Another reason to not use G2A

Haha! fitting

It's also a theft for banks to reclaim any unused funds if you do not use your bank account after 10 years, it happens and is legal.

It's also a theft for people to reclaim objects in their possession if you leave them there and do not come back to get them, and show no interest for getting them back, it happens and is legal (at least with polish law, and it's also completely fair logically, considering you're not paying for space).

I don't see how website reclaiming virtual funds you have and any other account-related data from your inactivity should be illegal. If I was running a website, I'd do the following:

• Either user is considered active, by using the service (login in last year), or by confirming reminder e-mail asking them if they want to keep their account, also once a year. If any of those two happen, account is free to use and stays active.
• Or user is considered inactive, if my website has any sort of virtual funds or money, I charge him for the storage space he uses. It's indeed not a huge amount, $0.01 per month would probably do.
• Or I'm not having any way to charge the user due to my website not having a concept of virtual funds, in which case I just delete the data that I want from the inactive user. It's my choice at this point what exactly I want to delete, because user rejected to reclaim his account.

Sounds perfectly fair to me. If company wanted to do that, I don't see anything against as the user, it's also fully legal since all ToSes you accept explicitly state that they can remove your account and cancel the service at anytime for no reason at all. Why it's not happening yet then? Because users convenience is worth more than $0.01 monthly for storage, and since it's not common enough for all services to do that, users take it as granted and do not even assume something like that would happen.

This is why I'm not mad at G2A, it's their choice what they want to do, and it's my choice how I perceive their actions. G2A is shit for 99 different reasons, but charging accounts for inactivity isn't one if done the way it's done right now, with half a year + reminder e-mail. You're not entitled to the storage space, infrastructure and maintenance costs associated with your account, every single service could erase your account right now, and that would be scummy and jerk move, offering users a free account if they only confirm their activity, and deleting/charging for it otherwise, is completely fair with me.

This sums it up nicely for me. :-)

^this.

+1. Also, keeping an inactive account probably costs like, 10 cents in a lifetime, something that should be totally covered by that account's past activity if they have $1 available to be stolen...

Well if it was legally enforced then the time would most likely be closer to a month with a mandatory reminder each week. If you don't react to any of 4 e-mails within a month, I do believe that the company has the right to terminate your account from their database. In fact, every company reserves the right to remove your account, they just don't do it because it's not a huge cost to keep unused stuff on the storage, the legal and infrastructure costs are much higher.

Actually, it's making a very good case for not touching any code this person writes.

I agree. In a perfect world, this is what should happen.

But the fact is that companies don't want to just have a huge amount of money that they don't really own to leverage them at all times. The "maintaining of accounts" is just an excuse. Right now there are around 16 billion dollars worth of frequent flyer miles just ready to be used. This is what all the other companies are trying to avoid (take any gift card as an example). An expiration date doesn't leave you financially as unsecured as it will otherwise. Kind of weird how no one sees through that silly excuse to be honest.

Look, I'm not arguing against you really. I'm just saying that pre-payment is a bubble. No one likes a bubble. Best part is, you'll only be charged a certain amount instead of having everything old enough removed from your account like it is with most other virtual currencies.

G2A way is not flawless, if that was me I'd not put it the way they did, I'd most likely go with a year of inactivity + 4 e-mails being sent every week for a full last month before deciding that the user doesn't give a damn and decide for him what I want to do with his data. The concept is not flawed though, and details can be fixed or relaxed.

It's not half a year deadline, it's half a year + a week without you explicitly saying that you're still interested in maintaining an account, read what I wrote above. I don't see anything wrong in you clicking URL confirming that you're still interested in keeping your $10 wal-mart credit each half of the year.

That's crazy! I wonder how much money is just gone forever sitting on gift cards that have been thrown away or destroyed.
It's such a waste, but at the same time it's not the retailers money. They gave it to you, it's yours to do with whatever you please - forever.
On the other side of the coin, going somewhat with what JustArchi said, if walmart would have said - "hey you still have a $10 gift card just fyi "once or even a few times a year - around holidays probably the best time.. you surely would have spent it sooner.

