Valve to no longer offer physical gift cards due to scammers

Comments

• VitoRobles@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This sucks. I was reading how about fraudsters buy counterstrike items to launder money and it’s crazy. They must have found steam cards are a huge part of the operation too.

  I just want an alternative to the whole VISA/Mastercard BS and this one was the easiest.

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  • ampersandrew@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    From what I can tell from Kitboga videos, all retail gift cards are a lucrative way to launder proceeds from scams. Valve was probably just more tired of dealing with it.

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    • atrielienz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I actually think this might also potentially have something to do with the lawsuit regarding potential gambling on the platform.

      Because children absolutely could buy gift cards and use them to open loot boxes etc. Not positive but just throwing that out there.

      I absolutely could be completely wrong about this.

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    • Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      This kinda tracks. One time someone I knew bought a series of games on Steam at once, and his bank blocked them. In calling them, he learned that (in addition to some other circumstantial clue) their pattern recognition picks up on game purchases, since that’s an excellent target for someone who just stole a credit card. Scammers can often resell the games in some way, through some anonymity.

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  • Absolute_Slayer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It’s a classic case of bad actors ruining a great convenience for regular consumers. Physical gift cards were the perfect cash to digital bridge for privacy conscious users and people without traditional bank accounts. Unfortunately, the scale of refund fraud and elder scams involving these cards has gotten so massive that tech companies are realizing the retail footprint just isn’t worth the liability anymore.

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  • meowcar42O@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    you can use paysafecard or a service like bitrefill, if youre into crypto

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  • Bruhh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Could just use amex

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Does Discover still exist?

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• liinux@pawb.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I worked on a retail store for a time, it was sad that a lot of old people spent a lot on money on gift cards, specially Amazon and Apple gift cards because they didn’t even knew what they were purchasing, and 7/10 times when you warned them about a scam they tell you to eat shit, but it was funny because it was like: An famous singer is contacting me, just to tell me that if I give them a $100 gift card they will send me $100.000.000

  And there were some more extreme cases of old people who lived alone and didn’t know much about technology, that it was like a rolplay but on real life and the currency to keep rolplaying was the gift cards.

  And another thing is that the old (due to the scammers) were the most unbearable people in the world, because the scammers didn’t ask, they demanded gift cards, and they were always asking for $100 gc. If the elderly people couldn’t get them, they threatened to stop talking to them, so we had to deal with unbearable old people constantly.

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  • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I had a manager that spent a good twenty minutes explaining to this little old lady that the guy asking her to send gift cards was not Jason Momoa.

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• Osan@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  When I was a kid physical gift cards where the only way I could pay for online games since my nobody at home had a credit card that accepts international transactions.

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• NarrativeBear@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Well that sucks, no more paying in cash for physical cards.

  Back when I used to work retail all gift cards were inside the registers only allowed to be activated once the registers opened.

  This meant it was less likely for someone to either swap gift cards for counterfeit ones, or take pictures of all the cards waiting for someone to activate them and drain the balance.

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  • Luffy879@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    to either swap gift cards for counterfeit ones

    That would show an error on the checkout

    or take pictures of all the cards waiting for someone to activate them and drain the balance.

    Nowadays they are alls scratch-offs. That was a different time back then

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    • NarrativeBear@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      [deleted]

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• lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  DO NOT REDEEM!!!

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• shirasho@feddit.online ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I was looking for Sream gift cards as birthday presents for some friends 2 months or so ago. No wonder I couldn’t find them.

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• TotallyWorthLife@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Shit, there goes another alternative to my VISA card T-T

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• Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  That’s probably a big deal in Asia. I get the impression banking is not so smooth an experience out there (most specifically in Japan), and instead most people still work directly with cash; so any gacha game or online store will very much rely on convenience stores to stock their cards.

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• timestatic@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  No I think this is an awful move. Digital Gift Cards will still be available. And I think for gifting its actually really nice to still have.

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  • THE_GR8_MIKE@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Only thing is gullible boomers are way less likely to buy a gift card online. Because they won’t be able to figure it out.

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    • timestatic@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      But there will always be some form of gift card. if not steam gift card people will buy apple or google play cards. Its a sad thing going of with the scamming but honestly a physical gift card still beats a print out of an email on a piece of paper.

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• DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Great the discounts you get on them at Costco just vanished now, I guess. That sucks.

  And it gives those card companies more ability to screw them like they did before.

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• Klanky@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Ugh I loved getting these as gifts from non-gamer family. A Visa/MC gift card I’ll just spend on necessary things but a Steam gift card was for games.

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• Hond@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  oh, ffs. well, piracy it is then.

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  • DanceMomsSavedMe@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yupp Valve did after all famously say it was due to service issues.

    Well, they just made a huge service issue for some people.

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  • ISOmorph@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    That’s honestly my only recourse now. Credit cards aren’t really a thing in my country (they exist, you just never need them) and I refuse to hand over my shit to data brokers like klarna or paypal.

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    • Hond@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      tbf, i was able to pay with my normal bank account on steam in the past. so its not as bad for me. but i dont trust my bank either tbh.

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• sonofearth@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I think it is for the better. Digital gift cards are more convenient. Plus less paper and plastic use is a net positive for the environment as most people throw physical gift cards (that are redeemed digitally) in the trash anyways. Although it is good to acknowledge that people who will lose out on the attachment in physical sense, like wrapping it up for a friend and seeing the excitement on their faces or a kid or a teenager going getting a physical one with their pocket money cash. But this is mostly in the west though as in the East the concept of physical gift cards is long gone now and even kids spend money digitally through parental access payment methods.

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• Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Wait that’s still a thing? I haven’t been able to find one in years

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