Guys, PLEASE check your giveaway winners for unactivated wins before delivering your gifts

You can use sgtools

I have stumbled upon this so many times, especially on public low level giveaways.

The number of people that don't activate their wins is staggering.

If you find your winner didn't activate previous wins (especially recent ones) - report them to steamgifts and ask for a re-roll.

8 years ago

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Do you check your winners for unactivated wins before delivering gifts?

View Results
Yes
No

Oh god, now I'm going to go do this to all my recent give aways and there's probably going to be a few that need a re-roll..
Oh well, guess some times you have to learn the hard way :/

8 years ago
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I've got a "Steam API has problems identifying some owned DLCs, so the following ones are probably activated!". They need to find a way to avoid that :(

8 years ago
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I have the same on my own account.... and i have activated all
For dlc and this specific case i would not be alerted

7 years ago
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I found a real winner:

Bernie Needs Love (March 1, 2016, 4:06pm)

Mirror's Edge™ (March 7, 2016, 3:02pm)

Hare In The Hat (April 6, 2016, 4:43am)

Crystal Caves (May 13, 2016, 5:25am)

Sins Of The Demon RPG (May 13, 2016, 5:39pm)

30 IMPOSSIBLE LEVELS (May 15, 2016, 5:34am)

Cyber City 2157: The Visual Novel (June 2, 2016, 9:07am)

Read Only Memories (June 12, 2016, 3:04am)

The Shivah (July 7, 2016, 2:38pm)

AXYOS (July 4, 2016, 12:16pm)

Bit Blaster XL (July 27, 2016, 6:04pm)

8 years ago
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Thank you for reminding me, Tzell.

8 years ago
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Bump for relevance.
I reported someone today who had over 50 wins in 3 months marked as not received!
Apparently no-one bothered to check them before handing out the games. Check your winners before giving the game or file a report if they mark "not received" later and they have a history of marking "not received"
Edit: some add-on seems to have screwed up the depiction of the received icon. They were marked received but it didn't show up and I mistook the external BL icon for the "not received" one. And I didn't check the GAs individually either. There's still a suspect one but that's for the GA creator to decide.
Mea culpa :/

7 years ago*
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50 wins. All unactivated. Sounds like something that should have an auto-flag system.

7 years ago
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50 wins marked as "not received"
That's a way to get around checks for non-activation.

7 years ago
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Well, I would still say something like an auto-flag system for 50 unmarked received.

7 years ago
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Abusing feedback system is normally perma-bannable after first report(s)

7 years ago
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Damn, now I'm curious

7 years ago
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I check, but unfortunately most of the non-activated wins are older than a month. The way I understand it, that means there's no grounds for a reroll. Am I wrong?

7 years ago
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Send in a ticket anyway.
If they haven't been suspended for it yet, they should be.
If they've already been suspended, support will deny your re-roll.

7 years ago
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Thanks. I'll bare that in mind for next time. Is there anything in place for if the winner marks as not received in the meantime?

7 years ago
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No, nothing really in place, but if your re-roll is approved, it won't matter anyway since the new winner will mark it.
Just a minor pitfall with re-rolls.

7 years ago
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Okay, good to know. Thanks for the information. :)

7 years ago
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Yes, you're wrong. The drop down support dialogue for that is the most poorly worded thing I have ever seen. It discourages people from reporting when it shouldn't.

7 years ago
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I've not reported many times due to it saying "within the last month", when the winner could have had numerous non activated wins older than a month old. If it really is a case of bad wording, I'll start requesting rerolls from now on

7 years ago
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Here's what the deal really is in plain english:

  1. Within 30 days of a violation, any game a person wins can be taken away from them, no matter what. That means, if I violate a rule on January 1st, someone discovers the violation on January 2nd, I get suspended until January 6th and then reinstated, my account is still in a special probationary status until January 30th. If I win a game from you on January 10th, you can get the game re-rolled and given to someone else, even though I haven't broken any more rules.

  2. After 30 days from a violation, you can only take a game away if the violation had yet to be discovered and I had not punished for it yet. So, let's say I violate a rule on January 1st, but someone doesn't discover it until February 5th. I get suspended until February 9th and then reinstated. I've served my time, and there is no additional probationary period. If someone discovers my previous violation and asks for a reroll, it will be denied because I was already punished outside of the special 30 day period.

