I have added games to my account. given games not as much as others. plus have a ton of unused keys.
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also the reason for me using gift links was some people in past discussion recommended for easier tracking if used.
i like that if you give link, you can see if redeemed. keys, they can say dupe and you have no way of knowing.
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if you give link, you can see if redeemed
Huh? How? You either give him giftlink which he reedems by giving his email, or send him on his email directly. Then it's over for you, you never know what he's done with the key.
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Go to the gift link yourself after giving it to someone else. The URL will load a page telling you the gift links has already been redeemed
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Yeah, but that means nothing as redeeming giftlink isnt equal to redeeming key.
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based on comments, seems best not to contact support on behalf of someone you gave a key or gift. even if you write that you gave to friend.
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And who do you think buys their bundles, exept traders?
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i buy almost all their bundles and i'm not a trader. unless you consider gifting as trading. also, happy cakeday.
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You might have been flagged as a key reseller
And who do you think buys their bundles, exept resellers?
That correction should help make this nesting make more sense.
Well, I can't be sure that the second comment intended such, but the first one likely did. Though there's been strong and long-standing indication that Humble seems to make little distinction between resellers, traders, and gifters, nor between private gifters and public gifters [the latter being SGers]; As such, the correction may be an irrelevant one, given that any of the terms could perhaps be substituted for one another for the statement.
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Nobody is saying it's not a stupid policy. However, it is their stupid policy.
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This has been happening for a long time already, just using SG flags you as a trader/seller and they stop giving you any support of any kind.
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Unless OP is purely buying bundles to gift, and creates dozens of gift links in one sitting, I don't know why he'd be flagged when there's countless other people like me who have given over 400 gifts in one year, many of which are gift links from Humble.
I guess it'll just be one of those mysteries of the universe, but it definitely makes me think about doing purely key generation instead. I just know that if a gift link is not working it seems easier for Support to handle than a key not working.
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Have you contacted support about some issue? That's when they tell you that you're a trader, not before.
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I thought I contacted them once, but maybe that was before they possibly thought I could be a traitor of theirs
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What was suspicious?
If you EVER in your life revealed the key and gave someone that key instead of using gift link or sending it by email from HB than you "violated the Terms of Service".
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It seems it's the opposite they can monitor though, gift links. Only Steam itself should be able to track key activations and not third parties.
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They can monitor what games should exist in your steam library (according to keys revealed on humble) but don't.
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But if you contact support claiming a key didn't work then obviously it wouldn't be in your library. Or maybe you revealed a key and decided not to activate it for whatever reason. A key being revealed is no indication that said key was actually used by the buyer or anyone else.
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Also, they don't forbid you from gifting games so it's not as if every key you reveal should be in your library. You can also have multiple accounts on Steam.
What I don't get is: if it's such a problem for them, why don't they make Steam keys auto-redeemable like the Uplay and Origin keys.
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It has been reported by several people that using HB's "gift link" option to send gifts will get you flagged as a trader/reseller... which makes you wonder why they have that feature at all. It is probably better to just reveal all the keys right away and store them someplace safe. And of course never mention giving keys to other people when you talk to support.
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Damn. I thought using gift links was the correct way of sending games. Guess I better hope I don't need to contact support for any reason in the future!
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Basically seems like they don't really want us sending gifts, despite having the ability to send gifts. It seems awfully unfair.
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well so if you use gift link you are flagged as trader/reseller and no help from HB but if you reveal the key and give it to someone and they check your Steam acc and you don't have that game you are marked as trader/reseller and no help from HB.
So in the end to have any HB help you have to redeem all keys?
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Well there are some games I don't own and don't want to have as I will never play them but I had given them away...
