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Hm..
About the possibility that users of Humble's gift link will be judged as "trader" and banned.
In your view...
In any case, it's unclear what happened between Humble and you.
This kind of story sometimes exists.
The difference between people who do not have problems and those who do...
First of all, the people who won the "Steam Gifts" Won
it "Friends of the Steam community".
Add it to a friend on Steam, and then transfer it.
Some people use such methods.
I think it's a good idea if you want to follow the Humble terms of use explicitly.
However, even if people who do not do such a thing use gift links, there is no "trader" verdict.
Then what is the cause of the judgment?
It feels like there's a problem if the person you sent the gift link to hasn't redeemed the gift.
Another problem seems to be when the gift link is not used for a long time since it was created.
That's the case if you want to reduce the potential for problems.
Solution?
On rare occasions, there are villains who want to resell gifts to others.
Of course such bad guys should be punished.
If such people try to reuse gift links, they will be suspected as "traders".
To the last, it is a guess from the past people's STORY.
If you are worried, you are free to avoid using gift links.
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It is too late for me now to be worried, like I said, I do not deny that I sometimes traded games and exchanged gift links with people. But I have been doing that for a very long time without problems, because I am not at all some sort of "big" trader. Sometimes I'll want a game I didn't get, and I'll offer a game I had.
Specifically in the last week, I have exchanged one key of Supraland with another game from another user. That is the only "trade" I did in the last 2 weeks even, the other thing is finding steamgifts again and being active. It's really unfortunate, and can be avoided by letting users know, which I'm hoping to do here.
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Were you on the classic monthly plan? Wonder if they're looking for reasons to kick people off of that.
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So OP is an actual and active trader and brought this upon himself. Good job snooping around.
Let's add:
OP is trading games for Bitcoins.
He is also selling game accounts and keys via ebay.
So his ban likely has got nothing to do with giving away games via Humble Bundle Gift link here at SG. It is more likely that IGN found out about his trading and reselling.
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And has recently contacted Humble support regarding a gift link.
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/4q2jy/humble-bundle-claiming-a-page-doesnt-send-an-email-anywhere
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Lol, I love how everyone just bandwagons into you being a sherlock holmes here.
Please. Why do people always love to "criminalize" others like this?
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I have been doing my previous activities for since I can remember. Sometimes in quick succession, other times only looking for specific titles. But looking at it, in a month's average I'll do at least one transaction. You can see how I consider the fact that I have given away 10 humble links here, and that most of them were redeemed on the spot; is a lot more alarming in the terms of gift links being redeemed by other users, than me occasionally exchanging keys with others. But then again as long as support hasn't replied, your guess could also be valid, I just find it highly unlikely because of how long I haven't been spoken to in the duration of at least 2 years.
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That's generally not how it works. It's a pattern of behaviour that will get you flagged.
When a website sees a user doing something "suspicious" they might not take action right away. A suspicion is just that, a suspicion, but they are going to flag your account. That account might even be flagged by software and not a human. Because they have 10s of thousands of active users, that flag might stay with you for quite a time before someone actually bothers to look into your case properly.
Then one day, someone has a bunch of time on their hands, they pick the accounts that have been flagged by the system more than once and do a little digging into their online activity. This is more than likely what happened to you. And if you are KingZee on HB, there you have it. It's actually not that difficult to look into someone's online behaviours especially if they tend to keep the same username everywhere. You don't need any softwares for that.
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I have gifted tons of humble links and never had a problem. The problem they go after is you selling them or trading for something of value. They have no issues with you gifting games to others and you getting nothing in return. That is why it is called a gift link.
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https://www.humblebundle.com/terms
"HUMBLE BUNDLE, INC. IS A DELAWARE CORPORATION WITH AN OFFICE AT 160 SPEAR ST, SUITE 1000, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94105 ("HUMBLE BUNDLE," "COMPANY", "WE," "US," OR "OUR")."
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so what's your case?
we are a group of ~6 people that got our accounts suspended because we
tradedgifted our keys despite HB policies saying we shouldn't
we demand restitution of 2.7 million dollars in damages and the immediate replacement of our $1 bundles
🤷
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It would suck but it's in their right to deny me further purchases
Actually, denying a purchase is illegal in my country unless there's a serious reason (like being drunk in the shop - something quite unlikely to apply in the case of an online shop), so... might be worth checking in yours.
