More and more people are trading HB for just 2tf2 keys...even less.Some do it for 1tf2 key or a few cards(10-30).

First question..Is it safe buying from them?

Second question...Can one get in trouble for dealing with those guys?

Almost every trader that does this has a lot of rep in a short time span,but not once was he reported.No games or HB pages are disappearing and no one complains.So what's the deal?

11 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

We usually say that nadie da duros a cuatro pesetas

So beware. It's at least fishy until someone explains it. My theories range from money laundering to the Illuminati.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

boy that's escalated quickly

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Maybe you ought to lay low for a while

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Illuminati seems legit.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Your comments are really funny....not like the usual ones you see on this forum.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Considering you are hated by almost half the population of the site I don't really know if I should take that as a praise or an insult. :-/

No offense meant, of course <3

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

xD

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Ya lo dijo Quevedo Lo bueno si breve dos veces bueno

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Aliens. Nailed on.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

+1 aliens run the illuminati anyway so it always comes to aliens

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

¿Cuál es la equivalencia duro = peseta?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Un duro son 5 pesetas. Era la forma de llamar a la moneda de 5 ptas, nada más.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Templar do that, i;m sure about that

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

nadie da duros a cuatro pesetas

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

nadie da duros a cuatro pesetas man. Also, potatoes. Also also, never buy anything off of randoms. Also also also, Beiber Fever is euphoric.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

beaver fever....mmmm...

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

First of all, trading HB is against the HB ToS afaik (and is just low imo, but anyway). Secondly, if they are trading the regular non-BTA HB, its easy profit for them since they bought it for $1 when it was on sale, and now selling them for even 1 TF2 key (which is around $1.75 in the steam market as I recall) nets them something.

Seriously, stop supporting these people :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

they are selling BTA bundles for 2 tf2 keys or 20 cards..one guy was selling bta bundles for 10-15 cards.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That is quite fishy indeed. :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

wow, you don't get it, do you?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Hmm apparently I don't and you do. Good for you.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Generally, without considering the specific case pointed out in this thread, I don't think trading a gift-url is against the Humble Bundle's Terms of Service. Are you sure? Trading individual keys from a bundle surely it's against the terms.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It's something I'm trying to figure out for a while, but couldn't find anything since this thread. I guess no one wants to share the info, and people on SteamTrades are not asking questions, they just happy with their cheap bundles...

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It makes me so curious..tons of people all of the sudden selling 5-6 dollar bundles for less than 3 dollars worth of stuff(keys/cards).

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well, rule #1: Keys go first, never send item first, be careful about impersonators (they copy other's avatars, usernames, you can easily check his/her aliases, ask for his steamtrade account, after he gives link, click through steamtrades to profile and see if he is in your friendlist, its him, but if the page says you are not friend with him yet, he is probably scammer). And also he may contact steam support and cancel the key, but its not good for him, because keys wont be used again.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

people who trade cheap bundles like this usually have high rep and not a single person complains even after weeks..so they are clearly trading fairly and not looking to scam people.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I thought u didnt have much experience about trading, but u seem to have, well my question is, if u think they are trading fairly, why u still ask that can you trust? I'm sorry is this puzzle :D i suck at puzzles :D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Because they are selling a bundle that can only be bought for $6 for $3. It's fishy because people normally don't trade to lose money....

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

not necessarily... BTA prices change though. It may have been possible that they got a whole bunch of them at its lowest price point? Either that or they are stocking up on keys and/or cards in the hopes that their value will increase at some point OR they want to get rid of their inventory because its bothering them ^^

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

There are $6 fixed prices for weekly sales.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

The guy is selling Nordic and Focus weekly sales, which were fixed at $6

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

ooo, thats suspicious :/

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I never said I have or I don't have experience in trading but they APPEAR to trade fairly since no one complains about their services even after weeks.so the pages are legit and the games are legit but they are still selling a 6 dollar bundle for less than 3 dollars.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

its Beat The Arbitrarily set number not Beat The Average these days. its fixed at $6 now and doesn't change

