Blocked by publisher
ZackCrick
Germany Join Date: 2013-10-14 Member: 188693Members
Germany Join Date: 2013-10-14 Member: 188693Members
Dear Unknown Worlds,
you blocked my serial key. This might have happened some time ago. I don't know. I just recently wanted to reinstall the game and it was not listed in steam anymore. I contacted the steam support and they told me you made them block my serial. I never received a message why you did so. Steam doesn't know why. They just reacted. When i asked the steam community i was given the following official statement from your blog:
“Recently we asked Valve to deactivate 1,341 Steam keys that were purchased through our website. As a result, some NS 2 players who were previously able to play the game on Steam are now receiving a “Buy Again” option instead of the “Play” option. This episode is a prime example of why all gamers need to beware discount steam keys and those offering them.
We deactivated these keys because they keys were purchased with credit cards where the card-holder initiated a “charge-back.” A charge-back is a consumer protection mechanism offered by payment companies such as Visa, allowing a card-holder to dispute a charge on their credit card statement. This means we never received payment for the game. In fact, we were charged a fee by the card issuer for the charge-back. For these 1,341 keys, these fees totalled around $30,000.
Right now there are only two official places to buy Natural Selection 2; through Steam or through our website via the Humble Store (The Humble Store option is temporarily disabled due to this issue). If you see Natural Selection 2 available anywhere else — like the many sites out there that sell Steam keys at a discount — then you are not buying it from us and there is no way to know if that key is legitimate. As as result, we strongly discourage purchasing from these sites.
If we offer Natural Selection 2 from other stores in future, we will make a news post informing you of the legitimacy of that store. You can always find an up to date list of authorised stores right here.
We don’t know how exactly these sites obtain their Steam keys. It seems likely that they were originally obtained from our store using stolen credit card information. Keys were then sold through a handful of questionable sites to people using legitimate credit cards. The owner of the stolen credit card ultimately disputed the charge and we lost the sale. In total, we lose ~$45 per transaction of this kind, due to the charge-back fee (~$22 fee + $25 game price). Meanwhile, the unauthorized key reseller kept the money from the player who ultimately received the bad key.
If your key was deactivated, we recommend you contact the site you purchased it from for a full refund. It’s unfortunate that players who believed they were buying legitimate games were hurt by these unscrupulous resellers.”
I suppose my serial is one of the 1341 steam keys. So i contacted the reseller and asked them to send me a new working serial or pay back my money. They reacted quickly and told me they would do so. But they asked for an official statement from the publisher that makes clear why exactly MY SERIAL was blocked. I can understand that somehow. Its been quite a while since you posted this in your blog. I could have been blocked for some other reason.
Who knows?
Only you! The publisher who ordered my serial key to be blocked.
I tried to contact you on several ways and never received an answer. Now iam trying it here in public of your offical forums.
Please tell me where to send my serial key and i shall do so asap to finally receive an answer to the question why i was blocked.
Greetings from Germany
Justus T.
you blocked my serial key. This might have happened some time ago. I don't know. I just recently wanted to reinstall the game and it was not listed in steam anymore. I contacted the steam support and they told me you made them block my serial. I never received a message why you did so. Steam doesn't know why. They just reacted. When i asked the steam community i was given the following official statement from your blog:
“Recently we asked Valve to deactivate 1,341 Steam keys that were purchased through our website. As a result, some NS 2 players who were previously able to play the game on Steam are now receiving a “Buy Again” option instead of the “Play” option. This episode is a prime example of why all gamers need to beware discount steam keys and those offering them.
We deactivated these keys because they keys were purchased with credit cards where the card-holder initiated a “charge-back.” A charge-back is a consumer protection mechanism offered by payment companies such as Visa, allowing a card-holder to dispute a charge on their credit card statement. This means we never received payment for the game. In fact, we were charged a fee by the card issuer for the charge-back. For these 1,341 keys, these fees totalled around $30,000.
Right now there are only two official places to buy Natural Selection 2; through Steam or through our website via the Humble Store (The Humble Store option is temporarily disabled due to this issue). If you see Natural Selection 2 available anywhere else — like the many sites out there that sell Steam keys at a discount — then you are not buying it from us and there is no way to know if that key is legitimate. As as result, we strongly discourage purchasing from these sites.
If we offer Natural Selection 2 from other stores in future, we will make a news post informing you of the legitimacy of that store. You can always find an up to date list of authorised stores right here.
We don’t know how exactly these sites obtain their Steam keys. It seems likely that they were originally obtained from our store using stolen credit card information. Keys were then sold through a handful of questionable sites to people using legitimate credit cards. The owner of the stolen credit card ultimately disputed the charge and we lost the sale. In total, we lose ~$45 per transaction of this kind, due to the charge-back fee (~$22 fee + $25 game price). Meanwhile, the unauthorized key reseller kept the money from the player who ultimately received the bad key.
If your key was deactivated, we recommend you contact the site you purchased it from for a full refund. It’s unfortunate that players who believed they were buying legitimate games were hurt by these unscrupulous resellers.”
