Hello all,
Firstly I'd like to say that I am very new to GOG and I'm also new to the forums. That said, I can understand if anyone is reluctant to trade with me, so no hard feelings lol. However I wanted to put it out there and give it a shot. I've just purchased the parts to a new gaming rig I'll be building this weekend, and with my new GTX 970 I received a GOG key to both The Witcher 3 and Batman Arkham Knight. I really love the Witcher (got the PS4 CE, but will be playing it mostly on my new rig :-) ), and will trade either of these keys for a Steam key to the Witcher 3. My reason for this is simple. I enjoy achievements and would like to work on the Witcher 3 via steam. If anyone is interested please let me know, and thank you.

Shadowghost135

...

[Have]
My list.

If you have an offer, send me a chat message.

I know, and may have to do that. Just all my other ones are on steam. :)

All excellent points, this is what I get for thinking at three in the morning.

Thanks for the nice trade!

How is GOG supposed to know? I suppose they can't for sure. But my screenshots are pretty damning and I think prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I was scammed.

As far as me doing my homework, he was clean on Steamrep, no bans, successful trades, and his account was many years old. The scammers that I have encountered prior had no games, or very few, no hours in said games, and a new/low level account. As far as my "mistakes", I don't think I made any. I read the rules of this trading forum and abided as listed in the first post:

"1) "IF you are new to this forum or/and new to trading you will go FIRST unless you know each other." (I know you guys are some great and generous people but there are some who take advantage of this).

2) "IF you are trading on any third party platform like steam, then please do so via the client chat OR post your steam trades link" This way you'll know who you are dealing with. "

I was not aware of the over 300 rep for trades, nor the middleman prospect. I posted a few times in this forum. I alluded to my newness, but no one commented, so I figured I was going about it correctly. I had 3 offers prior to accepting this one, all very low, but this one sounded reasonable, so I forged on with the deal. He had a higher rep than I, albeit low, but I had 0, so I was the greater liability and went first.

Regarding my use of steam I, as many do, provided the option to conduct the trade over steam. The only thing that would've been different had it happened on GOG is that I would know his username here instead of there. I'm sure the scam would have proceeded just the same since I would've followed the exact same procedure in checking out his stats, not knowing of the golden 300 rep status. Also, if the rule is "don't go first with strangers" how is anyone new to GOG supposed to trade? No one will go first given the fact that they don't know each other. And the option of middleman is often just as rife with fraud. High rep is lauded as the only way to trust a trader, but a lot of noobs trade too. If you receive offers from someone new for something you want, should you automatically disregard them? Being low level and unknown, I was distrusted. The only offers I got were from other low levels. So, how is it safe to trade on GOG? There is no proper means to do so and it is completely trust-based. I'm an honest person and trusted this concept, only to get scammed. Seems to me that there should be better security for conducting trades here.

As far as GOG being able to perceive a scam, that's obviously left to their prerogative. It was my key though, attached to my account and both my GOG account and Steam account has no reciprocal games/items. I have the terms of the chat which was for keys, so there is no other venue for me to receive them other than the two I mentioned. So, I don't see the problem with voiding the game.

Honestly, you all may see this as a very newbie mistake. But the way to go about trades is quite convoluted. Perhaps you can be more specific in the first post as to how interactions will happen, otherwise I don't think any novice trader will realize the rules. Anyway, this is just a defense of my experience. I am not the wrong party, rather I was wronged. Regardless of whether you, a long term trader and GOG user, see my actions as stupidity, I was not the culprit here. You have the superiority of looking at my trade in hindsight and you have the comfort of being known here, so as not to have to trade with someone below a certain rep. I was new. I was taken advantage of for that reason, so telling me, in not so many words, that it was my fault, is rather daft. I did everything within reason. It was the scammer who was guilty.

I know that you were the wronged party. I felt that you already did receive encouraging and comforting posts, so I skipped that part in my own contribution - doesn't mean I don't feel for you. I also felt that some of your replies showed that you weren't taking the right lessons out of the incident, so I tried to point those out in a clear, and therefore rather blunt, fashion.