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Pretty sure its in their EULA that you can't "resell" and good luck trying to prove you didn't in a court.
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as mentioned before, not wanting to provide further services is up to them. however witholding and denying access to any purchase you made through their site, denying you any communication and not wanting to refund you actually might be something different :)
And well, on the other hand, if he is EU citizen, I believe US EULA does not apply here. At least that's what I read last time with new EU laws
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From FAQ:
THE SERVICE AND ALL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DELIVERED TO YOU THROUGH THE SERVICE ARE (EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED BY HUMBLE BUNDLE) PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" FOR YOUR USE, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AND HUMBLE BUNDLE AND ITS LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES CONDITIONS OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING, USAGE OR TRADE PRACTICE.
From Support Article:
Selling or trading keys is strictly prohibited. Gifting keys is perfectly acceptable. The gifting function is meant to give a game away to a friend or family member. We do not support situations where you gift a game to receive a reward/payment of any kind (which would include things like rep or points on certain trading sites).
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"Selling or trading keys is strictly prohibited." That's nice, they can write to FAQ whatewer they want. But it's against EU law. If you live in EU, you can buy keys from them and if you paid for it, you can gift it, trade it, sell it, activate it. Everything from this is legal
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I'm just pointing that they have these "regulations" in their ToS. (Which is a violation of European law).
OP never said he is from EU, he can be from the USA, where such things are quite legal.
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they are actually in California, this might be interesting and actually might worth a shot lol. You can try reddit on r/legaladvice
Tell there what happened, describe your situation, that you are not a US citizen and they are in San Francisco, CA and what should you do when they deny you access to purchased products, deny any communiction with you and are not willing to refund you. Might be quiet interesting, since there are many lawyers there and if there is a chance of winning and suing some nice sum out of HB, they will take it like a fish takes bait, since it might earn them nice money as well.
I guess it's worth a try to write there, you can't really loose anything, you can only earn from this point on.
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that's what I said. If he consults with lawyer that actually has some clue what to do and he will be confident to win, I'd go into it I guess. I think it might not be expensive, maybe only court fees, have no clue how much is that
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In the US small claims court filing fees alone are $30-$50 on average. Then it's another $45-$75 for process service. there are jurisdictions where it's much higher
And that's before you even start. Most people will need to take time off to attend.
While judges do bend over backwards to people without attorneys, someone who doesn't know what they're doing is going to have a hard time organizing their stuff and presenting it the best way. Even with the friendliest judge, you're going to have to explain exactly what the other side did wrong and why you're entitled to relief. A well-trained litigator is going to challenge every wrong word, every inconsistency, and even if you can rationally present everything, they'll still explain why you're still wrong. In the end, you might even doubt it yourself, but most likely you'll be stammering about how unfair it is.
it is unfair, but not the way most pro se litigants think. Judges tend to give far more leeway, and let you get away with things an attorney couldn't, but you'll still think you're being treated harshly because of the frequency of your mistakes. The judge will do his/her best to extract the important information out of you, and you'll think the Judge is picking on you. But in the end, the side that's best able to present their argument tends to win, and a trained litigator is miles ahead of even the best amateur
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that's why I suggested r/legaladvice and to explain there what happened and if there is anything he can do. I am no lawyer, I am just saying what I know and what can be done. That's all, I can't force him to do this and that.
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Well, as I suggested. Go to r/legaladvice write your story there, as detailed as possible, write there what country you are from and like every possible information you have. They will either help you out or they will tell you you can't do anything. You have absolutely nothing to loose here buddy, just a bit of time writing down the information
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Madjoki made a great comment here as well. Might even include it into the information you are going to give. Any information might help out. I hope the thread will catch on and you will be helped out there, since reddit is kind of a coin throw in many cases and there are specific times when it is best to write a post on a subreddit.
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I've read it but honestly don't know how to react. An opt-out with a written letter sent to a physical US address. I don't think I could do that (if it isn't already too late). US law sure is full of technicalities. I'll make my post on legaladvice later, I was going to make a post for the Better Business Bureau since humble bundle seems to be actively replying to those in a very urgent way, but I want to wait for the support to answer me at least.
