Hi everyone!
My brother is living in Russia.Im in Asia.
And i used Teamviewer 8 to remote his desktop to buy a game in Russia Steam Store with my VISA cc.
Did i break the law or get BAN from Steam because i used Teamviewer?
Thanks!

11 years ago*

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There exactly in Asia? If in CIS then i think its fine.

11 years ago
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LOLWUT? Are any of the CIS countries part of Asia?

11 years ago
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Geonosis, Utapau, Umbara, Christophsis, Dantooine, Duro, Felucia, Mygeeto, Onderon, Ryloth, Vjun, etc.

11 years ago
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Hehe.

11 years ago
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Shouldnt. You can buy your keys Wehre you want, this should be your right. And Many people sctivating keys via vpn were Not banned. And for the Credit Card Company ist should be irrelevant where you buy, they get their Money.

11 years ago
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Yes. (Edit: Possibly.)
"You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account." - Steam Subscriber Agreement

11 years ago
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His IP was Russian and apparently your cc was accepted as a valid payment option, so you should be safe. This could be considered "disguising your place of residence" though.

EDIT: Apparently I misread and you didn't use your brother's but your own account to purchase games. If you used TeamViewer to log into your own account on your brother's PC, this is a clear violation of SSA. It can be viewed either as disguising your place of residence (same as IP proxying or VPN) or transferring your account to another person (which is forbidden as well).

11 years ago
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I don't think that's normal. He actually gifted himself... I wonder why didn't he just tell his friend to buy the game as a gift and send it to him though...

11 years ago
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See edit above.

11 years ago
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Btw you didn't break any law. Nobody is going to arrest you for that :)
If there's any violation, that is on Steam's TOS and nowhere else.

11 years ago
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And violating TOS can lead to a ban by Valve.

11 years ago
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Violating a TOS and receiving a ban isn't the same as breaking the law and receiving a criminal record.

11 years ago
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That I know, but the question was about being banned, which can be horrifying if you sunk a good amount of money on Steam.

11 years ago
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Im living in Vietnam, and i paid by Vietnam VISA cc successesfull in Russian store:D
But i did not Proxy or use VPN fake IP. I just used Teamviewer 8 remote my bro's desktop to buy games with Russian IP:D

11 years ago
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Keep in mind that Valve may investigate your purchases if you use the same credit card on two different accounts.

11 years ago
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Lol i used my VISA cc for only my account.
VISA cc can be used everywhere on Earth:D

11 years ago
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It's true that it can be used anywhere. But if you used the same card both on your own and your brother's accounts, the purchase can be flagged and investigated by Valve, especially since your accounts are in two different regions.

11 years ago
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Thank for your support!
But i think it's so ridiculous. I wish it would not happen:D

11 years ago
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Do you read? He used his VISA only in his account. He doesn't said anywhere that his brother used the same visa in their account.

11 years ago
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I blame the Vodka.

11 years ago
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Quoting the OP: "And i used Teamviewer 8 to remote his desktop to buy a game in Russia Steam Store with my VISA cc"

11 years ago
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Obviously, he logged on his account and used his VISA :)
Oh well... now I need some Vodka...

11 years ago
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Wait, so OP logged into his own account on his brother's PC? This won't end well.

11 years ago
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That's what he did!

11 years ago
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So I am not allowed to visit my brother and log in to my steam on his PC (the only one in his house)? lol

11 years ago
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You are allowed to visit and log in. You are not allowed to purchase from a different region. You have to inform Steam support if you plan to travel abroad and purchase games while traveling.

11 years ago
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Yes, but if you log back in your own country a few minutes later you might have to explain to Valve how your teleporter works. They probably won't do anything aout that unless there's abuse though, like buying every one of your games from a different country than the one you're playing them in.

11 years ago
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I would agree with most of these other people.
The only completely safe way would be to have your friends account purchase the game (ideally with one of his credit cards, or some untraceable option or at least one that you never use on any other Steam accounts) and then gift it to your Steam account.

Particularly if you plan to do this for any more games.

11 years ago
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Russian Mafia will come to your door asking for purchase fees and also Gaben will put you on HL3 Wall of Shame

11 years ago
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Are you kidding me?:))))
Just because all games in Russia Steam Store are cheaper:D

11 years ago
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All games for them are cheaper cause they can't afford the same prices as us.

11 years ago
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Vietnam is a poor country , so why Steam didnt make the same prices as Russia?
Not fair:(

11 years ago
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Because Vietnam doesn't buy games as much. They can't even afford a decent AAA game with 1 month of work.

11 years ago
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they can, but they will stay poor for the rest of the month.

11 years ago
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Which is why they don't.

11 years ago
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actually, there are people buying triple-A game in Vietnam thanks to the rise of the likes of Steam and Origin, but there is in no way that demographic big enough to say that "all Vietnamese gamers can buy game" or for Steam to consider regional price-adjustment.

11 years ago
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Even so, RU price are still pricey by most of Russians themselves.

11 years ago
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Dude, there's no need to worry. I'm gonna protect your arse.
(I accept CC and bitcoins)

11 years ago
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God bless you O.o

11 years ago
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I'll punch their arses and kick their faces (or is it the opposite?).
Anyway, God bless u 2!

11 years ago
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Cool story bro...

11 years ago
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in mother russia , team views you...no wait

11 years ago
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You don't need to bother with that. Use the Steam website and append ?cc=RU on the end of any url. I also live in asia and use ?cc=US
Steam tech support will tell you to do as much.
eg. store.steampowered.com/app/23600/?cc=RU

11 years ago
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You can't buy this way, Steam will check your IP and see you're from different region.