See the difference? That first 30 days from when you break a rule is a special period which involves some additional peril to your account, but the way it is explained to people is done VERY poorly.

The most important thing to understand is, for us, the end-user, those two distinctions have little to no meaning, since we don't have direct access to any person's record of punishment. Our only job is to report when we see a violation, and then wait until support gives us a ruling based on the secret data they have.

I hope the way I laid things out makes it clear.

7 years ago
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Yes, thank you, the way you laid it out makes perfect sense. It's a shame that SG doesn't show if a user has already received their suspension for non activated wins so that we knew whether it's worth reporting outside of the 30 day timeframe, but without such a feature, I suppose I'll just post reroll tickets for any and all non activated wins I see from winners of my giveaways.

Thanks for taking your time to explain the system.

7 years ago
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Today I got to see a GTA5 winner with 5 of their 6 other wins unactivated. D:

7 years ago
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So a reroll ?

7 years ago
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The gifter didn't get a reroll, unfortunately.

7 years ago
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So report and blacklist ?

7 years ago
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Maybe :P

7 years ago
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No, that game they actually activated.
Probably because it was a direct gift through Steam.
Although it's weird. They've gifted a lot of games (150+) and only won a few older titles themselves, which they didn't activate.

7 years ago*
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Rulez... are a good thing!

7 years ago
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oh and please keep bumping this for newcomers to SG - most don't even know about SGtools.info!

7 years ago
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I will check all my winners and report him in case of non activation.
I will use this for my next winners.

7 years ago
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I'm always checking the winners for non-activated wins. But my last support ticket with such a user has been waiting for support for two months and still no reply.

7 years ago
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That's why i don't create low level giveaways. Only group, whitelist and level 5-6 or 8-9 giveaways now. Too many times i have problems with it (in one case it was over a year!). No thank you again :)

7 years ago
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yay! good news for chances on those lvl 7 GAs :DD

7 years ago
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I always check my winners. Usually I only have a couple rerolls per batch of gibs, which isnt too bad considering I dont add level requirements

7 years ago
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i have passed 40 minutes on all my GAs ...

12 BL and a report on SG (about 8 non activated wins so...)
Now i will ALWAYS check !!

7 years ago
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We could get a LOT more people checking their winners, if cg and the support staff weren't so hard-headed, and could see how the language of the drop-down dialogue box discourages people from reporting. Most people think that you can only report violations that occured within the last 30 days, which is completely and utterly false, and it's such a widespread misperception that I can only conclude that cg and the crew have worded things in that way to intentionally keep down the number of reports, so they don't get overwhelmed, since they don't have enough staff to handle them if we all did. Maybe they will magically see the light after the new procedures are in place and we get an influx of new staff.

7 years ago
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The only thing that matters to me is not sending them to hackers, I refuse to send any games to scumbags who can't game fairly. Apart from that, if they win I will send the games regardless, even if they have not been activating them.

7 years ago
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How do you see they are hackers ?
it is not a funny question i want to know

7 years ago
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I check their Steam profiles once the giveaway ends, I also post on all of my giveaways that if they have bans don't bother to enter. So far only come across 1 and they never got a game off me, they can leave not sent feedback all they want, it is meaningless to me, I will not lower myself to sending anything to a scumbag.

7 years ago
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and if their VAC ban happened years ago? don't you think it's only fair to forgive someone an old sin? i've seen this here so many times. a guy has a single VAC ban 5 years ago, and he is still left out of giveaways, groups and so on. i don't feel that's fair in any way.

7 years ago
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So what? Once a scumbag hackers ALWAYS a scumbag hacker in my eyes. My games, my rules. If they want to enter my giveaways, create a new account and play fair, simple.

7 years ago
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I don't know how much truth there is to it, but I've heard stories of people using mods in single player of VAC enabled games and then getting a ban. It's not outside the realm of possibility that some of these VAC bans are not deserved, and you know how Steam support can be about these kinds of things...

7 years ago
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yes, that is a fact.