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they will not answer you most possibly. and your post sounds like it happend to you just yesterday. so in no way 30 days passed. you can still do it and send it, if you'll be planning on suing them. The letters are time stamped, so even if it takes like 2 weeks for the letter to arrive there, you will still be in right, since you sent it within 30 days
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I have just wrote a comment above, I genuinely don't know EXACTLY either because :
I can only guess, but judging by my most recent actions, the only thing I did was give away gift links on steamgifts.
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From my limited expierience, double purchases on one account are tolerated. Bought few times extra copy of bundles, usually for my friend who for some reason can't/doesn't want to do it by himself. Maybe it's also important how you behave and what you do with the doubles.
However, I've never tried to buy a triple one (and I never will I suppose).
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If they denied you access to your purchases a.k.a you can't reveal steam keys from already purchased games/bundles, I believe that you can try to file a lawsuit, however if you are not US citizen, I believe it is not worth the money you might spend on it. If you however are a US citizen and even happen to be in California, the law of CA is so much in favour of consumers who purchase through the interent that you might be actially succesful.
But you can only do that, if they denied you the access to already purchased products. It's all up to them to decide who they want to sell things toand who they do not want to sell things to. No one can force them to provide services to you if they don't want to.
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Not the best solution, but you can try bringing attention to this on social media? It may help to spread the word that they are denying access to what you bought. They're basically robbing you i guess. Or it may be a terrible idea i don't know to be honest.
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Sounds like their actions these days defeat the purpose of gift links. Aren't gift links meant to be shared with others? Or even traded?
I'm never trading links again. Keys only.
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Yeah, you're not allowed to trade the gift links. It's in their ToS. They consider SG a trading site because you're getting points in exchange for games. I know CV points are useless in the long run and amount to be nothing more than e-peen, but they see it as an exchange.
They may be cracking down on this, especially if you trade/gift away a lot of keys.
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Other people have been using Humble gift links for years without issue. Are you trading games somewhere?
It sounds like you tried to buy a second copy of the same bundle, the $1 tier after already buying the BTA tier. Maybe that's what flagged your account, since why would you need to buy the same bundle twice?
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since why would you need to buy the same bundle twice?
To make a gift? When I go into a shop and buy the same item twice, no shop owner's ever asked me: "eh kid, why do you need to buy the same bottle of wine twice?"
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On a side note, gift links give me the Hellish ReCaptcha of Doom from Satan Google, so in addition to being safer as a giver, keys can also be much more comfortable as a winner too
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Or, at least a warning on the page.
I've already stopped giving away links and gone to keys only, but I've already used links dozens of times, so it's almost certainly too late for me. I would wager any contact with the support staff would result in my activity being discovered, and support denying my claim. I suspect many other SG users are in the same boat. It would be great to at least alert new users to the risk of using HB links..
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Actually gifting isn't prohibited in HB, but using HB keys for trading is prohibited, but the problem is that the procedure of gifting and trading is the same, which is giving gift links
Usually they would doubt that u are trading in case u gave a lot of gift links
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It's not just about selling the keys. I cant vouch for it but I remember some time ago a discussion where someone who got banned was trying to explain to support that he is not trading the keys but giving them away through SG. The response was that it is still trading because you "pay" the points to receive a game and in return you get CV.
I think it's idiotic, but at least that came from humble IIRC
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Hm, interesting. That would mean we can't gift any HB keys, unless they're ** titles 🤔
Do you know if those instances involved gift links as well? Because I don't see how they could know that a Steam key was sold/traded/gifted on SG. People gift Monthly games all the time.
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Yes, it was about gift links as well. I just dont remember how it turned out in the end...
The consensus was not to mention you are using SG if you contact support. When a winner had problem with my GA, I wrote to support that a friend I sent gift had problem not mentioning anything else
I suppose the easiest way is just to give away keys.. but then it's more hassle if something goes wrong.
I'm not sure about this - but isnt SG a partner at humble ? Or something like that ? I remember reading about something like that.. if that is the case, then this would seem especially weird not allowing using SG.. but it is what it is.. I think I personally will stay clear of using gift links further on just to stay safe
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i sent mail
I didnt login to my account for months, today i tried to login to get my games from humble monthly subscription but i get account disabled error. I dont understand why its suspended since i already paid yearly subscription and i didnt even get my games. I checked my bank account also there is no refund from you. So basically i paid money to humble for nothing? whats happening?