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If its bta, you are likely to get a key bought with a stolen credit card, and apparently steam will most likely remove the games from your library. I know this from personal experience and a chat with humble support. I'm right now asking humble support if they can do anything about it, sine i have screenshots of the trade and conversation, but i don't have my hopes up. Don't trade, you will get scammed, as others said, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Steam can't prove that the game was bought with a stolen credit card since the payment goes to HB and they provide the keys..HB must first report the fraud to steam.And it would be a pain for HB to do that since the bundles are most likely bought with bitcoins and this currency cannot be tracked since it is anonymous.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

They told me that the keys will most likely be removed because the bundle was bought fraudulently. Do you think i shouldn't contact steam support until they remove the games :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I have never seen a person report a page missing/games being removed from HB.And HB never reported anything.Those guys probably bought thousands and thousands of bundles so I doubt HB is not getting their money,because they would have figured it out by now.They either launder money or found a breach.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Just because you haven't seen a user reporting missing games, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Also, why would HB report to you or anybody else when they remove games bought with stolen credit cards? The page key doesn't exist, he didn't give me one, and he blocked me what i asked him to resend the link to his email and then send me. From what i have heard from those that were given the bundle page link, it just gets removed and says: the bundle was bought with a stolen credit card, and something else, i don't recall

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Oh, and just so you know i got scammed by the guy you traded with, i saw you commented on his steamtrades post. We are most likely in the same boat.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I'm pretty sure Humble can and will have Steam deactivate keys, but there's no telling when that's gonna happen.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Unless you seriously cover your tracks, bitcoins usually can be tracked. The anonymity of bitcoins is a mostly exaggerated internet myth.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i do sell humble bundles when requested, and i only trade after i get the key (tf2 key) first from the guy who wants it, and never trade first

"First question..Is it safe buying from them?"
you gotta make sure it's safe. if you doubt that guy is safe to trade with, then dont do it.
having 2000 comments on your profile with +rep from doing SAFE TRADES doesnt mean anything

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

People are trading BTA humble Bundles ($6) for 2 TF2 keys ($4). This is why the OP is asking why it's fishy. No matter how much rep someone has, it just doesnt make sense why they would sell a bundle for less money than it costs to buy.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i get it now
its fishy indeed, id be more careful with those kind of traders, check comments from his trading thread or smth, or probably add some of his buyers and ask how the trade went etc.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well im currently giving HB nonBTA for one key and my doing it mostly to help people who have no paypal.

The people who selling BTA bundles for 2 keys or even less seriously cant understand them either. Its like giving about 3$ to a stranger.So im guessing either they are charitable either stolen cards and stuff like that the other people posted here.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Some people really like HB, and you can donate for charity with it.

SO of course some people are going to end up with a bunch of HBs, because instaed of donating $40 for one set of keys, they get a few extra sets.

To them, these are now worthless except to trade or give away.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

High rep traders trade for profit. This means to say that somehow they are making profit by selling bundles for below what we could buy for.

One of the guys has 60+ rep from trading BTA bundles. He says his "uncle" bought the bundles. You really think they are doing it for charity?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

'hey uncle, theres another guy that wants you to buy him a bundle...'

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

:D

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If I'm right, he said his uncleS were buying him bundles, lol.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i want to believe but idk

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I've traded 1 key for the Red Orchestra humble back when I didn't have paypal. Granted the trader in question had lots of rep, I think I actually paid around double though (1,70 euro for the key compared to 0,78 for non BTA bundle)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

They are talking about BTA bundles worth 6$ for just 2 keys.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Tax write-off by donating it all to charity or by buying as an "investment" and then selling at a loss. Or criminals.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Honestly, the deduction from charitable donations isn't as high as most people seem to think. You're capped at 50% of AGI (assuming public charity) for any particular year, it's a below the line deduction, it's subject to phase out for high income individuals, and this is all assuming you're better off doing itemized rather than taking the standard deduction.