So in the future HB will tell me to go frick myself :)
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I actually had to remind myself which season he is from. Guess I'll have to watch them all again :)
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Four. Useful reminder: Every even season has a nuclear threat ;)
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That's a great way of remembering if that is true. I could check, but I'll just take your word for it. It's been a few years since my last viewing :)
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Obviously according to the TOC, like Zarddin said, you should only use the keys yourself. But HB must have some metric on what a "normal" amount of gifts is, or who knows, maybe they track HTTP referer and see people clicking gift links from steamgifts.com and flag those accounts as rule-breakers. They aren't very forthcoming about it so we're only left with guesses.
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People here on SG aren't your friends. Their TOS doesn't allow for selling or trading, and if we're giving games on SG, we're getting points towards levels allowing us to enter more and more exclusive giveaways. According to them, that constitutes a violation of their ToS. I found this out when contacting support about a bad key about a year ago, and they were kind enough to tell me it was against their ToS and asked me not to do it again, rather than cutting my account off immediately.
Unfortunately, if a Humble key doesn't work for someone on SG, you're much better off asking the other user to allow you to delete the entry, or take the hit to your SG account history than contacting Humble support, since they're apparently cutting people off now. (The game I contacted Humble about is still marked "not received" in my account because the winning user wouldn't agree to delete the giveaway).
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Obvious solution is buying a retail key with more money and ending the flux.
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That's the main problem... They are redefining the concept of friends. Friends are whatever the costumer wants to be. If the costumer consider dog as friends, he can throw him a giftlink as well as a Steam friend... They are abusing the boundaries of their ToS assigning subjetive values to very well defined terms. Unfortunately the solution is what you said, but only because they insist to cross boundaries indiscriminately at their own will.
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This is what I was afraid of. I know they say use the links but I don't want my account flagged as "suspicious" for giving away stuff I already own (which is all I ever get rid of, plus I don't trade - only gift). So tossed up what to do. So far I just reveal them and say nothing to support. If they don't want us using their own gift links, then why do they have them?
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Apparently, if you give the key away, you still own the game in so as being the ''rightful owner'' and able to get support for the game on Steam. The user having issues on steam from a key can apparently get support issues if they are not the rightful owner (however how they would check that I have no idea...). That right is transferred when you instead use the gift links.
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I thought it was the other way around. I'm sure I've heard from people in here who ran into issues revealing the key since there was no support for a revealed key that you gave away, but that there's been no issues with gift links and where revealed keys sometimes expire gift links almost always work.
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Why then do this function at all?
Punishing you for using legitimate functions is ridiculous.
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using HB's "gift link" option to send gifts will get you flagged as a trader/reseller... which makes you wonder why they have that feature at all.
Consider that if gift links weren't available at all, then Humble would have no easy way to identify and suspend/ban potential traders & resellers from using its service for more than infrequent gifting to friends & family such as "where you gift a game to receive a reward/
payment of any kind (which would include things like rep or points on certain trading sites)." (in HB TOS) Gift links do also help Humble control to some degree which regions get which key types (SubIDs) and what the region restrictions or exclusivity should be when a key is given.
Whether we like it or not, it might be in Humble's best financial interests to mitigate traders & reseller activity so that non-purchase & grey market means of game acquisition aren't bolstered further. In order for this to hold true, the financial benefit of mitigating traders & resellers would need to be higher than the financial benefit of selling to traders & resellers. Humble could plausibly be wrong about this, such that if they piss off a bunch of traders & resellers they could be in for a world of financial pain - We just don't know for certain the financial details.
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Their interpretation of their ToS includes this site as trading (you're giving games away and entering to receive games - plus, the games you give away result in levels qualifying you for more exclusive giveaways - i.e. you're getting something of value in return). Their ToS only covers giving games to friends. If you're giving lots and lots of games away, and they're all going to different email addresses, that probably flags you as someone who's not just giving to friends. Most of us don't have hundreds of actual friends that we give gifts to, and if we give a lot of games to friends, we probably give multiple times to some of the same email addresses.
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tldr, don't contact humbleIGNsupport if you're a real human being.
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I've sent numerous gifts from Humble, both here and to Steam friends, but I always (without exception) send a key, and I've never encountered this issue. I'm not saying for certain there's a correlation, but perhaps sending keys is better.