Humble Monthly Bundle Annual Plan (order id xxxxxx)
their reply
Hi there,
Thank you for writing in. Unauthorized secondary distribution of games purchased through Humble Bundle is a violation of our Terms of Service. Due to these violations, this account has been deactivated and will not be reactivated. Further inquiries regarding this account will not be responded to.
Take care,
-Freya
Humble Bundle
http://support.humblebundle.com/
my 2nd mail which they never replied
Dear Freya,
My question is not about the account, im asking my money which you scammed. When i will get refund? What the money goes to if i wont get my paid games? Is it directly transfer to humble tip budget?
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basically if you even dont get your games (gift link or claimed) they can ban your account. Never used store purchase and and rarely purchased bundles. I had yearly membership when they have sold for 99 usd. Btw also didnt use ref link to get any benefit like 10 usd or etc.
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as I said in the comment above, if you are a US citizen, you might get your money from them :) especially as CA citizen. CA laws cover consumers, especially in case of subscribing. Might worth a shot. Humble Bundle became shady since they belong to IGN or who the fuck is their new owner. I actually doubt that they are giving to charity as much as they claim
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Well they can seeing if you buy the bundle for yourself or for gifting, as for me i'm always try to make some games mine but some i gave it to community since i already have the copy..
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Honestly, I don't even like giving humble keys anymore either. Had issues in past where the keys I gave away didn't work, and although I got them replaced, I was told directly by support to make sure the keys are redeemed immediately in the future to prevent issue. I don't want to have to jump through hoops every time I giveaway a game.
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this makes no sense. the gift link is to give to gift to people and creating it will not get you banned. i always created gift links without issues. maybe the problem arises if people use these gift links not on the email they used and give the key to someone else?
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Would people please stop listening to such alarmist threads, always blaming Humble links?
He made a dozen giveaways in two days and you seriously think that Humble banned him because of that, while most of us gave hundreds over years?
The real pattern we can observe is that buying a bundle more than once causes restrictions, while we have zero reason to assume that links are responsible, beside people claiming this to be the cause again and again. So far it's just a popular conspiracy theory, nothing more.
Edit: Just read regatem's discovery about this guy being an actual trader. And people freak out because he blames the links instead of him breaking their TOS.
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Well thank you for amusing us with your idea that your very last interaction with goods you bought there must be responsible for your ban, even if it makes far less sense than all your trading being responsible for it.
Sorry buddy, there is no detective necessary for anything of this. Common sense is more than enough.
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Does it make less sense? For me to believe that if I never visited this website, and continued with my activities which I have been doing for far longer, nothing would have happened, just like nothing happened for the last 2 years? Even though it HAS been a month and I have made several purchases since then on my humble account (that I redeemed and played on my steam account), but of course, gifting 10 games couldn't possibly be the reason.
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Oh, the usage of links might have helped them to discover you. But using links for gifts didn't get you banned, that was your trading.
And sorry, but ten activated gift links is nothing special. I gave away up to 30 on one day, with no issues.
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I hope you sent your opt-out form after IGN bought Humble
YOU AND HUMBLE BUNDLE AGREE THAT (A) THERE IS NO RIGHT OR AUTHORITY FOR ANY DISPUTE TO BE ARBITRATED ON A CLASS-ACTION BASIS OR TO UTILIZE CLASS ACTION PROCEDURES; (B) THERE IS NO RIGHT OR AUTHORITY FOR ANY DISPUTE TO BE BROUGHT IN A PURPORTED REPRESENTATIVE CAPACITY OR AS A PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL; AND (C) NO ARBITRATION SHALL BE JOINED WITH ANY OTHER.
You may opt out of this agreement to arbitrate. If you opt out in accordance with this Section, neither you nor Ziff Davis can require the other to participate in an arbitration proceeding. To opt out, you must notify Ziff Davis in writing within thirty (30) days of the date that you first became subject to this arbitration provision. You must use this address to opt out:
Ziff Davis, LLC
ATTN: LEGAL: Arbitration Opt Out
114 5th Avenue
New York, NY 10011
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i it always little scary. I used gift link for a long time to giveaway games, not to trade or something (never traded). But I think i always has a game already on my account when gifting them. Also i dont buy multiple copies of bundles or dont GA them right after buy, But to be sure (but you can never be sure what can trigger such things. maybe generating keys for games you already have can be also bad?) stopped to use gift-links recently. Up to now did not have any problems and hope it will stay this way:).
