Why Online Key Resellers Suck

I decided to do some reasearch into online keysellers (Eg. Kinguin, g2a, because people have been complaining about getting scammed and developers complaining about chargebacks.

TL;DR Don't buy from online key marketplaces unless you want to get scammed by shady sites

(ShamelessPlug: This entire thing was written with MarkTogether by CookieEaters)

I'm going to start with kinguin. According to their website:

Kinguin keeps 100% compliance with international and local laws in every major jurisdiction including the EU Directive 2008/8/EC which provides that VAT on telecommunications, broadcasting and electronic services supplied by a supplier established within or outside the EU to non-taxable persons established within the EU will also be charged in the Member State where the customer belongs.

Ok, they comply with laws. Wait, what laws. That seems to be absurdly generic. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see anything useful in that statement.

Maybe their site is just poorly worded. Let's google "Kinguin reviews". This is what I found: Kinguin.net on Trustpilot.
Let's look at that.

Great 8.0 from 0 - 10

Ok, so maybe this site is legit after all. Just in case let's scroll down and read some of the reviews.

Received bad key. Impossible to get a refund.

Be very wary of this site. Bad Key = No Refund

Oh, wait. They don't give refunds when people get scammed by their sellers? Huh, must be a mistake. Let's read over some of the other reviews.

Huh, most of the positive reviews are on accounts with only one review. Maybe people create an account on a strange site just to give 5* to a shady service? Seems legit.

Let's look at some more sites. This post on reddit seems relevant. Let's read some of the comments.

Bought Diablo III + Reaper of Souls there, got cdkeys in less than 15 minutes, and those worked on Battle.net Seems legit!

Cool, maybe it does work! Wait... The account that posted that made the account a few minutes before the post, and has been inavtive after that. Why do I feel like this company is creating fake accounts to give themselves good reviews???

Final thing: I found [this]() post on reddit, which seems to indacate that support is trying to steal peoples steam accounts. Why would any reputable company do this?

Conclusion: Don't do it. The chance of getting your key revoked is high, and support won't help you get your money back.

Ok, let's look at g2a. They can't both be awful, right?

Again, let's start with g2as website. What's this on the bottom of the page?

WHY ARE WE THE GLOBAL #1?

Oh, ok, they're the global number one. They have to be legit then, right?

Let's look at their testemonials page:

Razer: G2A.com has done an exceptional job on our recent project. The company has a deep expertise in developing solutions, is deadline-oriented and broad-minded. Working with G2A.com is a signature of success!

Oh, cool! Razer approves! Let's just google "Razer g2a" and see what shows up. Wait, nothing? Just razer codes on g2a? Wait, what? If razer really approved of g2a they would have posted it somewhere, right? Ok, whatever. It might just be a mistake.

Let's look at another one:

PayPal: Thanks to the cooperation with one of the leaders in online payments market – PayPal, G2A.com is able to provide secure and user-friendly shopping experience for customers from all over the World. In just a few seconds they can enjoy their favourite games. G2A.com is a trustworthy business partner, that focuses on clients’ satisfaction.

Ok, so PayPal approves too. Wait, 10 seconds of googling seems to deny any evidence of that. It's as if nobody at PayPal ever said that?

Let's look at g2a partners. Wow, there's a lot of those! Wait... What does partner really mean? It means they approve of their methods? Wait, no. It seems they just get paid a lot of money by g2a. Ok then.

Oh, here's something on how g2a didin't care when 400k of games were stolen and sold on g2a.

Unfortunately I'm out of time now :( What are your thoughts on this?