Strange that they cancelled the order (was this online?). I bought a strategy guide in Walmart (in Canada) and it read as being 5 cents. I was able to get it for that price. Also, if an item has the wrong sticker price on it (or they forgot to remove the sticker), that is the price they have to give to us. I'm not sure if that is the case everywhere, or just the local Walmart.

Canada also used to have gift cards being allowed to have an expiry date (you HAD to use the entire amount by a certain time, or funds were either taken from it, or it was made invalid). This was deemed to be wrong, and now gift cards no longer have expiry dates.

It's a good thing you presented us your view and logical arguments against my personal opinion, we all appreciate your very advanced logical process put into your reply, here I've prepared for you 3 optional sentences to use in your next message, to offload a bit your already-occupied brain process, since it seems to struggle a bit with basics of a discussion:

• "lol you must be kidding"
• "how stupid can you be"
• "you're an idiot"

No need to thank me, you can save remaining two for later. All the best!

It's not better for the customer, this goes against what people want and there is no argument for that if you're looking at this from user perspective, exactly the same how all the tax-payers in your country can't possibly consider tax increase as something good for them.

As of why it makes sense, I think this post explains my reasoning.

I'd say that while this is still a dick move, even if microscopic compared to shit they have pulled before and completely legal, taken at face value it makes them look more like financially incompetent morons than pricks, if what they're already making from provisions doesn't cover the maintenance costs.

And this I totally agree with, I never said that what they did is logical from business perspective, or that it can't possibly annoy any user. It does, it annoys everybody, and from a business perspective is a big shot in the foot, but the account deletion/charging for inactivity itself can be fair and alright if done correctly.

True, that guess has nothing to do with logic or any decision-making, that's why doing it non-dick way would be to remind the user that he didn't use the service for that long time, and ask if he's interested in keeping it for another that long time with a simple link click in the e-mail. Done, user said he wants to keep it, we keep it. User didn't click anything, we sent him 3 more e-mails, still nothing, we're safe to assume that the guy is not interested. You could tweak the periods and deadline to be more or less fair, assume for example that user is active for a year, then inactive for another year (during which he can still regain access), and deleted if he hits 3rd one. Details can be fixed and relaxed, but the core concept isn't flawed.

And every company can do whatever it wants with your account on their service, you have it on every ToS, so legally they can already do everything I explained above, including deleting you this very moment from everything, they just decide not to because it doesn't make sense from business perspective, exactly the same how it doesn't make sense from business perspective to implement everything I said above because costs of implementing that mechanism are much higher than storage used by all inactive accounts. This doesn't make the concept logically flawed though, it still makes perfect sense if there was a business reason behind deletion, and the deletion itself is alright if done correctly.

All good things to avoid. :)

...yeah, thanks for the warning. Hadn't realised that.

I guess he's suggesting this because rather sooner than later you end up with a support ticket about payments and they suggest you to use g2a pay...

Be like water my friend.

Reasonable. Didn't try to sound mean or anything. It's just that G2A is already digging its own grave. No need to rush it along with things that can be used in their favour :D

Well, that's a different service though. One's a subscription just like Amazon Prime, Audible, Humble Monthly, WoW Subscription or whatever else.

One's an inactivity fee on holding virtual currency that's just being removed 1€ per month after inactivity of 180 days to prevent mass losses through credit. Not a cool thing to do, mind you, but you're also not putting in thought over credit then.
The other is a service that you purchase periodically and that you're charged for each period as per due to your contract with them.

No matter what your thoughts are on the product, you should realize that not all products are equal... Or would you also equate buying a game on Steam to buying a Humble Monthly based on its monetization? If so, then you're sadly extremely mistaken here and you're basically comparing an apple to a brick right now.

But yeah... "OUCH!" :P

Paypals or Credit cards are real money, not G2A wallet. They know they will face serious problems if they charge Paypal or Credit cards without your consent.