1) From my understanding, the purchases were made en masse using stolen credit card info, and the game keys were then sold (maybe several times?) until they end

1) From my understanding, the purchases were made en masse using stolen credit card info, and the game keys were then sold (maybe several times?) until they ended up in front of everyday customers looking to save a bit of money by buying one from a shady website. The people who requested chargebacks are people who had their credit card info stolen and didn't make the purchase. From their point of view, it's completely legitimate to ask for a refund. 2) Chargebacks are in the $15-30 range I think. PayPal and similar services will fight a chargeback for you against the bank, but digital purchases are not protected so you end up loosing every time. The big issue is that the merchant is the one bearing the risk. I recently learned that some banks allow customers to request a chargeback months or even up to a year after purchase. I had a customer do that more than 60 days after purchase. One can buy a digital good, use it until they don't want it anymore and then get their money back... and the merchant ends up loosing money on it, in addition to giving them their money back. From my point of view, the merchants shouldn't have to pay for fraud in the banking system. The banks don't even have an incentive to secure credit card transactions if they make money on it (or at least break even)!