7 years ago
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so people never ever change? i beg to differ. i bet there are many steam users who made a mistake as a child and then grew up and now have to live with that mark on their profile. i think if it's years ago, we should maybe just forgive them. people do change. they can learn from their mistakes. i am sure you did the same thing already in your life, right? :)

just a few days ago, i saw a guy with 3600 games and a vac ban that was like 5 or 6 years, i believe. would you give up an account like that? i know i wouldn't. and if someone is VAC-free for 5 years, i see no reason to believe he is still a cheater.

also, false positives actually exist. they may be rare, but they definitely exist. people already got banned for purely cosmetic mods, for instance.

7 years ago
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Like I said once a hacker, always a hacker. I couldn't care less. A scumbag will never get a game from me.

7 years ago
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well, my argument was that not all those people are scumbags. do you apply the same rules to your real life? if a member of your family or a good friend makes a mistake, you will never forgive that? if a child makes a mistake, you will never accept that it might grow up and learn from its mistakes? very strange... i really don't believe you would behave like this in real life. to me this seems to be typical internet negativity. but this very negativity also means i probably won't convince you of anything here, which is a shame. :)

7 years ago
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They won't send a game to someone who doesn't follow the rules of a game yet will send games to someone who doesn't follow the rules of this site ...

7 years ago
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So people are not automatically flagged and suspended when it detects they dont have a game on their account they won after a week and is marked received?! I kinda thought that was done automatically, makes me curious to go back through my winners and see if any didn't activate. I would be surprised if that has happened as I dont do the whole "lets feed that trash pit lvl 0". Entertaining though to check out who the winners were of big giveaways and see that someone dumped $30-60 to some profiteer account. Poor poor copies of GTA/Doom/Fallout....
edit: 4/5 of my first GAs have unactivated games, i give up, no point in blacklisting since they never went on to become anything other than a leech, ill never understand the need to feed the pit

7 years ago*
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Not only lvl 0 sadly, you can find it at all levels.

7 years ago
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I normally check

7 years ago
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i always check users i haven't already checked in the past (2-3groups and whitelist have already all been checked), but i only bother with a re-roll attempt if they broke the rules within the last 90days, if offense is older then 90days i would of hoped someone else already caught them on their offense and they served their time.

edit: i didn't used to bother, but it was only getting worse so had to start helping.

7 years ago
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I'm that someone else :-)

7 years ago
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I didn't think of checking that, will do from now on.

7 years ago
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Question: How does SGTools check if something was activated? Mainly regarding packs of games. If a person is giving away a pack of games F.E.A.R. Collection as a example, if the winner already has one game but receives all the keys from the pack the key for the game they already own wouldn't be needed and they could give it away or something. How would SGTools know?

7 years ago*
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With packs, all excess keys are the winner's to do as they want. This is why when making a giveaway, you can determine what is the point where you say someone owns too much of it. And support won't really ask questions when you file a reroll ticket with an "own majority of it" type.

7 years ago
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I don't, I'm lazy, but might start to do so.
I just blacklist people who takes ages to mark as recieved even though they are online on sg and don't say thanks

7 years ago
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I don't care and don't have time for this, if I could I'd send the keys automatically to the winners without me confirming

7 years ago
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And that's why people are able to break the rules. Feed them more plz.

7 years ago
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Not everyone has time to check every single winner though, and that's ok. While I do check from time to time, it's not our job to police the site.

7 years ago
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I actually agree with you in the sense that we shouldn't have to do it, and that the site should have automated procedures for checking.

7 years ago
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I agree with you because you sent almost 600 games in a bit less than 2 years, like 1 game/day, but bannoltuk sent 60 in over 5 years, less than 1 game/month, so yeah his time must be very precious...

7 years ago
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It takes less than a minute to paste their name in http://www.sgtools.info/ to do the checks.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Had the user profile page sgtools link script, but not the winners page script. thanks.

7 years ago
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Just spotted someone who won five copies of Clickteam and regifted them all. Best laugh I've had in a while.

7 years ago
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What if one doesn't care that much? It's not in the rules so...

7 years ago
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Yeah I was aware winners are supposed to activate the game ASAP, but I wasn't aware spotting a history of non-activated wins was enough to request a reroll. Good to know

7 years ago
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The last call whether they want to request a reroll (or check their winners in the first place) is up to the GA creator.
So if you don't mind you don't have to check. It's completely up to you.