One thing I do know for certain - It's much easier for them to track a gift link than it is a Steam key.
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I've created a few gift links, but it's probably 98% keys and 2% gift links for me. And I've never had a problem.
What's your plan for games from Humble Choice? Are you subscribed? I believe we have no choice but to generate gift links for the games we don't redeem -- there's no way to generate keys that I know of.
EDIT: it was pointed out to me that I am apparently crazy. You can generate keys when you click "Get Game". I guess now the question is... if you click "Get Game" and then do not redeem the key to your account, will that cause a problem later...
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Is that new? I only got the last choice and skipped the new one but I didn't get the otpion to generate links at all. It just directly gave me the keys and I didn't see an option to make a link anywhere.
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It's new for Choice, compared to the old Humble Monthly.
Here's what SensualShakti said in her post about the December Choice bundle:
How do I generate a Gift Link now?
On the "Choose your games" page, you click a game, scroll down and click "gift to friend" instead of "get game". Then you see the usual region lock notification about countries that receive a different game version than you do or do not receive the game, and you can pick between generating a gift link or sending the game via email.
"Get game" will instantly reveal the key and NOT simply add the game to your Downloads page for this bundle.
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Oh I see. I must have not seen that or it wasn't an option the first day when it got released as it straight up gave me the keys.
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You're not crazy, you're reality challenged. :3
As far as the question in your EDIT - I can't answer that with any certainty, but my assumption is that it'll be similar to the current system, and that keys may be lower risk than gift links, though still quite possibly a risk..
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There's someone on here who always sends gift links and has never encountered an issue, and several people who have run into issues sending keys. It seems like a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of thing.
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I don't get it. We all have our Steam accounts linked to HumbleBundle. Isn't it more suspicious to have all keys revealed but not all of them activated by your account they can easily check?
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They can't easily check it if you decide to set your account or library to private, which a lot of people do. It's far easier to see who and even from where clicked on the gift link.
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But doesn't setting your account to private then risk getting you kicked off of THIS site? I believe SG's ToS require your games list to be public so that they can confirm that you're redeeming the games you win.
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You wouldn't get kicked off the site- you'd just be soft-locked out of giveaway entry, until your sync your account.
However, if they would like to enter giveaways, our site will ask them to switch the setting to "public" once a week to sync their data. >>
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That's the beauty of monopolies. Yet for some reason people love monopolies.
"it's more cost-efficient", "it's the free market", "as long as customers get cheap prices it's fine", "it's not even a monopoly, it's just a company with 99% markeshare so you can just shop somewhere else", etc, etc.
Noone bothers to consider how screwed you are when the company in monopoly decides to screw you.
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Humble is far from a monopoly. They may be a market leader, but that's different.
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"it's not even a monopoly, it's just a company with 99% markeshare so you can just shop somewhere else"
Yup. They don't even have to find excuses, people come up with them for them.
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But for Humble, its true. It wasn't long ago people declared Fanatical dethroned Humble.
But then the lootboxbug bit.
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Well, I guess I am one of those people making excuses. Except I'm using the truth -- Humble is not a monopoly, by any definition of the word monopoly.
Also, claiming that they have "99% market share" is laughable.
I'm not a fan of Humble's policy regarding keys, but I'm also not a fan of making things up in order to make an argument. If you can't make a point using the truth, maybe it's not a point worth making.
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people give words new meanings all the time 😅
Monopoly
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Monopoly is a board game and https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/BgpRi/humble-bundle-humble-board-games-bundle-by-asmodee-digital
Conspiracy confirmed!
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Also, claiming that they have "99% market share" is laughable.
They're not there yet, but when they do it will be too late. A pilot should be 5 minutes ahead of their plane. A responsible citizen should be a decent amount of years ahead of their time. This applies to global warming, so why not to monopolies as well, while we're at it?
