Anybody else have this issue with Humble Bundle
original thing i sent them was
I gave a gift link for DiRT Rally (https://www.humblebundle.com/gift?key=XR4ZzKcyYaCkqamq) to a friend and it says it's been redeemed. It was part of Humble Codemasters Racing Bundle 2017! (https://www.humblebundle.com/downloads?key=E5HkkEcm4FddrESr) which i purchasedComment has been collapsed.
I'd say they assumed you're a keyseller because you are writing them now about gifting a key purchased in 2017.
And you're giving it away on steamgifts, which is something they also don't support.
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I was wondering that too, Gifting is different to trading & reselling which is what they are accusing me of though
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explain the difference, since at the end of a giveaway you end up gifting a game to a person.
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something given voluntarily without payment in return, as to show favor toward someone, honor an occasion, or make a gesture of assistance; present.- you gain something in return (be it CV, group ratio, SGT ratio, getting whitelisted etc)
- you don't know who is gonna end up winning, so it's hard to say it's given as a favor to someone or to honor him/ocassion if you don't even know who this someone is going to be
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Semantics after all, when you gift someone "irl" you also get "gratification" in return, and gratification comes in many forms.
When a person wins a giveaway I made, I still can choose and judge if I want to gift that person the game, accepting of course, the consequences of not fulfilling as per the site's rules. Luckily I haven't come across someone who has made me do that.
Different interpretations mine and yours, we could discuss this for hours but lets leave it at this... good day!
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given official dictionary definition, your response? 'semantics'. Typical - given hard evidence against your statement, you cannopt accept it so you dispose it as 'just semantics'. These are not just semantics - basic idea of gifting is that there is nothing is return, GAs is a system, where by definition there is some return for each GA you make, which is obvious, because we want to encourage people to make GAs, and it's totally fine, I love this system, but calling it gifting, charity, no return, no benefits etc is pure hipocrysy. If you want to be just charitable - choose a random person yourself and gift them game, not do it on a site where you will profit from it.
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why do you have to be so agressive over this lmao? chill out dude.
like he said different interpretations lol, opinions aren't fact.
plz enjoy day
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I guess the name of this site -- steamgifts -- is also hypocrisy?
So do you think giving away a free game is more charitable than giving away bundled or unbundled games because you get nothing in return for giving away a free game. Honestly who do you think is more giving and charitable: the person that makes a GA for Dead Bits (free game) or the person that makes a GA for Far Cry 5? According to your argument the person who gives away FC5 is less giving and charitable than the person who gives away Dead Bits because of the CV. Do you really believe this?
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Steam Gifts were a name of things you purchased on Steam Store, which you could gift but also use for GAs. In the beggining keys were not allowed on SG afaik, so name comes from item. Gift and Gifting can have different definitions.
Also no, nowhere did I say that giving away a free game is either less or more charitable than giving bundle game, because neither is charitable. Making GAs is using a system which can also profit you, it is not charity, neither small nor big charity. So if we have 2 things that are not charity at all, they cannot be more or less charitable. To put it into real life perspective - if you donate money to a charity organization then your main purpose is to be charitable and you do charity. If you buy a loterry ticket hoping to win 1million dollars out of which 2% of proceeds goes to some charity you are not charitable, your main purpose is to win 1mil$, if it was not instead of wasting 5$ on loterry ticket and donating 10 cents for charity this way you would donate 5$ to charity. And it doesn't matter if you buy 1 ticket for 5$ or 10 tickets for 50$ - neither is charitable, nor more nor less, because main purpose is still to win money.
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You don't profit from giving away free games. You get no CV, nothing in return. That's why I used that example. Giving away to charity organizations is not completely selfless either because your donations can be tax-deductible. So that could be considered not "pure" charity either. You're really getting into some philosophical argument about what true charity is. If you get love and gratitude and self-esteem in return for charity did you not get something in return, which depending on who you talk to could be worth more than any credit or monetary value?
Anyways I don't want to get too deep into this discussion. My point is I disagree with you in general about what gifting or a giveaway is.
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Damn, didn't expect you to be so butthurt for such a meaningless thing, different ways of living I guess, cheers!
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Weird, maybe they assumed you're a trader because of the comments on your profile? Doesn't make it right, just trying to figure out why they give you that nonsense :/.
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Or just for having multiple keys given as gifts from bundles, the HB suport probably can check people history when checking that stuff.
