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See the second part of this blog post[1] from 2019 for more context. In a nutshell, fraudsters buy keys from the official Factorio store with stolen credit car
by noname120 6y ago
See the second part of this blog post[1] from 2019 for more context.
In a nutshell, fraudsters buy keys from the official Factorio store with stolen credit cards. They then sell these keys on G2A and Factorio gets charged back (+fees) when the real owners of the credit cards report the transactions as fraudulent.
[1] https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303
- mavhc 6y agoSo as usual the actual problem is how terrible banks are
- arkitaip 6y agoG2A knows very well that they are used as a money laundering device for criminals, they just don't care. What I don't understand is why banks and other financial organizations keep retaining G2A as a customer. Surely they must have hundreds if not thousands of cases involving G2A by now.
- kungato 6y agoDont they charge 20 dollars per chargeback as someone said? In a normal country the national bank would regulate this
- microcolonel 6y agoFar as I'm aware, there is no law restricting chargeback fees in Canada, which countries are normal? Merchant services providers do need some fees to accurately process chargebacks, and in the normal case it also functions as an incentive to make sure you perform transactions that you reasonably believe won't be reversed.
- user5994461 6y agoThe developer of factorio was charged 20 dollars for charge back. I imagine G2A is using a more fraud-friendly payment processor.
- TheCraiggers 6y agoNo, it's how terrible people are. The chargeback mechanism is consumer protection through and through. It's there to help you deal with shady merchants, fraud, and theft. The fault lies entirely on the people abusing it. Blaming the banks here is akin to blaming the postal service because they delivered a bomb.
- hyperman1 6y agoYou are too easy on the credit card system. If you manage to steal my european bank card, you can't use it without the pin code. If you get all numbers on it, you still have nothing usefull. This kind of fraud simply does not exist with our bank cards. This raises the bar for theft and fraud significantly compared to the credit card system, where a simple copy of the numbers on it is enough to take any amount you want.
- Cyph0n 6y ago> If you get all numbers on it, you still have nothing usefull. Does that also apply to online purchases?
- andai 6y agoYeah, and with the banks I have used, there is always a second factor like an authenticator or phone confirmation as well.
- gambiting 6y agoThat's....usually not true. At least the way it's implemented in the EU, yes, your bank has to verify if the transaction is legitimate, and optionally show you a challenge step. So when you pay online you usually get a small window displaying your bank's verification page, but unless there's something unusual about the payment, they don't actually verify it at all. So when I'm placing orders on Amazon it pretty much never comes up, but when I'm buying flights it usually does(but even then not always).
- 6y ago
- user5994461 6y ago>>> With an average chargeback fee of about $20 Ouch. The charge back fee is as much as the item.
- ReticentVole 6y agoThe problem is with Valve, who charge a 30% commission, even for sales directly from the Developer. In a world of 12% commissions (ie. Epic Games Store) the effort to sell directly wouldn't be worth it and G2A wouldn't exist. Epic has also recently enabled keyless integration with some 3rd-party stores eg. Greenman Gaming.
- NoodleIncident 6y ago> The problem is with Valve, who charge a 30% commission, even for sales directly from the Developer. That doesn't match what I've heard before, do you have a source? This site says that there is no fee to generate steam keys to sell directly, and in fact, you aren't even allowed to mark down the price of those keys. You are actually required to pocket the commission! https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys
- shultays 6y agoValve doesnt take 30% cut from the keys. You can generate and distribute them for free
- ReticentVole 6y agoI should have been more specific and said 'for traffic generated by the developer', ie. even when they have the Steam widget on their website.
- mindslight 6y agoThese keys are effectively serial numbers, not blinded tokens, right? Why don't the original sellers just revoke ones that were obtained through credit card fraud?
- NoodleIncident 6y agoHow does that get the devs any of their money back?
- mindslight 6y agoI don't know what you mean. Someone who wanted a key would have to buy one that wasn't fraudulently obtained, thus supporting the developer. The seller in fraudulent transaction would still have to eat the chargeback fee, but it would be a better overall result than now where the fraudster profits. Eventually they would do this quick enough that it would become pointless to attempt the fraud, thus reducing the chargebacks.
- slavik81 6y agoThe fraudster profits regardless of whether the key is revoked or not, because they sell the key to some sucker before the fraud is discovered. The fraud is discovered when somebody looks at their credit card statement and notices the unexpected charge, so the game developer has a very limited ability to revoke fraudulently obtained keys more quickly.
- PythagoRascal 6y agoIt's difficult because game-devs rely heavily on good reviews. Even if you revoke a key that you know for a fact has been stolen (or bought and charged back on CC), if it has been resold there is a very good chance that the new buyer will leave you a bad review. It's a lose-lose really.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6y agoThey did, as detailed in this blog post: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-303 They still had to eat the $20 fee per fraudulent transaction and deal with the pissed off customers though.