People not being able to project into the future is why people go bankrupt after contracting too many credits, and why society as a whole is turning into 1984 while people make fun of China as if it was only happening there. So far, so good
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What do you mean "when they do" reach 99% market share? Their market share is decreasing. (I don't have statistics to back this up, but it's a logical assumption given the increasing number of competitors in the market -- Fanatical, GMG, Gamersgate, GamesPlanet, Voidu, Nuuvem, Indiegala, etc, etc, etc, etc). So there is no "when they do" because it's not going to happen, without some unexpected new development.
And what do you mean "it will be too late"?! Too late for what? Let's say somehow Humble manages to take over 99% market share in the PC game key market... so what? How would that affect the human race?
Comparing the PC game key market to global warming is one of the more unbelievable things I have ever seen on SG. (And that's saying a lot).
A responsible citizen should be a decent amount of years ahead of their time.
I legitimately don't know what this means.
I don't disagree that in general, humans seem to be getting more complacent than ever, and it's important to remain vigilant against unwanted expansion of government and/or big business. I just don't see how you're fitting Humble and the PC game key market into that conversation.
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I know people don't want to hear it, but this is actually in line with Humble's TOS. From their support page ("Can I sell, trade, or use my keys for promotional purposes (i.e. Stream giveaways)?"):
Keys obtained from Humble Bundle are meant for personal use only. We consider giving away keys promotionally
as different than other uses for keys. If you've received keys through our Partner program, you are more than welcome
to giveaway those keys. However, please keep in mind that you can only do so when there is no cost or barrier to
entry in order to receive the key. Raffles for instance can use Humble keys as a reward, as long as you do not require
some form of payment as entry.Selling or trading keys is strictly prohibited. Gifting keys is perfectly acceptable. The gifting function is meant to give a
game away to a friend or family member. We do not support situations where you gift a game to receive a reward/
payment of any kind (which would include things like rep or points on certain trading sites).
(emphasis mine)
SteamGifts giveaways violate both sections: All giveaways have a point requirement for entry, and the giver receives CV. I wish I had a better answer than that, but it looks like legally speaking you're better off leaving those extra keys unused, rotting on the shelf.
It's a shame, because a lot of us are here because we don't want to trade our unused keys from bundles--we just hope that someone else will enjoy the games we don't like or can't play. But that's not good business, so tough luck I guess.
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Interesting, I had no idea that they got this into their rules. I wonder if any of this would stand if someone were to take legal action.
Which law would grant a shop to rule how a customer is allowed to use their property? I doubt that they'd manage to maintain this by EU regulations.
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under EU law you are perfectly within your rights to sell and/or resell your purchased (and subsequently unused) products and the TOS that humble purports to say it requires you to abide by is not worth the paper it is written on - Microsoft found this out when they tried to stop people selling on their unused windows operating system keys and the EU courts ruled that it was perfectly allowable for the end user to sell on their unwanted and unused software, as they purchased it and so it is theirs to do with as they see fit - please note this does not apply to USA customers, as US law is different (I posted the actual laws that this relates to a number of times here on SG, but cannot remember exactly where as it was ages ago).
However, despite this having been proven with case law, who is going to risk their account pointing this out to HB - as the first thing they will do if you try and stand up to them is close your account and confiscate all your remaining keys (and yes this has happened to people before now) - sad but true :(
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They are also allowed to not support or sell to you if you break the TOS. The law only guarantees that you aren't sued to court if you do that.
Just like SG is fully allowed to disable/ban your account if you sell your won keys forward even if that is allowed by laws.
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not according to EU law they aren't - I've had this argument before - the TOS is not enforcable when it breaks the law (as microsoft found out with their TOS and also their EULA), but they rely on the fact that none of us can afford to sue them for breach of the sales of goods acts and our customer rights - and that is how they get you - with the threat. implied or otherwise, of shutting down your account - not sure about other none EU countries these days - other than USA where it is perfectly acceptable to screw over a customer :)
I resold my old autocad when I uninstalled it years ago and when they tried to refuse the purchaser their rights I actually did chase it up - and they ended up issueing the purchaser a new key in the end (a very small win for a very small guy - but it did cost me money in a solicitors letter !!!! to force it - and I could never have taken it further as the cost would have been prohibitive :(
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Yes they fully well are. Please show me the part of EU law where it says that sites aren't allowed to ban user accounts that break the rules of that site? You are still confusing two things that are completely separate.