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Yeah, they probably just checked his link gifting and purchase history.
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Do u linked ur Steam account to HB? They compare bought on HB and activated on Steam games I guess.
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Wow, never heard of anything like that. But no matter the circumstances, they aren't allowed to sell non-functional keys.
I don't know the background, so I'm not siding with anyone, but you should get your money back when the product doesn't work.
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Really? Happens all the time. Every month there's a new topic about someone getting this same generic copy-paste response.
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Huh, thanks for the heads up then. I only recently started being more active here..
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Yeah, I'm surprised HIB still has the trust of so many people. IGN is ruining their rep really fast, but most folks just refuse to see it.
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I really don’t see what changed since the ign purchase
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This has always been their policy, and as far as I know was their response well before IGN was in the picture. The fact they don't support trading / reselling (which to them includes running giveaways on sites like this) is not something new.
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Just FYI, a few of those previous similar threads on "Humble Bundle jackarses" 🙃:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/XJS0V/help-with-humble-support
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/BGCkv/hb-glitched-gift-links-wont-be-restored
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/0OVYq/humble-bundles-politics-about-givingaway-and-attitude-to-this-important-problem-with-support
And also:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.humblebundle.com
https://reviewopedia.com/humble-bundle-reviews
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Seems like loyalty or support don't mean anything anymore, huh... Well, it's hard for me to avoid them, when they have as good deals as the current monthly, so I'm not sure what to do about that situation
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As you say, they're hard to avoid... and they know it, which is why they're now abusing it like this :/
What I do is I only buy bundles and set the donation to 100% custom charity (this way, as a bonus I support my favorite charities more ^^)
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Great, I might steal that idea! I just hope that they actually send out a 100% of it then. Wouldn't be surprised if not, though..
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Make new account with vpn and new paypal, problem solved ez clap xd
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they mark you as re-seller when keys you bought activated on multiple steam accounts. so when you give your key away you're fucked :) safest way is to send gift through humblebundle system.
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Yeah pretty sure I've always used their "Gift to friend" system in the past, idk maybe one i didn't though and now it's flagged my account you think
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safest way is to send gift through humblebundle system
Do you mean the gift to a friend option that humble has next to the reveal key? If so looking at OP's recent comment that's exactly what he used. Also humble should not be able to see who and on what account activated a key (only the developer of the game and valve should be able to do that) however they can totally see who and on what account used that specific gift link and every post on any site I've seen about this problem has involved gifts links.
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they can totally see who and on what account used that specific gift link
Yeah, when you claim a gift link, it's claimed by the receiving account, so they can see who claims it.
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keys you bought activated on multiple steam accounts
They can't see that.
send gift through humblebundle system.
Instead that's how they see wide distribution
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Either Chloe is an alias Humble gives to all their Support members to save them from repercussions or this is an hilariously unlikely coincidence. I've seen the same thread, almost to the letter, here on SG before and that case was also handled by Cloe.
Also I vaguely remember a thread about somebody named Cloe from Steam Support deleting the wrong game after somebody send a ticked to remove an unwanted game from their Library (maybe she changed company :D) I might be wrong about the name... that was ages ago in the beforetime.
Ohhhh Chloe... You dun goofed up again xD
Also on a sidenote: This happens decisively too often recently... If I ever run into a dupe from Humble I'll probably just let it go to avoid getting tagged as a reseller as well.
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If I ever run into a dupe from Humble I'll probably just let it go to avoid getting tagged as a reseller as well.
I thought the same thing after reading this thread and the others like it. -_-
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I'm not entirely sure if it has something to do with the IGN takeover but this seems to be their usual M.O. recently. This must be at least the 3rd time I've heard exactly the same story.
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Eh, not sure I buy the whole IGN thing, but it's not entirely impossible, either. I believe this was an inevitability given how big the grey market is.
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This is really unfair. I'd want either a working key or my money back. They have no right to sell something they won't provide.
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I was gonna post the same Archer quote with a picture from Malory Archer to another comment above but apparently that meme has not been made yet (or I just can't find it) and I'm too sleepy to make one right now (also it's probably too long for a Meme picture).
If "ifs" and "buts" were candy and nuts, we'd all have a merry Christmas.
I know it sucks but they do it because they can and they know nobody is gonna sue them over it because it's just not worth the effort.
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Let's hope this happens to a (potential) lawyer that has the guts to do so. Lol.