For example some time ago the one and only prophet of profits, konrads6 himself won a Payday The Heist Soundtrack from one of my events but was currently suspended. However I was in a good mood so eventhough I knew who he was I waited a few days until he was back and delivered the gift instead of rerolling.

7 years ago*
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Reading one of the first comments, what I don't get is how a user (a low level leech, one would assume) can win 50 games in three months.

7 years ago
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Luck and many 1k + copies ga's? Bypassed somehow req of ga groups?

7 years ago
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Maybe a combination of those? Dunno.

7 years ago
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also using autojoinbot - which means that he will enter much more than average user. avg user enters at most once per day, sometimes even less often, only most active users check SG many times a day. And then you have bot that can check SG everry minute to enter biggest chance GAs. Such a bot will win much more compared to someone visiting even few times a day, as it will be able to snipe all flash GAs for example.

7 years ago
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Fascinating.

7 years ago
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The most incredible winning streak I've seen here on SG was over 1000 wins in ~ 2 - 3 month. But that user was everything but a low level leech. He put his chips on the table, reached Lvl 10 in incredible time and then apparently decided to cash in his chips.

7 years ago
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Interesting. Never thought of things here that way.

7 years ago
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I LOVE Texas Holdem although I haven't played for ages because those damn Inactivity fees ate up all my Partypoker credit so I apply Poker analogies to almost every area of life :D

7 years ago
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Inactivity fees? That sucks.

7 years ago
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Indeed. I even had a text file where I wrote down the dates I played so I would play at least a few hands every 6 month to avoid those fees but apparently their definition of 6 month is different than mine.

Well, technically they were right but I didn't know they charge those fees monthly after you haven't played for 6 month. I thought it was once every 6 month.

7 years ago
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It seems completely unjustified to me, but then again... I wouldn't expect fair play in that line of business.

7 years ago
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I think it has something to do with the fact that if they didn't have those fees they would be legally treated as a bank (similar reason why Steam won't allow you to have more than 500$ in your wallet) but I'm not entirely sure about that. I still disliked it of course.

What I found quite amusing was that for over year (I checked it several times) the Play Responsibly link would lead to a 404 Bad Gateway error :D

7 years ago*
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Well, you might have a point about the "being a bank" issue, but I'd just cap the account instead of slowly eating it away...

And that 404 error sure shows their commitment to the message! :D

7 years ago
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Texas is too much of a game of how well you can bluff for me. I prefer Omaha, since there the actual cards you receive play a larger role than one's theatrical skills.

7 years ago
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I have to admit I haven't played Omaha Holdem yet but I'll definitely check it out if I get the chance. When I was a kid we sometimes played 5 card draw so when I discovered Texas Holdem that was a huge step up for me (in terms of excitement) because you get a good hand much more often than just every 20 - 30 hands.

But I would describe my skill level as Rock so I still mostly play the cards rather than the other players.

7 years ago
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That conservative approach rarely yields big results, even on online poker. Texas very, very rarely hands out good cards, even with 10 people sitting at the table. In Omaha, you can have a flush draw, straight draw, or even full house draw in your hand at the same time, meaning it may really go down the river more often. And this is why I like it: I can be cautious and still outplay an aggressive player with a cool enough head and a good enough hand.

7 years ago
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That's sounds quite exciting. I'll definitely check it out the next time I top up my account.

Well, I considered Partypoker mostly as training and only used a tiny bit of money because without real money nobody plays seriously. I usually played on tables with the smallest or 2nd smallest blinds (granted most people don't play seriously there as well) so the pots were quite small anyway. I also played a few of those Freeroll tournaments and usually ended up in the top 20% but never won. I think once or twice I was ranked high enough to at least get some payout.

What I liked to do on normal tables was play by the numbers for 10 - 15 hands and then once everybody on the table has noticed I'm a Rock get a little more creative.

7 years ago
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I always check because even higher level users break rules.

My last batch of giveaways I had a level 6 user who had 27 unactivated wins and apparently had never been caught. He got a permanent vacation.

7 years ago
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Wow. Gotta say the level system is pretty screwed up by now, not to mention meaningless.

7 years ago
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Closed 2 years ago by Tzell.