If reselling was illegal, then the site could sue you for reselling what they sold to you.
But because reselling is legal, the site can only ban your account, not sue you.
The law doesn't say anything at all about you being able to sue a site if your account gets banned.
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sigh - let me add clarity to the comment I made, for the avoidance of doubt - any company can do what they want to you, but as I stated, their TOS is not worth the paper it is written on and as such you would have legal redress to do something about it - should you have the time. money, and/or patience to bother to do so - hence my inclusion of info about other companies who have ran afoul of this when some people have actually bothered to challange it - just because they do something that they want to, does not mean that their might not be consequences for that said action were you to take action - should you wish to search out the relevant laws feel free to avail yourself of the search function here (I remember posting them before) or google (they are all available - as are the transcripts of the MS trial with the EU). Hope that helps to add clarity to my prior meaning and I appologise if you miscontrued my comments in such a manner :)
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I know how the laws work very well. I know many of those lawsuits against MS etc too. I know very well also that any contract you agree to can't take away your rights as a consumer. But in my opinion the same laws give the store the right to select their customers as long as it's not based on anything discriminating like gender or ethnicity. Nothing actually prevents you from reselling the keys you get in bundles. so you have your rights, But then you have broken the TOS and they have the right to refuse to sell to you any more.
So where our opinions differ is what happens when you try to get a new key to replace a sold dupe one, for example. You think the law allows you to sue HB and force them to give a new key. I think that keys were sold for personal use right away and if you or your friend didn't redeem them in a reasonable timeframe, you're out of luck. You can of course sue them but the maximum benefit you can get out of that is them returning the price of the bundle and you stay banned.
EU law also stipulates that you must give the consumer a minimum 2-year guarantee (legal guarantee) as a protection against faulty goods, or goods that don't look or work as advertised.
vs
You bear no liability if you can prove that:
the defect causing the damage did not exist when the product was placed on the market
according to the latest scientific and technical standards, no one could have foreseen the defect when you placed the product on the market
Hope that clarifies my meaning a bit more as well, I'll leave it to the leading gaming scientists and technicians to decide if they could have foreseen the key to not work a long time later :)
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"what happens when you try to get a new key to replace a sold dupe"
Not really sure about that - as I was not talking about reselling of keys that are potential dupes - just your ability to sell on your own purchased products (and the potential for redress if they try to enforce their unmitigated mess that is their TOS - the dupe issue is a moment at which point, under consumer law, it actually becomes your problem to sort out any issues (as your are now the seller and not HB) hence my inclusion of my case with regards the use of the said law to get a new key for someone when I sold on my unused software to a new purchaser (all legally done). As a former shop owner and a runner of an online business I have come up hard against this on a number of occasions. As for the faulty goods item here - this is not relevant, as it is digital in nature, and again, you would be the seller of your used goods and not HB - with regards to the sales of goods act - were you attempting to use it.
but this all fails at the first hurdle of course for all of us - who can afford in this day and age to take on a company to challange their actions, even if the case law is on your side - certainly not me.
sorry for the delay in reply - its tax return month for the lazy people, like myself, who end up filing at the last minute :P
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It's also your fault if you resold the key to some scammer who stole it and tells you it didn't work. But not like we can do anything about this so we would need some consumer rights organization with lawyers on their staff to handle it.
And what you might imagine is some huge victory for gamers would just least no devs wanting to have their games in bundles any more. So everyone loses because some greedy resellers couldn't just accept their losses as a natural part of the grey/black market they run.
