I think I've been bamboozled. Within minutes of one of my giveaways yesterday, the winner contacted me on Steam asking if, instead of me gifting it to them, I trade it in Steam so they can gift it to a friend. It sounded weird but whatever... I feel like it was my place to dictate what they do with it. I did check to make sure this person appeared legit though and confirmed they had the same name and icon as the steam account that won the giveaway. Trade complete and I move on happily...

Fast forward to today... the "real" steam account who won the giveaway contacts me looking for it.... I inform him I already sent and then I start poking around a little bit and notice a few indescrepencies with the original account that contacted me yesterday (which is deleted now). I bought the game again and this time, gifted it through email instead of through steam to the email address steamgifts.com showed me. I send a support request to Valve to find out the history of my trade yesterday.

I feel stupid and probably look stupid posting this but that said, I did do as much verification as I thought I could do to make sure it was the right steam account. Oh well... just letting others know here to prevent this from occurring to someone else. In the future, I'll make sure to only gift to email addresses.

13 years ago*

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Never, NEVER trade your gifts! You should've sent it to winner's E-Mail. This is your fault.

13 years ago
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Yeah, I learned that the hard way. Not sure how I should've known this before this experience but now that I know, I will only send it to emails.

13 years ago
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Honestly, I don't understand why there is no documentation about how to complete transactions safely displayed right in your SteamGifts account. There are warnings posted in the forum, but the forum is not a required visit for many members of this site. Safety to prevent exploitation has been a constantly voiced concern that remains unaddressed. I'm sure that cg (the site owner) has a todo list a mile long and is probably only working on this site as much as he can during his free time, but I guess it is our responsibility to express how important this issue of exploitation is.

It's deplorable to see so many people on these forums constantly bashing gifters by responding with "you're dumb, sucker!" instead of pushing for safeguards.

13 years ago
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This is the message users see when one of their giveaways comes to an end: http://i.imgur.com/D4o1D.png

13 years ago
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Oh, I see what you did there. You made it red now. :)

13 years ago
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Thanks for changing this! The last time I asked for a picture or description of how gifters and winners are notified, that had not yet been added. Still, I would recommend adding some sort of link to a separate page that provides a detailed description of how to safely add someone on Steam. I know that, for myself, protocol for gifting safely as an infrequent gifter to just my friends is not crystal clear. Perhaps including a link to the FAQ or a dedicated forum post about protocol in that notice would be sufficient.

Also, as the bamboozled RyGil mentioned below, it is very easy to miss this notification if they're only looking at their giveaway's page instead of the front page, so if you haven't already, it would probably be awesome to add that notice to the gifter when they view their giveaway page as well.

13 years ago
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Did you see a green notification box on the site, saying your giveaway has ended? It would have been listed on both the homepage, and giveaway pages. The homepage had an extra warning about not trusting users adding you on Steam, even if they have a similar name and avatar. However, the giveaway pages just received that extra warning added to the bottom of the green notification box today.

In short, I'm curious to know if you viewed that notification before sending the gift. If you viewed it on a giveaway page, you would not have seen the warning yesterday, but that was fixed, and at least we'd know others would not go down the same path.

13 years ago
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I only viewed the giveaway page yesterday after the giveaway was complete... I kept it over refreshing a the seconds counted down :). I did not visit the homepage afterwards... so I guess I didn't see it. Thanks for adding that though, I hope it will prevent this from happening in the future. Thank God this didn't happen on a more expensive game... I had no qualms repurchasing the game a second time for the 'real' winner.

Now I know... and knowing is half the battle. GGGGG IIIIII JOOOOOOEEEEE!

13 years ago
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Let this be a reminder to always send the gift through email the site gives you for the winner. It is the safest way unless you contact the person yourself directly.

13 years ago
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It doesn't matter. The givers own mother could stand over their shoulder, and recommend that they send the gift via email, like the site says to do. And they would STILL blame the site for not being able to prevent their stupidity.

13 years ago
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There must've been at least a dozen threads on this forum warning about this very scam.

13 years ago
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Here's what you see when you win. cg changed this some time ago.

13 years ago
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Maybe it's just my POS monitor combined with my POS eyes, but the color scheme makes it a bit of an eye strain to read.

Also, red/green-colorblind people. Just throwing it out there.

13 years ago
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Yeah I imagine red text on a green background might not be the best choice, considering red green colorblind people >.>

13 years ago
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I don't mean to sound mean or anything but, when inviting people make sure they actually read the FAQ! Every time I see new people come in that make giveaways make this same mistake.

13 years ago
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The entire Forum section is optional for people to visit. It should not be taken as gospel that anything posted in the forums reaches the eyes of every visitor to this site...unless, for example, a link to the forum's FAQ or dedicated post made its way to the main areas of the site.

13 years ago
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That sucks :/
Well, learning the hard way means you will never make the same mistake twice! :D

13 years ago
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idiot. sorry but have managed to get text-book scammed.

and why trade it against site rules so let any1 that already has the game /or joined giveaway for someone else pass it on?

why do you think his "friend" didn't join in the first place?

too easy man too easy...

13 years ago
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and how many fake accounts would such a "clever" guy would try to make up to 50 dollars, so he can join the same giveaway many times? and collect the winnings in a single account, thanks to you "trading" the code..

hmmph..

13 years ago
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Wow, That Sucks. But at least you made up for your mistake by buying another copy of the game and sending it. Hopefully Steam Support can help you!

13 years ago
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Check the steam url too

The Friend and the winner

13 years ago
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Closed 13 years ago by RyGiL.