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I always assumed Humble has dozens if not hundreds of Support techs but in reality it's probably not that many.
It's probably an order from above and their general new M.O., so not her fault, but I'd still suggest we'd let a hat go round and get her a pack of that treebark tee that helps relieve monthly unwellness.
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Luckily I never had to deal with Humble support so far so I have to rely on hearsay but when I started using SG I always kept hearing how great Humble support was and in a couple cases replacing keys where even I would say No way.
Contrary to IndieGala where according to Sooth and a couple other people they can delete your account because they don't like your face / avatar.
Edit:
Luckily I never had to deal with Humble support so far
On 2nd thought that's not true. They fucked me over with that Bundle that advertised Wasteland 2 Digital Collectors Edition but actually just gave the standard Edition which has even less content than the standard version they sell on Steam. Their response was basically: "We're sorry. Our mistake. We don't intend to do anything about it."
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Edit:
Luckily I never had to deal with Humble support so far
On 2nd thought that's not true. They fucked me over with that Bundle that advertised Wasteland 2 Digital Collectors Edition but actually just gave the standard Edition which has even less content than the standard version they sell on Steam. Their response was basically: "We're sorry. Our mistake. We don't intend to do anything about it."
what the..
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I've updated my original comment with a screenshot of the Support ticket and link to the Bundle thread here on SG just in case you're curious.
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Now the chargeback would be correct answer to that... But all the previous purchases are also connected to one account...
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I briefely considered that but I think it wouldn't even have been necessary. I'm 98% positive I could have insisted on a refund (which Humble by the way didn't offer out of their own volition) had I wanted to, due to the fact that what I received was not what was advertised when I purchased the Bundle. But since I only paid ~ 5,50€ for the BTA tier and the fact I still kinda wanted the game even without all the extras and Wasteland + Bards Tale I decided against it and instead decided to keep their unprofessional behavior and poor customer support in mind for future purchases and be extremely vocal about it.
Makes me worry about my memory that I almost forgot about the whole thing and said I never had to deal with them :D
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??
Sending automated copy pasted replies is a practice often done by support from many companies.
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How do you know any of this is true other than hiring real people? Obviously real robots wouldn't exist but you're claiming they hire more than one real person without knowing how they actually work (unless you worked for them)
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avoid getting tagged as a reseller as well.
Where's the benefit there when you don't get your keys replaced either way?
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Long story short: One consideration was the old "insult to injury" thing but I guess the more important reason is I don't entirely trust Humble not to delete (not ban, delete) the accounts of people they deem resellers one day far into a dystopian future once they've completely gone supervillian evil and most of my keys aren't backed up to spreadsheet yet. It seems extremely unlikely for Humble but afterall IndieGala has done it before.
But since talgaby pointed out that EU customers apparently maybe get preferential treatment due to better legal protection it might still be worth a shot contacting them about dupes (if you're from the EU). I'll just hope all my keys are still good then the question gets rendered mute.
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+1 :(
Humble has been stressing me out for weeks orz.
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Weeeeeell, I just had a successful support case with them resolved last week. One of over half a dozen by now. And I kinda gift a lot of Humble links here.
Then again, I am an EU citizen and it is legal here to even sell the keys I get from them. Maybe this could be a reason. Or me leaving some money at them each month.
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"It should be noted that both trading and reselling keys on the “grey market” affects the industry’s ability to flourish and support our awesome developers and marketplaces like Humble Bundle, as noted in this article here."
lol
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Yeah we've had threads about this a few times. It was pointed out that they don't know what the word personal means.
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i got 3 invalid keys and had to replace them for winners (top cv farming here, replacing them costed me 7 times what i paid for full bundles).
didn't even bother with their useless support because i know they will say the same stupid thing to everyone.
at least they confirmed i won't ever spend a single cent in their trash store.
it seems all the complains about ign were right.
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I hope that Fanatical will destroy them with good bundles in near future ;)
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for me they already destroyed it. i've spent 4-5 times more on fanatical than humble
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Hmm I'm not sure but I think this is illegal, at least in Germany and/or the EU. In Germany there was a case about reselling software and it was ruled that everyone can resell their software if they want to because the judge dismissed the shit argument that you only buy a license to use it and not the software.
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I bought a ton of low tier donations to give to friends during a staff pick bundle and a handful of the gift links were insta redeemed... I also didn't want to bother with giving them a reason to fuck with anything in the future so I let it go.
