the way i understood is by "spamming" his friends in chat or whereever with the giveaway link.
sometimes ppl get banned/restricted because they wrote something about steamgifts in comments on the users page. most likely the algorithm thought it was spam or scamming try depending on which key words they used
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I didn't send link directly. I added people and left a comment why I added them. But I found 2 people resembled Indonesian didn't not set Indonesia as their store, I didn't sent to them link but the same explanation for both. It could be the auto-checking algorithm.
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HEADS UP!!! any mention of steamgifts on steam can get you a temporary chat BAN
no posting anywhere on steam or chatting for a week
all i did was say you won my giveaway on steam gifts. no links, nothing
commented it on one of their screen shots
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Looks like Steam algorithm is so awful. It detects us like scammer by doing that. We surely need to be careful.
I got 15 years of community ban though, before they removed it completely. It blocks me adding or chatting with friends, comment on friend's profile on Steam too. I didn't try to go to discussion though.
Did you get a week of the ban or a week of waiting for the ban lifted? Did you send them a ticket for your case?
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Unfortunately the changes in the past few years has made it very difficult to gift games directly from Steam. Most people here now buy keys to gift from sites like Humble, Fanatical, GMG, or other official stores. There can still be some region restrictions on the keys, but it is not like Steam where every game is locked so you can't send anything to a region where it costs 10% more than your region (I believe it is 10%, but not positive).
I'm not sure why you would get a Steam ban. Maybe someone you sent the message to thought you were a scammer and reported you to Steam. It is not uncommon for scammers to add random people and send them messages with links that lead you to a site that hijacks your Steam account, so I guess Steam support could have looked into it and saw you sending messages to a bunch of people with a link and thought you were a scammer. Maybe you could contact Steam and explain what happened to try and get the community ban removed, but I don't know how that works since I have never been in that situation. I also don't know what Steam thinks about people using steamgifts.
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I was surprised by price difference lock. A nice person from Poland (by his Steam flag) gifted me directly from the store, almost at 2 times price by Steamdb. Though, he might fake his flag or moved to other country. Steam key is really easier to send and may be a region free.
It could be my pattern, or both, someone also reported me. Some people might be suspicious and reported me as I didn't share giveaway link after added, but simply because they set Steam store other than SEA region.
And yes, I contacted Steam and they removed the ban by sending my giveaway link. Thanks.
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USD, CAD and Euro users... can gift games directly from steam to WW because they are often being priced more expensive than the rest of us. More cash, no problem.
But SEA can't gift games to Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Argentina... I mean other regions which are lower than us, don't know why.
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just set your gift area/region to SEA as I often did that before, never have any winner here from SEA that waits 3 days, let alone 7 days 🤣
I don't do that anymore these days cause it's make me difficult to join lots of communities/groups here, people tend not to like who give gifts to a specific region.
friend request sent just in case I win sth from you later 😂
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I recently went through the following:
I was reading reviews on a game, trying to decide whether adding to wishlist or not, IIRC. I saw one of the most popular reviews, several years old, linking to a patch. Then I went to discussions, which is often informative just reading the kind of problems people list in the title. I saw one person asking about said patch. I answered, and pasted the link from the review.
Then about 1 minute later I was community banned. I received an email saying it was about the link looking as a scam site. The site was 100% legit with thousands of users and patches, btw.
I immediately sent a message to support. I throughoutly explained that the link came from a review listed in the game's store page. After some hours (next day early) I received an email saying my ban was listed and I should be more careful about what links I post. In other words, "we didn't read your message, this is boilerplate text".
But I already have a community ban in my history for posting a link that has been on Steam for years. Yeah baby, Steam support is probably the best feature they have. You can truly trust them. First ban then ignore, finally check and put the fault on the user.
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The lesson is - never link the sites, give keywords, link original topic/review, or breakup the URL so it doesn't trigger automod. Though in general it's better not to recommend/link sites you're not familiar with. Just link them the source (in this case the review) and let the writer of the review bear the weight of the link being useful or having some obscure malware or alike.
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Thanks for coming. Here I want to tell a story. You may leave if not interested to read, but you may judge if you think you should have.
I successfully made my first giveaway using steam key, freebie though. This week I tried to make a new one buy directly from the store on sale. I read guidelines. As the waiting day is 7 days after giveaway finished, I'm afraid if I couldn't get it on sale. So decided to make friends only giveaway. I could give anytime to friend, rather than to wait them to request friend after winning.
My target was 'good people' defined by their no ban and $10 real CV sent gifts. It's ironic since now I've got community ban on Steam.
I got my first entry. He told me about limitation of Steam Store that Steam Store can't send gift if there is price different. So I explain to all future enterer that only SEA region. Lucky me, they are really good people.
I thought it won't be easy to find my 'good people' restricted to my region only, who don't have the game. I aggressively find them across Steamgifts discussion with "Indonesia" as keyword. I added 3 people and 3 or 4 pending, with notice on each. Only 1 of 3 from SEA, I didn't send the link to the other two. But it looks like I've been spamming the community by doing that.
I disappointed some people by wrong target, so I'm thinking at least to continue my giveaway but idk if possible. I can't chat or add friends. Create a new account means avoiding ban, afraid to get punished more. I'm so exhausted.
Thanks for Steamgifts community, especially hepful-for-newbie people and the ones who reading. You guided me but I went wrong.
Edit:
Steam support fixed it in 7 hours after I sent them a ticket. They said my content resembles scam or account theft, so I just need to prove it. No other risk other than have to manual unlock by provide a prove to steam support.
It was a panic night experience lead me to write this, so I can sleep well (I did, though). Luckily I wake up with a good news, I'm glad I didn't really braking Steam rules.
Lesson learned:
We have to be careful even for legit giveaways. It may not be temporary, but unlocking needs a ticket send (provide a proof of legit doing) and takes time if you need chat feature on Steam. By getting this community ban, we can't add/be added/block/chat other users and steam profile forced to private (even for friend list).
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