Edit: If you're also referring to investment losses deduction, that's also capped at $3000 per year as well if total losses exceed gains, so again, pretty pointless to do this just for that.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I was joking (badly) but thanks for the accountancy lesson (no sarcasm). Guess it must just be people using dodgy credit cards.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

what about the fact the average is possibly very low right at the beginning? :\

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

They are trading weekly bundles, which are fixed price at $6

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

if anyone finds out why please share.. Im stumped on this one as well

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

It's money laundering.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

How can this be money laundering?

They have to get the money digital first before even being able to use it for this. And transferring money directly to some sort of account yourself is exactly the part you want to avoid when laundering money.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

lel at you ... It's money laundering.
You clearly have no idea how does it work with digital goods.

I even saw a guy on steamtrades, who was trading humble BTA (6$) for a couple of cards, if you didn't have 1 key (his original pricing :D :D).
He was like, "LOOK, LOOK HERE, I'M TOTALLY NOT DOING WHAT YOU THINK I'M DOING!" :D :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well please enlighten me then. In my knowledge of money laundering, you want to avoid getting large sums of money linked directly to you. So you make ways (even non profitable ones) that make it not legit.

Only way I can think of, is being able to pay cash for pre-paid cards that translate onto some form of value (Steam wallet for example) and being able to sell for example game gifts to others, who then in turn pay you in paypal. The thing we are talking about here I can only imagine being used for the first part (selling keys/cards on the market to get steam funds, after which there will stil have to be sold items for some more usable form if funds, like PayPal).

But as far as I can think off, there is no way to pay for humble bundles indirectly with cash money. Unless you are using middlemen, but in that case it would be way easier to just transfer money directly through those middlemen.

I know gambling places are good for laundring money, as no one can ever check if you actually won 100,000 while starting with 100, or deposited 100,000 into your bank account while you walked in with 150,000 in the first place. Leaving no tracee of where that money actually originated. And that is the big thing in money laundering, to avoid being able to tell where the money ws actually made.

So if you say this is definitely a money laundring setup. Please back it up with some form of reasoning why that would be?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

They have a stolen credit card number. They can use this to make purchases online, but eventually the credit card number will be reported as stolen. If they buy physical goods, they'll be giving away their address and get arrested. If they buy virtual goods, those goods can be easily taken away from them.

Solution: Buy virtual goods, then trade them over informal trading channels that can't be reversed. Presto. Once the credit card gets reported as stolen (which could take a long time, explaining why we haven't heard an outcry yet), the person you traded with loses their games, and you still have whatever you traded for. And, of course, you discard the Steam account you were using to trade (which was probably using the fake credit card anyway), burning any link to yourself.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

That is not really money laundering, that is just 'regular' CC fraud.

The last part you are describing could be considered money laundering though I think. But they need to get their 'profits' into usable currency though. What use is 'clean' cards and keys, unless they intend to use it on steam accounts, in which case, it is pretty traceable (thus, not having the goals of money laundering), as a lot of people will be sending in support tickets to Steam if this would indeed be CC fraud).

Anyway, I see potenbtiol for it's misuse, but I don't see 'big' money laundering in it though. As it takes way too much effort to launder, and there should be easier ways (buy expensive eletronics in a different town you live in, sell them later for a bit lower than retail price).

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I'd imagine they could easily sell off the cards for Steam wallet, and buy TF2 keys with it, and then sell off their TF2 keys for paypal or whatever.
The people receiving the TF2 keys won't issue a chargeback or a claim or whatever because their TF2 keys won't be removed

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Any links to actual trading topics?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

i dunno i got the 2 hibs right now bta for 25 cards and nothing has happend yet and the guy i traded with does not have any negs yet

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I may have a slight idea of what is going. Weeks ago I bought one Focus Bundle directly from Humblebundle.com, and traded it two days ago. The trader told me that he was able to redeem the key on Steam, but the bundle is missing from his Humble Bundle profile. So, I decided to check my bank account, and noticed that they charged me only $0.13+fees for the bundle and a week later they refunded $0.15+fees to my account, so you could say they paid me $0.02 to have the bundle.

Maybe they found a way to exploit this, and that's why they give the Steam keys only, not the gift URL.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If true, that's pretty underhand :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

no. they give the gift url not only the key

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If so, it's easier to prove what I said, the bundle bought from them would be missing from their profiles once it's redeemed.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Let's connect all the info we got so far. I've traded a couple of them and know a bit too.