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HB seem to have or had real issues with security of their gift links...
Now that I think, it might be some sort of autogenerated pattern/hash... And now if I cared I could try to iterate those...
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Well if the key isn't working, then ask them for a refund...
They should give you the refund because if they revoked the key [which they did] and they accepted that.
In that case you can ask for a refund for that WHOLE BUNDLE
Because in either case you've PAID FOR THE PRODUCT, and they didn't gave you the key to which you're ENTITLED.
In addition, if you've the DIRT RALLY key, contact steam support with that key, and ask them whether it has been REVOKED or REDEEMED on another account, If they say that it has been "REVOKED BY THE PUBLISHER or DEVELOPER" take the screenshot, and ask humble immediately for a refund.
And if they don't initiate it within a week, then i guess you should take legal counselling.
Because CUSTOMER RIGHTS NEED TO BE PROTECTED...i think
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Steam Support will not give you details whether key got revoked or redeemed, but this you can check yourself ;) Revoked keys will say they are 'Invalid' while redeemed will say they are 'duplicate' :)
As for refund - I would be cautious. They by default deny any refunds, you can open PayPal dispute or do CC chargeback then, but if you do they will close your entire HB account including all of your previous not redeemed keys/gifts. There's been several topics about it in the past. They have no right to do so byt they will. And tbh what will you do? Go to court in different country, different continent against a giant media moloch? No you won't and noone will because it would cost much much more than few duplicate keys or even your entire account does :/
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Steam support can tell you when a particular key was redeemed. I asked a few months ago and they told me.
I needed that to get a refund from Gamivo.
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If you activate in client and not in the website do you still have it this way? Because client always did differentiate it for me plus browser activation tends to bug quite often (i often get bugs and the outs, when in client it never happens).
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I did not take the screenshot when I tried it and I got a replacement key now so it just tells me I own it, but I am 99,99% sure it said dupe as well.
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like I said - I don't judge, but I cannot change my mind without evidence, and from everything I've seen so far all keys that are commonly known to be revoked reported Invalid in client, not Duplicate.
It could also be a case of website you bought key from screwing up - they gave same key to two different buyers, 1st buyer activated first, so you got dupe and they replaced your key. Was it a key for sth that was widely reported as being mass revoked?
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Mass revoked keys, reported by the site selling them themselves. If you don't own Die With Glory I can give you the key in question and you can test and see what it tells you.
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I guess when someone is selling something in another country, the laws of that country are applicable to the SELLING WEBSITE, and i guess the end user is entitled for a refund, and if humble doesn't provide it, then it's a CLEAR VIOLATION OF CONSUMER RIGHTS.
I guess the best thing would be, to contact humble and ask humbly :D for a refund, at least 3 times
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I am not saying it is not violation of consumer rights, I do fully agree with you here, what I am saying is that a big company from USA will still be happy to violate your consumer rights because they are well aware that there is really nothing you can do to them personally. A single consumer will not take a court battle with a big company (especially big now, after aqusition by IGN) over a few dollars. It's sad but it's true.
It's like when EU ruled in 2012 that Steam cannot stop you from reselling games from your account and cannot bind them to your accout forever. All Valve did was retroactivelly change their rules to sya 'you don't own any of the games you purchase' and now, 6 years later, still nothing changed in the matter.
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WHAT, you're trying to say that all the games i purchased, i don't own a copy of that??
You're probably right, but i believe that we shall never underestimate the power of one consumer,
I checked with one of my friend and the penalty for CONSUMER FRAUD is $250000, if proven..
Well i guess, he should go for that :D :D
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first of all any kind of penalty is not given out as XYZ byt rather in range. So no, it's probably not $250000 but UP TO $250000 and I doubt anyone would receive $250000 penalty over a product that is worth 1-2$. Top penalties are reserved probably for biggest offences, like frauds with very expensive houses or real estates for example. And second, still - you gotta win in copurt in the first place, and you're up against IGN, a company which depending on different agregators is worth between 700mil and 1bil dollars, imagine lawyers they can afford and now imagine lawyers you can afford for a case over a single game worth 1-2$ or a bundle worth 10$ ;p
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And i guess it's time to UNITE EVERYONE, i think we should create a DEDICATED POST to all these, create a group in steam regarding the same, and once it reaches 1000, then i guess, we've the number and the power to prove our innocence.
