set level restrictions on your GAs, the lower the level, the higher the chances some problems occur with your winners
maybe you'll find this information useful
but i could also be your seller, sellers on greymarket usually have a rating, if the rating is bad it could be your seller
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+1 for this. Please go for level 3 at least and help the community
why am I blacklisted? I was a bad boy sometime in the past?
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it's nothing personal just your GA's going to a small group of people, i don't like the idea that ppl can win from me, but me not from them
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Thank you to make me understand. But how this is work? Do you check every user one by one or is there a site? Do you sometimes revise your decision or this is the end for those users? I hope I don't offend you with these questions, I'm just truly curious
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But what could have been then?
The winner(s) could have lied and activated the game on one of their other accounts or traded/sold it.
I don't say it is the case but it isn't so rare on sg. So a possibility.
Is there something I should do to narrow the chances of that ever happening to me again?
Set/raise a min. level restriction for public GAs to lower, drastical, the problems with winners. I recommend, at least, level 3.
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That would imply that 4 random people agreed out of nowhere to lie about it. I don't see that having happen.
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I agree - tho there might occasionaly be users capable of such misbehaviour, I highly doubt that they´d survive long on this site, plus as you said 4 at once is more than improbable.
It´s rather highly likely you received faulty keys at purchase, ofc depending on where you got them. Buying privately always poses a risk and unfortunately not all keysites are the same. Some being more trustworthy than others.
But as hallak65 put it in the next post, maybe where you got the keys from has functional support and you can still reclaim your purchase..?
Good Luck :)
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It give users that do it since years... so sadly some survive very long because you can't proof that someone lie about a dupe key, if he activated the game on a other account.
Only if the gifter question steam and steam give a "activation time" of the key, it could raise questions if the time is short after the win.
But still than, it isn't enough as evidence till you have more as one case. Maybe 2, maybe 4.
But how many gifters do question steam and writing the sg support ?
The most don't do sgtools checks of their winners... so i have strong doubts that many invest time to write steam.
But yes, 4 different winners that say the keys aren't ok, doesn't sound as a "scam try".
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I wrote in general and not for one special case.
And i don't looked if you speak from 2 winners or 100.
And yes, that 4 different/random people would try the same is not the very likely.
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If the winner lies, it is easy to find out, if their game list is public. If not, just ask them to make it public. If they don't want to, they are lying.
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Most people who would lie about about a won giveaway key turning out dupe wouldn't activate the game on the account used during registration.
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No, the lie isn't easy to proof.
Because they activate the win on a other account, so making their winner account public show that they don't own the game, which would fit to a "dupe key".
Read the rest above:
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/YGkiJrQ
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buy keys from trusted sources like fanatical or HumbleBundle. Where did you buy those keys? Is there any support there? Most key sites have one.
Keys sometimes got revoke, you can't do anything about that.
If giveaway key doesn't work you can still ask the winner's permission to delete the giveaway so you don't have to buy new key.
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I know but the game is chap and I wanted the winners to get it. I got it in k4g and their support team is been great so far. It's just this time that things have turn bad. They say that they have issued a complaint to the reseller that distributed the key. But I'm not sure how things are gonna turn.
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I like k4g. But that's a marketplace where different sellers are, and not the site sells keys directly. Check their stats before you buy, not just buy the first offer. Because k4g is a market place there are fail-safes in order, like the seller doesn't get your money for a time, so you have the opportunity to ask for a refund.
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I also like the webstie, like I said, in general I had a great experience, is just this incident. And now that I have a likely answer of what caused it. I'm more calm. It's just human error. No malice at all.
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Keep in mind the seller would want proof of the failed activation in form of screenshots. It should be mandatory for winners on SG claiming their keys are duplicates to proof it via screenshots. This way it would be made easier to reclaim the money.
As there are way to many foxes in the hen house it's sound advice to level gate your giveaways to avoid possible issues.
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In addition to what others have said, you could ask the winner(s) to show a screenshot of the duplicate code question that includes their account name i it (for verification purposes). That being said, the other advice that has already been given is best practice.
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I haven't really looked into the new Steam UI revamp yet but if I remember correctly the duplicate notification does not include the key.