I suppose my serial is one of the 1341 steam keys. So i contacted the reseller and asked them to send me a new working serial or pay back my money. They reacted quickly and told me they would do so. But they asked for an official statement from the publisher that makes clear why exactly MY SERIAL was blocked. I can understand that somehow. Its been quite a while since you posted this in your blog. I could have been blocked for some other reason.
Who knows?
Only you! The publisher who ordered my serial key to be blocked.
I tried to contact you on several ways and never received an answer. Now iam trying it here in public of your offical forums.
Please tell me where to send my serial key and i shall do so asap to finally receive an answer to the question why i was blocked.
Greetings from Germany
Justus T.
Comments
Your answer is in your question.
he knows why the keys got deactivated.
what he needs is a confirmation from UWE that he is really one of the 1,341 who lost their key, so he can prove it to the store he bought the key from.
legitimate places to get ns2 are Greenmangaming, steam, and via natural selection 2s humble bundle -- not sure if there are others
Steam would be one
"Unless you are Steam, Greenmangaming or the Humble Store, you are selling illegally acquired keys that were blocked for that reason."
I understand you have your opinion and i personally agree. Still I'am a person receiving practical training in judicial work after having passed the first state examination and know you have to bring evidence to claim your legal rights. A lot of time has passed between the official blog statement and the moment I found out my serial was blocked. This wont be enough for an prima facie evidence. I need an official personal statement.
Of course i will never buy again from the reseller. This is out of discussion.
Btw, I am assuming you bought NS2 6 months ago.
I would like to see the legality of reversing a serial key in the UK. A key was paid for and resold - all above board, legitimate key, legitimate sale with a transaction log. The reseller and manufacturer had a dispute - the manufacturer has now materially deprived the 3rd party of their use. The manufacturer has no contract with the 3rd party thus can be sued by the 3rd party. The manufacturer should have taken their recourse with the reseller not the 3rd party. Interestingly there is no mention of chargeback in the valve terms and conditions. The only part I can see that might have been breached is authorised reseller. However in the UK we can sell as second hand quite happily thanks to EU legislation.
Can you point out where the fraud is? Perhaps the reseller overbought and charged back on "some" keys. This one might have been mistakenly bought in a batch. Who knows. I think it is a legitimate question - if you were a reseller and was contacted by someone who has had a key banned wouldnt you want proof? He could have been cheating and gotten banned.
Most key resellers buy in markets that are cheaper and sell in other markets. Not all use fraudulant means or dodgy credit cards. Sure some might but I very much doubt they will be trading 6 months after a scam let alone entering dialogues!
whilst I dont condone theft, in this case UWE should have gone to either the credit card company reversing the charge or the reseller itself. However in this case it seems UWE couldnt be bothered to go via the correct channels (of contacting the credit card companies and entering arbitration) and simply banned the keys. As far an an official statement goes crap like this "It seems likely that they were originally obtained from our store using stolen credit card information" is just a no-no. If you dont know then dont say.
If you did not buy your key from Green Man Gaming, Steam, or the Humble Store, then store you purchased it from was not authorised to sell Natural Selection 2. They did not receive their keys from Unknown Worlds and it is anybody's guess as to where they did get them from.
If the store refuses to refund your purchase amount then I suggest you contact the appropriate consumer protection agency in your jurisdiction. You should also explore options for the recovery of your funds via your financial institution.
The official Unknown Worlds statement regarding this matter may be found here: http://unknownworlds.com/blog/beware-shady-key-resellers-and-discount-steam-keys/
- Hugh
In my signature you'll find a little message about my use of PMs
Thx for the response @Hugh
Granted this is going to appeal but since Oracle haven't added any new evidence they are stalling for time. After appeal even mighty steam will need to allow a second hand market (in the EU at least)
I also assume you contacted the authorities? over 1000 counts of wire fraud is quite a haul; especially with the information trail you had when investigating the matter.
@bert0r I know what a chargeback is. You have merely mentioned a reason for a chargeback not the mechanism or dispute process. If you dispute a chargeback as a merchant then you enter arbitration. Since I use a 3rd party to handle all my credit and debit cards (commidea) then they handle all my arbitrations for me (ive had my share of chargebacks over the years). Simply cancelling the keys without arbitration is wrong (unless the keys were fake or stolen - i.e. stolen from UWE servers or valves "batch"). Arbitration would win for the same reason walmart would refuse refund and win a chargeback over boxed games or films. And for your information you can initiate a chargeback in the UK if goods are not as described. In fact, section 75 has a whole host of reasons you can chargeback. I do not know the rules in Germany (however).
Well, in this case were they not really purchased.
In the beginning they might have been, UWE got the money and the shady customer got the keys.
But then the original owners of the credit cards, which were used by the shady customer to purchase these keys, initiated a chargeback.
So now the original owners got their money back, the shady customer still had the keys and UWE didn't see see a penny of the money and instead had to face $30k chargeback fees. Why should UWE just let it go and keep those keys active after all that when they were clearly stolen?