As your reply shows me, I have failed in that, and it doesn't look worthwhile to keep arguing. I'm sorry, but you keep insisting on several things that seem utterly naive to me, such as that your "evidence" would account for anything in the eyes of a distributor, or that GOG ought to "protect" trading in some way (that's a hornet's nest for a distributor in so many ways ...). Or your claim that you "haven't made any mistakes" or "did everything within reason", which is frankly so far removed from reality that I'm at a loss for words.

I tried to give concrete advice, which you apparently don't find useful. That's your prerogative of course. I did apply that advice when I was a newbie and started swapping my first keys, and I never got scammed so far, not even once. In fact I found lots of people who even gave me more than I asked for, and in return I enjoyed giving other people more than _they_ asked for. I had the impression that you might enjoy _that_ way of trading, and was trying to help you along to get there, because frankly I see you heading in the opposite direction currently. But you're free to find your own way, of course. I, personally, think you're not doing a good job at it right now, which makes me a bit sad considering that you already had one very bad experience. But it's your choice.

Your response was, indeed, rather blunt.

I did learn my lesson, as you say, in that trust is based on prior exchanges and there's no way of being able to depend on those without a reputation. However, you seem rather severe in your discourse with me. I never said that my evidence would account for anything, instead I said it was very strong in evincing wrongdoing on behalf of the other party. And GOG can create a system, like steam, with more protections for trading. Such as email authentication and both party's confirmation before the trade is complete. Just my two cents, though. I'm sure scammers would find a way to continue their fraud nevertheless, but it might be more difficult.

In addition, I assure you, I am not removed from reality. It was a bad business, but I did my due diligence, as much as my limited knowledge in trading allowed. I even sought the advice of another user before proceeding. We both believed it was legitimate.

You seem to have fared well in not being scammed; that's fortunate for you. But telling me what I should've done, doesn't help but to make it seem like I was the one at fault given that your phrasing is quite patronizing. However, should I ever trade again, I will keep this experience close at hand. I've had an offer by a high level user to operate as middleman, but honestly trading here is not as secure as it could be. I hope GOG does implement an official way to trade.

And thank you very kindly for feeling for me. Perhaps though, consider being less...acerbic? I had been told before you posted, about many of the things you stated (after my own post of being scammed), but they were sympathetic. It was a jarring experience as it was, I don't really need every thing I could've done pointed out in such ill fashion. It happened, I was scammed, but with the help of these kind folks, I'm figuring out how to proceed.

So, thanks for the education.

Thank you for the trade as well :)

I have never heard of this 300+ rep for trading before and I don't really care about rep, I have traded with people that had less than 10 rep and it was no problem. I simply go by if it seems too good to be true then it probably is and that it need to be fair for everyone involved. Also, if you feel you need a middleman then you probably should pass on the trade. Anyway, I hope you will have better experience in your future trades, most on here are good people :)

I'm with you I'm not 300 rep and ask anyone I haven't screwed anyone over. Also I try to give whenever I can so good people are good people. If they don't feel friendly don't trade or gift is my policy I mean if someone has negative rep then you probably should heed it as a warning.

Hey guys, bought a Witcher 2: Assassin of Kings - Enhanced Edition without realising it was for GOG and not Steam.

Anyone willing to do a trade of a Steam key for my GOG key?

Just putting it out there, some of you may use both platforms.

As a new user I may understand your hesitation to trade but I assure you this is legitimate. Any tips on the preferred routine of trading through platforms would also be appreciated, no-one wants confusion.

Thanks!

TL;DR: /me again with my fallout wants :)

[snip of a long whiney post about the problems of buying/trading uncut games with a german ip. ]

edit: Thanks to a Tip from skimmie I'm looking at authorized different Steam Key resellers located in the uk and this seems to work out to some extent (don't know really since steam might just give you the cut version anyway when activating with german account, even when the key is from the uk), also there's unofficial resellers of steam gifts, sounds shady and probably is, but worked out for me on one game I couldn't get my hands on otherwise. (It is legal to play uncut games since I'm over 18 but it's quite a few hoops to jump through)

Thanks to brdobat for a good, smooth trade. :)