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Don´t remember exactly how it looks in the client, but when you try to activate via a browser (e.g. with the redeem-link provided by SG) I´m pretty sure it does show the key you tried plus the unable to activate message in the top left.
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Yeah, that would make sense. I always activate my keys via client.
When I got back into Steam activating games through browser wasn't a thing yet and when they added it it had already become a habit 😅
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It still does in the browser. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to ask someone to do that. So if the key was from a legit shop and the winner is telling the truth you could try to get a replacement key or refund from said shop.
I haven't had this type of situation happen to me yet though.
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Yeah, I didn't know the browser shows the duplicate notification and the used key both at the same time so that's on me.
The problem with this method is in the extremely rare cases when somebody lies about duplicate keys they generally don't activate the games on the account they used during registration 🙁
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I would ask them to show a screenshot like this. Wallet balance blocked out if wanted, like I did in this example.
But again, the other advice here is best practice. This is just a sort of "last case scenario" suggestion.
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I'm assuming that the seller sold me used keys.
If that's an option sticking to reputable Bundle sites like Humble Bundle, Fanatical and for the most part IndieGala greatly reduces the risk of running into duplicate / invalid keys.
Groupees and GoGo Bundle should also be ok but are not as reliable.
I've done 580 giveaways and the only time two of my winners reported duplicates were keys I purchased from G2A.
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I had 2x revoked keys + 1x a dupe key with IG and they replaced only 1.
The other times they came around with "the purchase is older as 60 days, not our problem anymore. Contact the dev by your own and hope the best".
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Fanatical Sanctuary bundle had unused Redeemer keys revoked recently.
https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/0DjDh5k
I'd ask for a refund if I were you.
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That actually looks like a perfectly reasonable explanation. Many thanks.
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You could ask the winner to ok deletion of the giveaway. If I'd have won in that situation it'd be fine with me. I think I've done it before. I understand lots of keys get cancelled now if not used fairly quickly, so it's understandable. Or sometimes due to bad record-keeping people mistakenly list something that's already activated. I've mixed up keys only once and had to double-buy a bundle to fix it, but honestly I'd be fine with deletion if I was a game winner in that scenario. People giving away keys shouldn't have to spend more money due to a screwup imho. I know others would disagree.
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I would agree with you when the gifter is somebody else. But is hard for me to do it when it's my turn I guess. I just wanted to make the winners happy.
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Nah..I would advice against setting higher levels as suggested in the comments (lvl 2 is fine imo). What's the fun in that...It becomes a GA circle-jerk. Higher level users can also turn out to be a hassle.
I'd advise you to share the gibs as invite only (SGTools, ratio restrictions) in the discussions or in some vetted group. If you know for sure that your keys are legit. Real users who like games dont often create problems.
If your source of keys are shady. Id suggest making less GAs and preferring legit sources. Even if it means you are less active here. At least you will have a peace of mind.
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I was actually planing on make my next giveaway in a discussion with a jigidi. And I'm probably gonna stick to it, with some exceptions. And I would say that the sites i use are legit, it was just human error this time. And if i turn out to be wrong, I'll deal with it with the best of my abilities.
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Oh yea! You mentioned about the Jigidi in my recent gib! Looking forward to it 🤝
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I would say that the sites i use are legit
"Legit" might be the wrong word here 😅
The marijuana I purchase from my drug dealer has so far worked 100% of the time but that doesn't make her a legitimate businesswoman.
😆
All theoretical of course 😅
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I know how is it to be "a little" paranoiac, happened with me when I was making my first train. Don't be discouraged, that was not your fault!
Jigidi are cool, I like them. hope everything works out for your next giveaway, dear person! 💙
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Update: K4G give me a refund. And I suspect that telling them what Greativity said played a part on it to happen. Thanks to everybody.
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I made a giveaway and the keys ended up being duplicated ones, so at the end I decided to buy another set of keys to give to the winners. And I would like to avoid doing that in the future. The problem is that now I'm a little paranoiac. I'm assuming that the seller sold me used keys, but what if that wasn't the case, what if something else happen? I'm certain that no one as touched my computer. But what could have been then? Is there something I should do to narrow the chances of that ever happening to me again?
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