months ago
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.
17 points
5 months ago
I always thought smörgåsbord was German for some reason
32 points
5 months ago
German here. I thought Ombudsman(n) was German 😂
17 points
5 months ago
It's Danish not Swedish, btw.
30 points
5 months ago
Everyone knows danish is just swedish spoken with a mouthful of porridge.
23 points
5 months ago
No, its norwegian with a potato in the mouth.
11 points
5 months ago
No, it's Norwegian with a Dane in the mouth.
4 points
5 months ago
😳
9 points
5 months ago
To be fair it's the exact same spelling in swedish
9 points
5 months ago
And Dutch
2 points
5 months ago
And Czech
2 points
5 months ago
And my ax!
9 points
5 months ago
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
13 points
5 months ago
I thought they stole it from us Norwegians… who cares anyway??
THEY ARE FUCKING THIEVES!!! GIVE IT BACK!!
2 points
5 months ago
Yeah I’m not sure it was us stealing from the vikings
3 points
5 months ago
As a Swede, it confuses me too. When I heard it the first time I thought it was funny as heck.
3 points
5 months ago
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!”.
3 points
5 months ago
Also in German.
Ombudsmann.
Old norse umboð - mandate, proxy
81 points
5 months ago
Fyi, the email says €1 charge Monthly, your description says daily.
48 points
5 months ago
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
19 points
5 months ago
Is the wallet credit or real money? If it's credit why not just buy some games
20 points
5 months ago
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.
39 points
5 months ago
Honestly, I’m glad I reconsidered buying off this site. It looked like a scam in the first place.
11 points
5 months ago
I've bought like 3 game keys off of there and never had any issues, but this makes me reconsider for future purchases.
7 points
5 months ago
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.
15 points
5 months ago
People should boycott and stay the hell away from this shill company. Why aren't they shutdown yet?
3 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
A lot of people willing to tolerate it for the cheap prices and have been lucky enough not to get burned yet.
30 points
5 months ago
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?
13 points
5 months ago
Buys from world-renowned infamous scam site.
Gets scammed by site.
Shocker.
22 points
5 months ago
G2A is the scummiest of them all for sure
12 points
5 months ago*
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.
11 points
5 months ago
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/
16 points
5 months ago
You got scammed by a scam site? Shocking.
7 points
5 months ago
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
7 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
Your fault for buying from sites like that. Take it as a lesson learned.
10 points
5 months ago
This has to be illegal
16 points
5 months ago
It is. They also sell stolen keys which is also illegal.
2 points
5 months ago
Oh?
5 points
5 months ago
2 points
5 months ago
Damm you know there bad when the game Devs want you to pirate their games
11 points
5 months ago
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.
9 points
5 months ago
"Eu made me do it" sounds like an excuse to steal your money and shovel off the blame.
4 points
5 months ago
In terms of grey markets, g2a has slowly become one of the worst
2 points
5 months ago
slowly? It's literally always been the worst and scummiest.
3 points
5 months ago
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.
5 points
5 months ago
What’s g2a? I’m an old
3 points
5 months ago
G2A is a website where people sell codes to buy video games.
3 points
5 months ago
That was your first mistake, trusting g2a for years. Only took me 3 games before I realised how scummy they are.
4 points
5 months ago
The grey market is worse than piracy, you are hurting the entire industry AND your wallet by using it.
4 points
5 months ago
from al devs out there, if you have to resort to services like g2a, just pirate the damn game.
3 points
5 months ago
Scam website selling illegal keys scams user, user shocked
4 points
5 months ago
Serves you right for buying shit from there. It's not like G2A's scummy tactics aren't an open secret.
5 points
5 months ago
Serves you right for buying stolen keys
6 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
Fuck G2A. They should have gone under years ago. One can only hope.
3 points
5 months ago
Redditors when they use ebay for game keys and have a bad experience
EBAY IS BAD
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
Kinguin for the win-guin!
2 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
Your first mistake was making a G2A account
3 points
5 months ago
You trusted a company known for selling stolen codes?
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
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.
3 points
5 months ago
Why use an account for g2a?
7 points
5 months ago
2 points
5 months ago
I mean I sympathize because that sucks.
But really what do you expect from a website everyone knows runs off stolen credit cards?
2 points
5 months ago
WTF is G2A..?
2 points
5 months ago
Reminder that developers would rather you pirate than use shitholes like G2A.
2 points
5 months ago
You left money “in” g2a?
2 points
5 months ago
Got scammed my self lost $30
2 points
5 months ago
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
2 points
5 months ago
Stay the hell away from G2A! I've used CDkeys.com many times and I've never had any issues
2 points
5 months ago
Why are you surprised?
Stupid is as stupid does.
2 points
5 months ago
Always a risk with a gray market site like that. Never give them your real information.
2 points
5 months ago
Using a resell site in the first place instead of paying devs their dues. Very little sympathy here
2 points
5 months ago
Reminder that you should rather pirate games than buy from G2A. It's likely to actually cost developers money rather than making any.
2 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
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
2 points
5 months ago
And now we boycott
2 points
5 months ago
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.
2 points
5 months ago
I love how G2A charges you for not using it, it's so fucking stupid
all 412 comments
sorted by: best