You're still doing it by hand in 2020 and not just getting an automated suggestion that you can make minor adjustments to? :P
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Indeed - as for the taxes, even today you need to input your digital stuff into HMRC, no such thing as truly digital and automatic for the self employed :{ - and if ya get it wrong heaven help ya LOL - still, not as bad as the USA and the IRS so thank heavens for a small mercy; I never could get my head around a friend who works in the UK but is still forced to pay tax in the USA and submit a return (not lived there in 22 years!!!). go figure!
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I was going to say, I wonder if they want only affiliates to gift at that level because its likely to bring in business.
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SteamGifts giveaways violate both sections
At most only one, actually.
SteamGifts doesn't violate the first section if all you make are level 0 giveaways [public or otherwise]. It only excludes giveaways with any sort of contribution requirement. Not sure if SG still requires a certain amount of account value for creating an SG account, but that wouldn't factor in regardless, as that wouldn't be a payment related to the raffle. That is to say, it'd be similar to saying "this is a raffle for everyone who has a blue hat! Take a photo and show it!". There was a purchase involved at some point, but it isn't considered relevant for these kind of considerations.
Raffles for instance can use Humble keys as a reward, as long as you do not require
some form of payment as entry.
Gifting keys is perfectly acceptable. The gifting function is meant to give a game away to a friend or family member. We do not support situations where you gift a game to receive a reward/payment of any kind
Unlike the first section, the second section only states an exclusion of support for keys gifted non-personally, not that it's a violation of terms. Had they wanted to prohibit, they would have used "accept situations" or similar, not "support situations". Hence, while their intent may not match their present presentation of that part of the ToS, Steamgifts is nevertheless not presently violating that section.
Ergo, by the phrasing provided, you should be entirely safe to use SG for gifting if you only make giveaways without a CV/level restriction, and don't expect support to be provided for the keys gifted.
Also, do note that the change to the ToS is rather recent, so it's likely less "people don't want to hear it" and more "people aren't aware that Humble finally made their stance official".
but it looks like legally speaking you're better off leaving those extra keys unused,
Finally, ToS wouldn't relate to "legally speaking". ToS can't in any circumstance override laws, thus the danger isn't in engaging in a legal violation, but of annoying Humble and having them restrict access [similar to being thrown out of a grocery store or restaurant, companies have the right to refuse service]. However, Humble would still be legally required to ensure (for a reasonable period) that your purchases are working and would theoretically be required to provide you with some notification prior to denying you access to your purchases [if their intent was to close your account entirely]. Since other forms of support aren't legally mandated, they would however not be required to provide you with any other support.
So I guess the correct phrasing would be.. "Humbly speaking"? :P
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Ok, I get the trading part, and why they want to restrict key sellers / traders. What reason would they have for banning giveaways though? We're buying their games & bundles and bringing attention to indie developers, and it's not like we're profiting off them. From both an ethical and financial standpoint, it makes no sense. Stupid rules like this is how you encourage piracy, not cool Humble IGN® Bundle.
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I dont get it. "not require some form of payment as entry", there is no payment though. Points on steam gifts are no payment, they are limiter, not payment, nobody gets the points when you enter their giveaway, you dont recieve points for giving games, level 0 and 10 have exactly same amount of points, its to limit the amount of entries. Literally only thing you need for steamgifts is steam account, which i dont understand how they could consider it form of payment. HB themself require working email adres when giving out games for free.
And there is literally no reward for giving games here. Contribution value have no real value what so ever, its more like statistic to show other people with high statistics if they want to give away to more active or less active people. Even if you spend 1 trillion dollars on steamgifts, you can NEVER increase or decrease amount of games that you gonna earn, if people dont make those high level giveaways, SG will not provide you with any single game or coupon or anything just because you "contributed".
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Yeah, my advice is not to contact Humble about anything other than keys that you redeemed yourself. And even that is risky, because it gives them reason to review your account. You really don't want to give them a reason to review your account. Unfortunately, they are not wrong -- you (along with nearly all of us on SG) are violating their Terms of Service.
