Hi guys
I bought Bioshock Infinite few months back from Gamekeyoffer (CD-Key). The activation worked fine with Steam, but now the game has been revoked.
So is Gamekeyoffer a scam?
Should Valve allowed to delete a game after accepting the activation code?
Thanks
I bought it in May 2013, a quick check at the time showed no sign of fraud or scam.
Well, it may be that they were selling fraudulent keys and you found out the hard way. Highlights how it's important to buy from a trustworthy source, not necessarily the cheapest.
Still, you got 15 months of gameplay out of it.
Well, I am not really upset, I played few hours then stopped for a year.
I paid with Paypal, if Steam had refused the key immediately, I would have raised a dispute. In fine, I did nothing wrong but I am the one paying, not Steam, not Two Interactive Software, and not Gamekeyoffer.
It is a little bit too easy that it falls on the individual and not on companies.
@isidore12: Sure, but your issue is with Gamekeyoffer. If it's an apparently valid key, Steam can't refuse it immediately.
Say it was originally bought with a stolen credit card then onsold to you. A month or two later the credit card owner checks their statement and disputes the charge. Another month or two later the original seller has had to repay the purchase amount and been hit with a chargeback fee. The key gets reported and ends up in a database of 'bad keys', after a while the database gets sent over to Steam with orders to revoke the 'bad keys'.
The only person that gets something out of this is the dodgy key seller.
It's like buying stolen goods. The buyer doesn't own what they paid for since the ownership was never the seller's to sell. If you're not buying from a trustworthy source, that's always a risk you're taking - and it also applies to eBay and Gumtree.
I paid with Paypal, if Steam had refused the key immediately, I would have raised a dispute.
and you would have been sorely disappointed. you should brush up on what the paypal buyer protection covers.
@isidore12: Actually, Take-Two does lose out here. If the key was stolen/fraudulent and you bought it, then Take-Two lost the opportunity to legitimately sell you a copy. Yes it sucks for you, but you're not the only party that takes a hit.
Basically you agree to take a risk when you go to the CD key sites in order to save some money. That's fair enough, but you can't really complain when it comes back to bite you. Not that you really copped a harsh penalty here; in the time you've had the game in your library, you've probably played it as much as you were ever going to play it. And if you desperately wanted it back, you can just buy it again through more legitimate means where it will likely be heavily discounted now. Taking into account your original heavy discount from GameKeyOffer and the now discounted price - you're likely to still be ahead of original retail. All I can say is bad luck, and be a bit more discerning with your CD key resellers in future :)
Yes, if the key was fraudulently obtained (credit card fraud, keygen, database mined, etc).
Did you Google search "gamekeyoffer" before you bought?
You could try contacting the GameKeyOffer Rep here, but they last logged on 27 Oct 2013, so they might not still be around:
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/94640