1. There is no such thing as a "pending" ban or Steam admin. Anyone threatening your account is a scammer trying to scare you. Read more.

Today I discovered that there are tons of Keys with doubtful origin injecting into the market

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by base64, Nov 11, 2012.

  1. Champelliot

    Champelliot New User

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    God, looks like my applied maths homework.
    Excellent work by the way.
  2. DataStorm

    DataStorm Retired Staff

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    Now I really gotta congrat you. Thnx for that.
  3. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Yall got way too much time on your hands..I recommend going outside and breathing fresh air from time to time.
    Melkor and Sjru like this.
  4. KosToLoM

    KosToLoM New User

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    I think Valve can do more for this situation, but idk why they are working so slowly. They can do untrabadle keys in all ways for 3 days. ( anti carding , because Valve can ban acc with carded keys in 1 - 3 days fast ). I'm writing some ideas in support, but they don't looking for it more respectible.

    A lot of traders was banned by Valve and it's so sad, because we can't to check stolen/carded items or not, and we can be banned easy with a lot of problems.
    May be we need to attack support with messages about this , and the must to do anything with it? It's really greatest problem not only for SR, but for a lot of trader sites.

    Cheers, guys!
  5. Markers

    Markers New User

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    What is that thing old accounts dont have 3 days trade periods on store bought items? It's plain stupid.

    Just expand this to cover everyone and most of this situation will be fixed.3 days is plenty to ban stolen CC accounts.
  6. DataStorm

    DataStorm Retired Staff

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    While I don't know how much time goes over before the fraud is detected, I'd agree on a certain period untradable for new CC used on a account, for there isn't trust build up in past for that CC used on that steam account.

    On the other hand, in my country there is near no use of CC's, and all is done by direct bank transfers electronically. Cash is receding quite fast, for lower and lower ammounts are being transferred for every day shopping etc. As such, for online shopping there is "iDeal" ( http://ideal.nl/?s=&lang=eng-GB ), which does the same, direct transfer from your bank account to the account of the entity you buy from. Consumer laws are pretty tight here, and well protected, so there's pretty much no "fake". The requirements of having it on one's site are pretty steep, so that isn't easy either. As its a direct transfer, such keys could be instantly traded, for if I buy keys, the money is already on Valve's bank account when I recieve the keys. Valve does support iDeal in my country.

    eBanking is so big here, a lot of offices have been closed now over the years, they just have ATM's in shopping area's, and a office in the center of a city, and one doesn't need to go there much. Last time I went to my bank's office is 3 years ago or some. All mayor banks are connected to it. Here only a small % has a CC, and its almost nowhere accepted as payment if you're local.

    As iDeal is so successful here, there are now plans to make a European counterpart of it, with all European banks connected etc.
  7. Bottiger

    Bottiger Partner Community

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    You can wait up to half a year to do chargebacks on credit cards like MasterCard. I'm not sure Valve would like to make keys or accounts untradable for half a year.

    It is very easy to file a chargeback and the seller will always lose a dispute for a virtual item.

    None of the current practices such as screenshots or Paypal comments has ever worked to my knowledge.
  8. [Gent] Jeremy

    [Gent] Jeremy New User

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    Except Valve is a company that can prove that things like keys were given (a service, most likely classified) and if a company still allows for the chargeback to go through then Valve can and will sue them. There is a big difference of somebody charging back a key seller (we work outside the ToS and law) and somebody charging back a company
  9. DataStorm

    DataStorm Retired Staff

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    Valve always has been very reluctant to go sue their users. They leave the legally wording open etc should the need rise. I know some they would make exceptions for, but those are the hardest to catch.
  10. UBi | f1y!n9 m@(h!n3

    UBi | f1y!n9 m@(h!n3 New User

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    I do not understand why everybody thinks that when chargebacked, valve had to pay. In this situation valve is seller and he has all rights to deny the chargeback since selling of virtual items does not fall into legit chargeback category. For virtual items buyer’s claim (cc holder) can be easily refused because the item sold was virtual, digital, or intangible, which is not covered under any Protection policy (atleast for now). Almost all policies only cover claims involving physical items that can be posted and or can be tracked somehow.

    Valve is not doing anything because they are not paying to cc companies and they may be having super good lawyer to deny such claims. This is good business for them anyways! Spreading the small loss over multiple number of credit cards. Such small amount isn't something anyone would wanna fight for ages to cover.

    I hope i am not wrong in my statements! Correct me if i am.
  11. [Gent] Jeremy

    [Gent] Jeremy New User

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    Selling virtual items doesn't fall into the legit chargeback category from person to person. Companies are covered under legal business rights (in the US - where Valve is based) and therefore could sue if a CC company decided to issue a chargeback. I'd say that maybe you should look at court rulings in the past few years in the US, Facebook sells alternative currency in virtual form - credits- which was found to be a perfectly legal exchange between buyer and company.
  12. D2Girls

    D2Girls New User

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    Russia has been home of the largest credit card fraud crime ring for over a dozen years now, so this really shouldn't come as a shock. =p
  13. sitebender

    sitebender New User

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    I made a key tracker before halloween to cache backpacks to determine where keys were coming from. There's about 1,500 new keys per day since the Halloween event ended. My system keeps a memory of whoever has 100+ keys and keeps viewing their backpack every hour or so to determine where they're coming from. While I have seen Russians sell cheap games they buy on sale for keys.... I have noticed 400 keys appear in a backpack that I had spidered an hour earlier and all of that had original IDs. There were no Steam games in the backpack that would indicate he had sold games to make 400 keys in a few hours, nor was there ref. Everything indicated an empty profile without achievement weapons. Since finding that treasure of keys it has become a private profile, but that's just one profile. Perhaps that was one hardcore player that unboxes 500 crate at a time.... with nothing in his pack but keys... not even keys.
    Sjru likes this.
  14. ChaCharmander

    ChaCharmander New User

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    Student Journalist here, is there any way that I can PM you to ask you a few questions?
  15. Zyddie

    Zyddie New User

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    This is a dead topic, however if you want to talk with someone click thier avatar and press start convo.
  16. Oz' dak1ne

    Oz' dak1ne New User

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  17. ChaCharmander

    ChaCharmander New User

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    Would anyone be willing to explain more in-depthy to me the topic through an interview? It seems to be a really important lead. I'm curious about the intersection of gaming with these carders.
  18. Mattie!

    Mattie! SteamRep Admin

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  19. sitebender

    sitebender New User

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    There are supposedly 500,000 keys in circulation with about 3,000+ new ones per day. At least according to stats.tf. That's a lot of new keys. Keys haven't gone down in numbers since October with the great exclusive unusual effects unboxings. stats.tf can't exactly cache all backpacks at once, so maybe it hasn't recached a pack that used to have 500 and thanks to the Steam market that person with 500 keys sold all of them to someone else that had their packs cached making it look like there is 1,000 keys.

    Perhaps its because people buy Garry's MOD for $2.50 and then wait til its off sale to sell it for 3 keys and people buy fresh keys they buy from the store. I've had people buy 2 keys from the store just to buy a clean high five.
  20. ChaCharmander

    ChaCharmander New User

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    Hey thanks Mattie! I appreciate it. I'm currently in a conversation with him but also wondering if anyone else would be willing to speak or have information about this topic! Pm me!