I don't fault them for their position... but I do fault them for their terrible communication. Further inquiries regarding this account will not be responded to? Would it be so difficult to provide an avenue for further discussion? Or at least more specific information? What good does it do to leave people guessing?
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Further inquiries regarding this account will not be responded to? Would it be so difficult to provide an avenue for further discussion? Or at least more specific information? What good does it do to leave people guessing?
This is common practice, it's meant to protect the systems that detect abuse from being probed and circumvented.
Sometimes, the firm being accused will respond publicly with hard data. IME, that's invariably tons of fun, whenever I've seen it happen.
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Giving out keys or gift links gets you flagged and they will tell you they are for personal use. I don't get why they even have a gift link option.
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Money. Having that trading ability attracts more people to spend money on HB.
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Sounds like you might have been under the mistaken impression that Humble Bundle was a company that valued its customers. They don't, and haven't for several years now. They have some good deals but that's the only reason you should ever use them (if you want to give to charity then send the charity a check in the mail instead of funneling it through HB). Also, as others have said, the gift links only exist so HB can track where you send your games.
If you want to give money to a company that actually cares about its customers and wont tell you to GTFO the second you ask for support, I'd recommend both Fanatical and GreenManGaming.
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A friend of mine had similar problem with AUS bundle. He got in the reply, however the following:
"It looks like our system noticed some irregularities in your purchase information and login connection between purchases. Due to this suspicious behavior, your account was suspended. I was able to remove the suspension, but be aware that future use of VPNs or Proxies may result in this happening again. We strongly recommend using a consistent internet connection and payment method for all purchases on our site."
Do you use VPN or something like TOR? Anything that either looks like you hopped countries or hides your country could have caused your problem.
Edit: having multiple humble accounts could also trigger a ban, possibly either with paying with same card or all having same IP to get around buy limits (if any)
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Yeah, HB is responsible for making sure that they abide by the laws governing trade and licensing, so it's kind of their job to stop anything that could put them in a tricky legal position. The upshot is those of us who want to get a couple games on the cheap and pass on the ones we know we won't use have to be judged the same as those who want to violate the rules.
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buying, but do you own other accounts? Have you logged into those accounts on same IP?
did any of your credit cards or payment processors ever have an issue? Did you change payment methods more than once?
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It could be that the person you sent the gift link to has been flagged and they then used that against you.
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I had this problem about two weeks ago where i sent gift link to a trader he didn't receive the email containing download page. I contacted humble support via support ticket and they didn't respond for three days. Then i contacted them via twitter and they solved it by giving me download page within three hours. This all happened because the person i sent the gift link was a seller and humble bundle had banned his account with same email. In your case humble bundle might have marked you too as a reseller.
From this experience i conclude that it is not safe to send gift link to some random person even here on steamgift cuz the winner might use a banned humble email to redeem it.
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There is no law saying that sites can't ban you for breaking their rules. Just as it's perfectly legal for you to sell the key you bought it's perfectly legal for them to ban you for it. So what is there to test?
By the same logic selling all SG wins could never get you disabled here.
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the new EU "right to trade games" law.
The recent case in France was actually based on a ruling made by the European Court of Justice in 2012, there's nothing new about it.
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Best solution crack the key and give the key away as is norm in SG.
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I was also banned by HB because I've gifted games I've bought here, on steamgifts. I've also shown them the error in their system what allowed to take other person keys. They banned me for this from their support (without repairing it) XD
Recently I had a problem with gifting a game to a friend. He mistyped his address - gived me mail what doesn't exist. He created another account, with this wrong address but there is no possibility to sent this gift again.
I've sent them an mail - no response.
I've created a support ticket - no response
I've created a Paypal dispute. They responded in 2 days. And demanded to close Paypal dispute because "my order was frozen". I disagreed and Paypal gave me my money back due to HB inactivity. I also asked about this case. It's impossible to open again closed dispute.