  • Humble Weekly now have their price fixed at 6U$.
  • They are selling GIFT URL's.
  • They sell for 2 or less TF2 keys so they couldn't actually profit from them if bought with a conventional legit payment method.
  • They have unlimited supply, but can't get the bundle immediately.

That's basically the situation, I've traded with a bunch of these traders just to make sure, they have all the same method, none could trade immediately with me, they didn't have the bundle stocked, I don't know if that was just coincidence thought.

One of the traders that I've tried to confront made up a lot of excuses and in the end said "that his uncle buys a lot of them to charity and he resells them for a lower price than the market price", but that doesn't make any sense and of course I said that to him, immediately he began to be aggressive and removed me.

I'll refrain myself from now on to trade with any suspicious trader even if they are selling for a more reasonable price (lets say 3 TF2 keys).

It's not just about the price or the dangers of having your games revoked, it's about backing up people doing illegal stuff.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

They all have rich uncles! Some even have multiple uncles donating to charity!

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Well I traded with 2 of them too and they gave me the page right away.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Those reps you see are fake(most), except some which are gained through trading

Here's a trader who negetive repped such trader

clicky

Here's the one he reported

clicky

I am not sure what happened but the neg rep is gone. And if you compare the 11 neg reps of the 1st trader with the positives of the 2nd one, you'll find a lot in common.

I am not assuming anything or accusing 2nd trader of anything, Everything here is based on this thread

clicky

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I don't think their rep is not legit since their topics usually get quite popular because of the insane cheap offer.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Initial 20-30 are fake. Rest are legit

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

funny, the guy called xotesN who leave neg feed (1 week). Sell me a bundle BTA at 1 key, last week.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Currently asking one. I hope my 52+ rep will not be covered in 52 -rep after this

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I thought 1 cent was already cheap.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Heres the secret. They use the Steam group " Group Buys" to purchase bundles in bulk (up to 5 at once I think), and its happy hour pricing because they wait to buy tons of them to distribute during happy hour. You get the full BTA bundles for like $2 USD.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

they talking abut 6$ HiB or Weekly HB sold for 1-2 tf2 keys. (1 tf2 key is worth 2$ top)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

There is no Happy Hour on Humble Bundles, only bundle that uses happy hour I know about are Indie Gala.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I have 3 of those sellers on my friends list and not one of them is part of that group.Also that wouldn't make sense since they only sell HB bundles this cheap.If it were group buy there would be cheap indiegala,indieroyale,bundlestars around.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

I wish Humble Bundle had Happy Hour...

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

At HB, it's sad hour all the time. :(

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

LOL, seems like when you discover the secret, you sign a confidentiality contract and become part of them...

1.- Asking for the magic secret of the bundles

2.- Being part of the mysterious ancient cheap bundle sellers

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

well I think I am on to something so I will make sure to advertise my shop here when I discover the secret.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Yes, its true, people are selling them for 2 keys (BTA) including me (please dont suspend me, just informing). But my reason is i get it from someone, and I pass it on. There's nothing fishy in my ST rep (4 months old) and i always go later. :)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

So someone else is buying them with stolen CC or another fraud and you're just selling them for him and it's totally ok and nowhere fishy in your opinion? What you do is fencing.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

rofl hell no, its perfectly legit and almost about to discover the full truth (my frnd isnt telling)

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

If you still have no idea how they're buying the bundles, how can you say it's perfectly legit?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

this.

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Do you have rich uncles too?

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Not to burst your bubble, but if they would turn out to get revoked or something, you do realize you are the one who will get a shitload of negrep (unless you can fix every single problem), right?

I kinda got offered to 'resell' as well, but I declined, as I can never be sure of gift URL's I got from someone else (unless I gie it out first off course, but still) and I would be the one that would have traded not legit gift url's if they turned out to get revoked or something...
Whether you would be a 'victim' as well, is to no concern to the people you traded with (and I mean that in both ways).

11 years ago
Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Closed 10 years ago by OrNaM3nT.