Topic: Can I be implicated for buying a steam gift ? (Read 3408 times)

You are lucky if the authority didn't show up knocking on your door.

Actually , if its stolen and its reversed they just take them game from you, it's happened to me.

You can get screwed this way. I've heard stories of steam shutting down whole accounts because of buying 1 game with stolen credit card information.

If you still need a steam gift Check my Thread. All games have been purchased by @Tecshare and have been sitting in his inventory for a while, They won't get refunded.

Short answer is: no

The long on: Steam has these problems every day and they usually do not revert trades. How do I know this? I used to trade TF2 items daily. There was a very big incident a few years back. To understand this you have to understand a bit about tf2 trading. Valve sells keys via the market for cash, but you can also trade them for other items. One of these other items is called "buds" and has a value of several keys (lets say 20) because its old and rare and you can no longer get it. Over a period of several days the price for buds rose rapidly because someone was buying all buds even at high prices (25 while 20 was normal) while at the same time the buds for USD price was falling because someone was selling buds cheap for USD, paypal, wester union, not BTC AFAIK, because it wasnt commonly used among tf2 traders back then. It turned out that this was a money laundering scheme.
#1 use stolen CC to buy keys from valve
#2 trade keys for buds
#3 sell buds for USD/other currency

While valve does not support the trading for items (or currency) outside the steam system they do not revert the trade. Why not? Well for one there are items worth 5000USD. If you would revert such a trade you would have to create a copy of the item (a dupe) thus reducing the price of all items in circulation. This is only done if the victim can prove that it was a scam (e.g. trojan). Dupes a frown upon by traders and are (sometimes) worth less. The other reason they do not revert the trade is that each trade can result in more trades.
#1 A buys a game with a stolen CC
#2 A trades game to B for e.g. 20 keys
#3 B sells game for .05 BTC
#4 A does 15 trades, 10 for 1 key each and 5 more for 2 keys each
#...
#99.999 Valve figures out the CC was stolen.

Theyd have to revert not only the single trade that was not legit (buying the game) but all resulting trades. They would constantly piss off everyone that is trading with steam and make that option basically useless.

So if you buy a game on steam from someone that used a stolen card it is not your problem.



The thing with steam is: steam-money is worth less than regular money. Its "pretty easy" to make 20 USD worth of tf2/csgo/dota2/etc. keys a day if you have a good nieche and a few regulars, but its not as easy to get the money off of steam. The tf2 keys I mentioned above are sold for 2.49 USD[1] by valve, for 2.42 USD [2] by others on the community market and for 1.70-1.95 USD for BTC. IMHO its very likely that said user is getting the money other big steam traders are earning out of steam for them and gets a cut of the profit.


[1] http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Mann_Co._Supply_Crate_Key
[2] https://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/440/Mann%20Co.%20Supply%20Crate%20Key

I don't think anybody is accusing him of selling stolen goods, but the possibility is there and just because the items haven't been reversed yet doesn't mean they won't in the future is all I'm saying, but remember, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is (though of course there are always exceptions).

I have no idea who BiPolarBob is, I just used that in my example xD

Don't consider this a fraud accusation of some sort.

Not necessarily. If you're a 'good' carder or adept at this sort of fraud I imagine there are several ways you can get life out of your stolen codes. He (or anyone else) could use his own card or one he has knowingly got from someone else with the intention of charging back at a later date. Also, law enforcement probably doesn't work that fast on these cases.

Any time you are in receipt of stolen goods they could technically charge you. But if you can prove that you had no idea that the item was stolen then you have a good shot of not being charged. I wouldn't even chance it...

Considering the ammount the gave away and the time he is among us, I guess if the goods he sells are stolen we should already see people complaining about their steam accounts being closed and the law enforcement knocking on their doors.

@OP: it deppends on the laws in your jurisdiction and how the law is inforced.

Is BiPolarBob  selling stolen goods?

If the fraud is rampant, it will be investigated.

And you will get into trouble for buying stolen goods and services.

I know that idea.

What I was asking is, what if I ask BiPolarBob to redeem the credit and send me the gifts.

Send me a 19.99 dollar game as a steam gift instead of a steam code for 20$ itself.

He makes a new alt, buys wallet credit with a stolen CC and then gifts me the game in return for 20$ of BTC.

Can I be implicated ?

Steam might close your account, but they need to proof you knew they came from a stolen credit card to have trouble with the law.

If it worry you, you might use an alt account to use the credit you got from BiPolarBob or anyone else.

Are you wanting to know if you can actually get in trouble with the law from receiving or spending a voucher or just wheter Steam will cancel your account or something?

I would be very dubious about this as if you are found to be codes from stole CC's it can be worse off for you. I would only go with people who are trustworthy and even then I would doubt check and triple check in as many ways as I could before doing any dealings for my own sake.

quite true but regardless of the legitimacy of the steam gift.I think its just a matter of risk taking which is what exchanges online are most times.

Very true and that is why I mentioned picture of card with receipt showing paid with cash.  Which still could be altered just adds a extra hurdle.

Sadly there is no way to guarantee like you said.   

Even if a seller is 'trusted' that doesn't mean to say they aren't getting their cards from someone who isn't. Even the 'trusted' sellers of giftcodes usually won't tell you where they get them from and that's because they're usually just reselling them from someone else and can't guarantee where they're coming from or that they are being obtained legitimately.

Go with a trusted seller.  But truth is if you are messing with codes from stolen CC's almost any company will contact you for it.   

You could always ask for a picture of them buying the code with cash.