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That's weird. I never had this problem and I even think that their support is one of the better ones. I was once doing a huge GA Train and some keys from certain hb did not work. It was an old bundle. So I contacted support and said I send to a friend of mine some old games and it says they are already claimed or something. And they revoke every single key from that bundle and generated new ones, recommending me to change my password because somebody might have got into my acc.
Other time I forgot to pause a month and was really broke so i wrote them and explained the situation. They gave me back my money because: They checked my acc and it was okay with a lot of transactions and I haven't revealed a single key from that bundle, but to note that this was the first and the last time they'd refund me and I should pay attention.
And the other time I posted a gift link into the description instead of other link. I told them I posted it by accident on a social media. Revoked and said this is the first and the last time.
And now I remember that I once had a problem with trade. I traded dude a gift link that I generated. He said it was used. Checked it and indeed it was. So I contacted support and asked them what mail was it claimed to. They gave me this information in 10 minutes after creating a ticket. Turned out the dude sent it to his brother and he claimed it and then said he did not get the key (he forgot to check his mail) so I confronted him about this and he realized his mistake. I think I still have +rep review from him about it on Steamtrades.
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just because you flagged as trader/key seller by them they don't disallow purchasing bundles. Are you exploited their systems like recruiting yourself with another account from same IP to get the 3,5-7eur bonus on "new subscriber" ? If their system found you because of that, then probably that is it. So now you can't make any future purchases from the same IP or with payment methods you used already
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Generally - you are flagged as "trader" if you use word "Steamgifts" in your support ticket xD Who knows maybe it's even automated.
And giftlinks - If you send a lot, and to different people - they will flag you as well.
Also, I just love hb support :)
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no, did not use word steamgifts. I had a train and gave 42 gifts out. only 1/3 or 1/2 were gift links.
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So... you send 15-20 giftlinks to different people in a short time xD That could trigger bot that marked you as trader. I'm not 100% sure though. HB gives us more and more reasons to not trust them.
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Also got one warning. HB is becoming really shady i think. One of the last regular monthlies i forgot to pause my subcription, not a big deal for me. I never store payment information on any site so i get "we couldnt charge you because you have no payment information stored" email as usual. So as i did last bundle... but somehow x days later i received another email with "thanks for you purchase, here is your bundle". I was little bit shocked and asked for refund. Communication with HB support i felt like talking to a robot. I told them i had no payment information stored AND they had to know it too because they sent me email in which they said they cannot charge me because i have no payment info stored. Yet somehow, my CC number and all info appeared back in my account few days later. When i asked how is this possible, they told me i always had payment info stored (when i asked why they sent me email with "there is no payment info stored,we cant charge you") They said my bank failed to process the payment (it would be first time using HB ever! and my bank literally had no knowledge of their initial attempts) but somehow on 5th try my bank apparently decided (according to HB), ye why not, proceed. This situation made me feel uneasy.
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I have been a customer of Humble Bundle for eight years. I am a HB monthly subscriber.
I contacted HB support after one of the users told me they were having a problem receiving the email from HB gift link that I gave them.
The issue resolved itself the next day. It took a week for Humble Bundle to get back to me. I told them already resolved, but maybe they could work to respond faster.
When the Australian Bundle was announced I tried to buy it and got declined. Contacted support. Got a canned response stating I was doing something wrong and to try a different card, contact my bank, etc. Responded asking if they even read what I wrote, then a person responded with, I will escalate. Then no response.
Two days before bundle sale expired I created another ticket explaining in more detail the steps I took to make sure it was their system issue and not my CC so they could fix issue. Many days after bundle expired no response. Today I got their response.
No clear reason, and they will not explain. Big middle finger from HB support person with a smiley on top. WTF!
What was suspicious? Did a support person get butt hurt so retaliated and marked my account suspicious?
BTW, I only wrote, maybe they could respond faster, and if they read my email, no profanity or anything else.
Or did the user I gave the gift link I contact HB about scam HB and now I am associated with that user?
I have literally done nothing suspicious.
Be aware…
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