EDIT: but also I think even iif someone on forum says he dont trade, usually he is trading. And this is most probably reason... But not sure how HB checks it... Hope they have a methods to check, as I did not trade anything and would be safe:)
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There have been many guesses how Humble classifies someone as trader.. But I like theory that when you trade a key to already flagged trader and automatically you get flagged as well.. I dont think they manually check all the purchases, but if the system is automated this would be a good way of catching onto traders.. (which might even explain why some people get banned from only using SG... if a known trader wins a game and recieves gift link that might flag you as well)
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I really dont condone Humbles attitude towards this - banning someone and ignoring them is shitty. But you have to realize there must be some kind of trigger for getting banned. I and many other people here have been giving gift links away many times without problems. Once the winner didnt receive email when claiming gift and support didnt care one bit. I sent them proof of purchase and they resent the gift for winner.
And you have only given 14 games............ I am pretty sure its because you are actually trading the keys and humble only now cought up with you. Dont get me wrong - I really dislike Humble banning people for using gift links a lot and I understand there have been people who actually have been banned from only using SG, but if you are an actual trader why are you angry ? You LITERALLY CANT TRADE what you buy there. Not about logic behind that, but the fact those are rules and there is no surprise you got banned. What kind of lawsuit you want to file here ? That you broke rules and got banned ?
I'm not saying you shouldnt have access to previous purchases. By all logic you should - but I warmly suggest reading through rules and seeing how they view unredeemed content and if theres actually ground for you getting that content. Companies like this will most definitely have that wirtten off so there are no loopholes for you. Btw, you dont get keys when you buy them - you redeem them after and then they generate key or gift link for you. If you are banned it would only seem logical that you cant use the system to generate new keys for you. So you really should look into what you buy and how it is classified. I wouldnt be surprised if its all hideen behind legal mumbo jumbo so they have power over everything on their site. similar as steam not giving you actual games but just licenses for using a product...
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The problem is that generating keys sometimes makes the game region-locked. I'd rather exclude a few people who were banned on HB than everyone outside my region, sorry to be frank. Asking website owners to remove the possibility is outrageous, but maybe that could let you filter out GAs that will provide links instead of keys.
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Not always. A few games generate region locks that don't apply otherwise. Unless they've changed that, but I remember having this issue with an activation key, and after reading about it I ended up getting another bundle and the gift link worked. The problem is that the activation key is supposed to be for you, so it's based on your region and they give you no warning, while the gift links usually warn us of such limitations.
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I don't think that's the problem at all... but could be the source of the problem.
the region lock is always attached to costumers region.
I didn't find any exceptions so far, so no problem there.
but... they could tag you as trader when lots of people of other regions start to redeem your gift links.
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If they do that, they're a bunch of idiots (I wouldn't put them behind that, though). I currently have more friends abroad than in my country (most of them are originally from here, though). And there's giveaways, too. Let's hope they don't do that. I'd suspect, and hope, the OP would be a more aggressive trader for him to be flagged.
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I think the same. Unfortunatelly most people hide their history to validate their arguments. We won't never be able to find a pattern.
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If someone write Hb keys trade stuff for 150 keys at reddit and have a ebay page for key selling... then he should maybe not be surprised if he get flagged as trader "because he gave away stuff at sg" (lol).
With a bit of searching it is easy to find such stuff... special if people use everywhere the same name.
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PLEASE STOP GIFTING HUMBLE LINKS.
My account was suspended today as many people suspected, support haven't even replied to me yet. This was almost a 100% because I started being active here. I unfortunately don't read the discussions much, and it was effectively too late for me when I started making threads here, but I make this post in hope for anyone else not to make this mistake. I REALLY wish the website owners remove the possibility, or at least add a warning to let people know that gifting humble links is a bad thing, because it would have definitely helped prevent my case.
On another note, anyone else recently got suspended? I know at least 5 more people from a different community that did. And maybe someone here not from a third world country able to file a class action lawsuit?
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