11 years ago
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That is what it is for. Tell Steam support you are living outside of your region, and that is what they tell you to do.

Message by Support Tech Jimmy on Thu, 9th May 2013 10:17 am

Hello <Me>,

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

Our records indicate that your purchase was declined due to your current IP address differing from your billing information.

You will need to use the following link through a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, etc.) to complete your transaction.

http://store.steampowered.com/?cc=US

Please bookmark this link for continued purchasing while you are out of the country where you currently reside.

Please let us know if you have any questions, or if you encounter any further difficulty.

11 years ago
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Ahh, that. Yeah, but that works only if Support makes note you're in different country and make your account not check your IP while buying from store.

11 years ago
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can we all do that? I mean, can I ask Steam support for permission and buy games from the US store?

11 years ago
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Did you put a fake US billing address and told them you live there but you are currently in Asia? LOL

11 years ago
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I am an American citizen that lives in China. I do not have citizenship here, my payment/billing account is in USA also. The OP may have a bit of a different case. He is trying to pay from a local account, not from Russia.

11 years ago
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Valve can ban you for this.

11 years ago
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In soviet Russia, ban valves ya...

11 years ago
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In soviet Russia, ya ban valve :)

11 years ago
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Da!!!!!!!

11 years ago
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in valve ban, russia soviet you

11 years ago
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It's risky, but in the end if you accessed Steam from your brother's house and not a random public VPN, there's no way Steam can proof you weren't actually visiting your brother...

11 years ago
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They can if his IP is Russian one minute and not the next

11 years ago
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I hope he was smarter than that and didn't log in from his own home the same day :P

11 years ago
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You do know this is the internet right?

11 years ago
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ow, i tend to forget that sometime :(

11 years ago
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I like it how everybody has a relative in Russia.

11 years ago
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11 years ago
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this made me laugh - thank you for that ;)

11 years ago
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11 years ago
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Replying because I want to see the reaction when it happens!

11 years ago
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i'm still alive=,=

11 years ago
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This was a triumph.
I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

11 years ago
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Great reply!

11 years ago
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Why not get your brother to buy the game, then gift it to you?

This method seems deeply unwise...

11 years ago
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Very clever... :D

11 years ago
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Wait a second! Teamviewer is not a proxy, so the connection to his account is made from a computer in russia. Regarding what Valve knows there is no difference if he uses Teamviewer or is in russia at this machine himself. So, as long it's not illegal or against TOS to travel to other countries and use your account there he did nothing that can/should be punished.

If the account gets banned I would contact support and tell them you have family members in russia and you visit them every now and then and use your account there.

11 years ago
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The OP has posted on a publicly viewable forum that he effectively bypassed regional restrictions. That is enough for Valve to ban/suspend if it was brought to their knowledge and they deemed it appropriate.

As I noted before they will be able to see that his account was active in different regions and when,a nds that itself would give Valve reason to at the least lock the account whilst they confirmed it was the OP accessing the account.

11 years ago
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Since when a post in a public forum which can be made by anyone pretending to be the OP is a proof?
Or did you ever hear that Valve is hunting TOS violators on SG, twitter, facebook, whatever?
Valve is NOT... NSA :b

11 years ago
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If you didn't noticed, every account on this forum is tied to Steam account by Valve's own account manager and login server. Yeah, they have no way of seeing who posted what, it's absurd -.-

11 years ago
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I'm obviously aware of that, but still this is not any kind of a strong proof.

11 years ago
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In my country that is still called fraud, just a little one though. You don't need to do that at all, as Steam provides a great feature: gifting/trading purchased gifts. You can give the money to your brother (using Paypal for example, if available), your brother buys the game and then he gives it to you.

11 years ago
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You must buy games in store where you are living now. If you are located in Russia - you must buy games in Ru store. If not - you must not buy games there. Even if you constantly live in Russia but you travel overseas or have a business trip outside your country - you can't buy games in your native store. You can be banned for that.
To resume, don't use Team Viewer, just ask your brother to buy games as a gift and present it for you - that will be completely legal.

11 years ago
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Yes

I will create ticket about you

GL

11 years ago
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Thank you all for your comments:D
I had more experiences after this.
I think i didnt cheat or break the Law. I bought the game by Russian IP, so it was safe:D

11 years ago
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You didn't cheat, you didn't break any law, but you violated this:

"You agree that you will not use IP proxying or other methods to disguise the place of your residence, whether to circumvent geographical restrictions on game content, to purchase at pricing not applicable to your geography, or for any other purpose. If you do this, we may terminate your access to your Account".

You may go on with your life now :)

11 years ago
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He didn't use a proxy, he used his brother PC, so I think it doesn't count :)

11 years ago
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It does: "or other methods to disguise the place of your residence"
That's actually very easy to detect it. You're logged from a Russian IP address and the very next minute from another countrye's IP. Still that's not enough to prove anything, but it certainly looks suspicious :)

11 years ago
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He didn't disguise his residence. Anyway, you won't get banned

11 years ago
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That does sound like a disguise of residence to me, by using Teamviewer to achieve it. Anyway, it's a grey area and I he'll not get banned for that.

11 years ago
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Teamviewer kicks ass. So easy to setup and use.

11 years ago
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Indeed!

11 years ago
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Your best bet is to actually set up a different account to buy the games and then gift them to your main account.

11 years ago
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Closed 11 years ago by Panda211.