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Warning to those trading for IGN game keys
posted by James Boxers @ 11:18AM on March 12, 2012

IGN has been giving free games out for their prime members for a few months, this is nothing new. Before the started the new Indie giveaway where they gave out 5 indie game keys, IGN removed one loop in the system and completely removed the trials, I assume any future trials will be my unique promotion codes.

Anyways, people have resorted to finding new ways to make several accounts to get several keys, for free, again. They've exploited IGN, but in a much worse way which can risk your account or others if you trade these keys.

In short terms, people are using credit card fraud to get game keys, I'm sure a few of you are aware of the pains that come from chargebacks.

IGN has a poor system that instead of checking funds from an account and confirming the payment first, it directly gives prime membership when a valid credit card is supplied, funded or not. People have used this exploit to obtain several keys, some in small amounts, and some in ridiculous masses.

I suggest if you really want these keys, buy the IGN prime yourself for the year, it's only 30 dollars by promotion. IGN also discourages trading these keys, but I don't know of any way they'll enforce that suggestion.

If you accept a key obtained by means of fraud, it can be a small dent or a large damage on your account. In the lowest form, they'll either ignore it or just remove the game. Or in worst case scenario, completely ban your account, that means you lose all your licenses, your in-game items linked to your steam account, and any other spent money. And trust me, they won't do a thing for you to bring your account back, Valve believes all their bans of this manner are just and irreversible.

If someone has a very large amount of keys from IGN, it's highly advised you don't trade with this person. Also don't forget the rule of thumb. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. If someone is going to trade you all the keys for a TF2 hat or Plants vs. Zombies, something is up.

I know this has gone long enough, but because I won't be available later, I wanted to throughly explain the situation around these keys and not cut corners. I hope this has been informative and please advise your fellow traders if they do not know. Leave any comments on what you think about this below if you wish.


Source: link
It's nothing new, this method has been know for a while. You don't even need a fake credit card, so there's no fraud involved.
Anyway, this is not the official IGN statement, so I don't think there's a reason to be worried.
Post edited March 12, 2012 by nagytow
IGN failed many times. Its understandable to do it to get the games, but to do it 50 times to have games for trades... I have few questions:

- How can one get banned from steam for such thing? Ts there have a rule for case like that?
- Do the devs lose money from those steals?
Post edited March 12, 2012 by axakovec
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nagytow: It's nothing new, this method has been know for a while. You don't even need a fake credit card, so there's no fraud involved.
Anyway, this is not the official IGN statement, so I don't think there's a reason to be worried.
How is there no fraud involved when you promise to pay X amount of money with an empty prepaid card?
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nagytow: It's nothing new, this method has been know for a while. You don't even need a fake credit card, so there's no fraud involved.
Anyway, this is not the official IGN statement, so I don't think there's a reason to be worried.
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SirPrimalform: How is there no fraud involved when you promise to pay X amount of money with an empty prepaid card?
It's up to them to check it properly. I might not remember that my card is empty.
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SirPrimalform: How is there no fraud involved when you promise to pay X amount of money with an empty prepaid card?
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nagytow: It's up to them to check it properly. I might not remember that my card is empty.
Just because they screwed up doesn't mean you didn't promise them some money. It's definitely fraud if you don't pay it eventually in some way.
Post edited March 12, 2012 by SirPrimalform
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nagytow: It's up to them to check it properly. I might not remember that my card is empty.
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SirPrimalform: Just because they screwed up doesn't mean you didn't promise them some money. It's definitely fraud if you don't pay it eventually in some way.
Still no. By accepting my card I assume there were some funds and they were happy to give me access to the limited area of their service. If not, they are free to cancel my membership (which they do after few days).
Post edited March 12, 2012 by nagytow
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SirPrimalform: Just because they screwed up doesn't mean you didn't promise them some money. It's definitely fraud if you don't pay it eventually in some way.
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nagytow: Still no. By accepting my card I assume there were some funds and they were happy to give me access to the limited area of their service. If not, they are free to cancel my membership (which they do after few days).
Well you certainly haven't convinced me that you're not committing fraud, I think we're going to have to agree to differ.
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nagytow: Still no. By accepting my card I assume there were some funds and they were happy to give me access to the limited area of their service. If not, they are free to cancel my membership (which they do after few days).
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SirPrimalform: Well you certainly haven't convinced me that you're not committing fraud, I think we're going to have to agree to differ.
Hehe yeah I guess :)
You assume right away I'm guilty by giving them my prepaid card number. I assume I'm not guilty until proven otherwise.
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axakovec: - How can one get banned from steam for such thing? Ts there have a rule for case like that?
Check the terms of service that every Steam member has to agree to. Basically, they allow Valve to ban your account and remove all your games whenever they deem it justified. By agreeing to these ToS, you also agree that your sole course of action in case you're dissatisfied with their decision is to leave Steam. ou can't even properly go to court against them unless you're in the US, because their only office is in the state of Washington, they don't even have one in Europe or elsewhere. Valve has an awful lot of power over their customers' purchases.
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axakovec: - Do the devs lose money from those steals?
Hard to tell without knowing the details of the respective contracts; could be either way.
Post edited March 12, 2012 by Psyringe
" If you think you`re going too far, you probably are "

Psyringe, do you really think Steam would lose potential customers because they cheated IGN?
Post edited March 12, 2012 by axakovec
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SirPrimalform: Well you certainly haven't convinced me that you're not committing fraud, I think we're going to have to agree to differ.
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nagytow: Hehe yeah I guess :)
You assume right away I'm guilty by giving them my prepaid card number. I assume I'm not guilty until proven otherwise.
I kind of meant doing it knowing there was no money on the card and with no intention of paying it later. :P

Although in the event of someone doing this by accident, if they were asked to pay up afterwards I'd certainly call it fraud if they refused.
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SirPrimalform: Although in the event of someone doing this by accident, if they were asked to pay up afterwards I'd certainly call it fraud if they refused.
Yeah, I agree. But IGN don't ask for the money, they just cancel your Prime membership.
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axakovec: - How can one get banned from steam for such thing? Ts there have a rule for case like that?
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Psyringe: Check the terms of service that every Steam member has to agree to. Basically, they allow Valve to ban your account and remove all your games whenever they deem it justified. By agreeing to these ToS, you also agree that your sole course of action in case you're dissatisfied with their decision is to leave Steam. ou can't even properly go to court against them unless you're in the US, because their only office is in the state of Washington, they don't even have one in Europe or elsewhere. Valve has an awful lot of power over their customers' purchases.
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axakovec: - Do the devs lose money from those steals?
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Psyringe: Hard to tell without knowing the details of the respective contracts; could be either way.
Don't think Valve will push their luck with such a thing. This is not their sale/promo to do such a thing
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axakovec: Psyringe, do you really think Steam would lose potential customers because they cheated IGN?
I don't know, IGN is probably a pretty good customer by itself. On the other hand, IGN wouldn't have the means to check whether such accounts actually got banned, and Steam is big enough to not have to bow to any of IGN's demands. It's difficult for me to estimate what Valve might or might not do, I don't do business with them myself and the second-hand reports that I see are extremely varied.

The warning relayed in the OP might be genuine, or it might be scare tactics. But even if it's just the latter, then the scare tactics have a good chance to work, because the risk is there. Valve does have the power to ban accounts whenever they deem it justified, every single one of their users has agreed to that - so your games are never "safe", your access to them always depends on Valve letting you have it.