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how does number of random users prove anyone's innocence? ;p there are tens of thousands of traders on ST alone, so easy counterargument would be that if you have 1000 people signing such a thing they are most likely all traders profiting from it.
Also why do you think it would make any difference? When Valve disabled purchase of gift copies to inventory there were tens of thousands of signs under petitions against it, and it resulted in nothing at all. And you believe 1000 signs would make a change? ;p
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Wow, that's a bummer, sorry. I've never personally had a non-working key from humble, and after reading this thread I wouldn't contact them about it if I did. Luckily I don't have many unused keys in my HB account, and with the quality of their bundles lately it's looking to stay that way.
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That's pretty pathetic of them, it's their responsibility to provide you with a working key. Gifting is allowed, so what if you chose to gift it to a random person? Forbidding trading is also stupid. I got x game I dislike as part of a bundle and want y game. Another user got y and want my x. We can't trade though, the humble bundle police forbid it!
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At this time, we will not be able to reset your keys or assist with any future requests for key resets.
That part was my favorite part of their email , and the reason i aint buying shit from them anymore .
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I assume if you have keys activated NOT by your account associated with humble they assume you are selling and not gifting?
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Nah they have gift links. Also they wouldn't be able to track which exact key activated a product.
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They have that braindead policy that even if you create giveaways here , you are still profiting from the keys and that makes you a Re-Seller .
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Your Steam profile has a link to your Steamtrades page. That alone marks you a trader/reseller.
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Links are there thanks to Enchanced Steam. And OP has only 1 rep from 2 years ago and not single trade.
Also people can use banter or sell games on groupbuys. So it doesn't prove anything. It's just that HB don't want to give new links to some people so they tag them all as traders, posting this copy-pasted response every time.
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the whole situation is really strange since powers that be (Valve) has actively implemented a function for trading. While it is true that this is only supposed to be for games bought directly through Steam (at higher prices normally), this seems to contradict Humble's position
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Did you create that gift link right before you gifted it, or has it been a gift link for days/weeks/months? Apparenlty people had problems when they save their gift links to redeem at a later point, that's why I never create gift links at humble bundle unless I trade/give them right after I creating them.
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So what do they expect us to do with their keys, then? I have about 300 covered keys on various bundle sites as most bundles will have at least one game I already own. Many of my friends are also 'collectors' so probably would also own the extras so wouldn't want the gifts. Steam inventories are broken after a certain number of games so I can't check very easily. I can't be bothered to deal with these keys right now but it feels like a shame to just leave them there to rot forever. Why can't I swap them for some other games that are doubles for someone else so we both get a full bundle's worth of games for our money? So basically, they're just 'dead' keys, then? Great :/ I always assumed since they give you the 'gift' option they are fine with you, er, gifting. I didn't realise that they were policing it into 'good gifting' and 'bad gifting'. I don't really like the way they accuse you of 'hurting the industry' either. Way to talk to someone who's a customer of your site and helping to support indie devs/give to charity etc. :(
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So I contacted Humble for the first time about a Key not activating and i got this in Return
====================================
Chloe (Customer Service)
Jul 19, 9:26 AM PDT
Hello there,
Thanks for getting back in touch and providing that information to me!
Unfortunately, it has become apparent you are an active key trader/reseller. Please be aware that purchases made through Humble Bundle are meant for personal use only. We do not support the exchanging of Steam keys or the trading of games. Additionally, we in no way support the trading or reselling of games purchased through Humble Bundle as this is a violation of our Terms of Service.
It should be noted that both trading and reselling keys on the “grey market” affects the industry’s ability to flourish and support our awesome developers and marketplaces like Humble Bundle, as noted in this article here. While the practice of reselling damages trust from developers, it should also be noted that a majority of resold/obtained games in this arena are purchased with stolen personal information. Ultimately, this practice negatively impacts the developers, Humble Bundle, and gamers all at once when these titles are found to be fraudulent purchases.
We highly recommend against this practice for a number of reasons and have explained in detail why this practice is dangerous for all involved in a blog post.
At this time, we will not be able to reset your keys or assist with any future requests for key resets.
All the best,
-Chloe
Humble Bundle
http://support.humblebundle.com/
I'm pretty Angry that Humble accuses me of trading their Keys & see me as an issue with the industry, which I've never traded or resold their keys, how they can make such claims with no evidence? I use to really like Humble Bundle And saw it as a opportunity to support devs, charity, get some cool games for myself & give games to others but now I have such a different view of them
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