Also worth noting, GMG officially drops support for purchases a week after you make them; additionally, they revoke all support for an entire order if you indicate any part of it was used on any account other than your own [including for a family member or friend]. I can attest to having had several keys "expire" a couple of months after purchase from GMG, however, so it's definitely not worth risking holding on to them too long. On the other hand, I don't think anyone has had issues with GMG keys if they kept within those parameters.
IndieGala ends up being more unreliable- their issues (including not fixing duplicate keys, not agreeing to refund overcharges, and so forth) appear to be rather infrequent overall.. but the fact that their infrequent issues include random account deletions means that they make up for quantity with severity.
In short, sketchy sites will be sketchy, and there's always a risk of getting duplicate keys from them- but for issues like those with IndieGala and OtakuMaker, where there's a risk of losing access to keys, that can be avoided by immediately backing up keys off-site whenever you purchase them. Not that that's especially convenient, but it does help avoid you losing $35~ of keys off IndieGala, as I did. :S
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That's kind of a shame - GMG used to be a good, legit, authorized reseller. Then they started reselling Witcher 3 without permission, exploiting regional pricing to buy from GOG for dirt cheap and resell at a profit, and then this business with keys that expire and have no support after a week.
And I haven't heard of issues with IndieGala before. I don't shop there myself, but I didn't realize that it too was fraught with danger and uncertainty. Thanks for warning us.
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I have had one here and there but thankfully not dealt with it in the size that you've had to deal with.
Best is always to give away keys as soon as possible after buying, which is not so fun, but it's the safer way to go.
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Very sad indeed, but stay in Peace bro. Thank you for the gibs and Bump.
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Sorry to hear about your troubles.
I only create giveaways with keys from Humble and Fanatical. Partly, I want to avoid this sort of scenario, but mostly I want to patronize authorized resellers to make sure that the developers are compensated for their work (even if it's minor compensation from a bundle).
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Happy to be home to bump this now! :D
Hope you hit level seven soon! :)
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Celebrated my 2nd cake day a few days back with ~130+ giveaways. It was my first time to be met with mass duplicate keys though. Thought I'd share the story here and also give some more since I fell short of Level 7. Skip to the end for the GA. 😀
Problem1
I had loads of keys from Otakumaker (before they split into Otakubundle and Gogobundle). I bought in batches of 10 and it seems that 20 of the 200 or so keys I bought on there were duplicates. 13 of those 20 keys were givein in 2 giveaways(1 and 2). I could still login to their portal but the key/purchases page was already down. I tried using same credentials on their 2 new sites but it didn't work. I created a new account on the sites with same email in hopes of them linking my old profile to their new sites but it was pretty much empty. So I then messaged them on Facebook and also filled up their contact form. Sadly, until now I've never heard back from them. I had to trade some gems to get 13 new keys as I felt bad for the winners. All in all I don't really blame the site as the keys were purchased 2 years ago(2016) but if that's the level of support they offer, I'm not coming back to buy it seems.
Problem2
I recall from my time on the forums here that not many like HRK. I've only bought there a few times but just check on the trades section every now and then. 1 of the giveaways posted also got the duplicate issue. I raised to support and conceded to their verification process of screenshots that required your game library open, the PC time visible, the key visible(on their site or your email) and a before and after screenshot(key is in the field and key resulted to duplicated error).
It's not that tedious but seems totally unnecessary (as I had the order #, email proof, etc )and I guess screenshots could be faked by some. In any case, the point here is that they replaced the key but lo and behold, replaced key is a dupe. Now I have 3 copies of Botology in my account. 1 was used, 1 is this currently being disputed one and another one unused. While waiting for support to fix the second dupe, I opted to reveal the key on the 3rd one and give it instead. Who'd have thought it would be a dupe too? Now I have 2 Botology keys that are duped and haven't heard from support in
over 8 days now(37mins after thread opened, I got a reply) whereas before they replied in ~24 hours. I just fear that my remaining 200+ keys with them might be dupes.Update(3/9/2018)
Just so everyone knows, when HRK got back to me with the 2nd replacement key, it was still a dupe. So latest is: I got 2 dupe keys, got them replaced by 2 dupes. Still talking with support.
Anyone care to share their experience or thoughts?
GA train
Along the way, I got tired of linking the train. Just gonna post them below.
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/zP7uH/or
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/3cRkm/abc-coloring-town
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/RN4id/umbrella-corpsbiohazard-umbrella-corps
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/CZ1X6/balloon-blowout
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/Eahr2/the-silent-age
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/4GC0b/warriors-of-vilvatikta
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/ZgX9I/project-druid-2d-labyrinth-explorer
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/hC7w4/husk
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/CrCRR/shape-shifter
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/uWc8g/turbo-pug
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/1ZbSB/tinboy
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/lyo61/total-pro-golf-3
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/0iPIG/house-of-1000-doors-family-secrets-collectors-edition
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/WL45N/charlies-adventure
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/ozxZn/fly-and-destroy
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/9z3FJ/duke-of-alpha-centauri
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/P76EE/reset-1-1
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