Buying a Steam Account

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

Baldbloke

Associate
Joined
26 Nov 2010
Posts
1,375
Location
Thorne Yorkshire
Been looking online for a game and came across keys and steam accounts for sale.
I'm aware any steam account I purchased could be closed at any time. Given the small sums they cost I'm really not that bothered if it was shut down.

But here's my question: If I were to buy a steam account are there any risks to my own, genuine account? The account I've had for a few years and paid good money for?
 
Last edited:
Baldbloke said:
Been looking online for a game and came across keys and steam accounts for sale.
I'm aware any steam account I purchased could be closed at any time. Given the small sums they cost I'm really not that bothered if it was shut down.

But here's my question: If I were to buy a steam account are there any risks to my own, genuine account? The account I've had for a few years and paid good money for?
Click to expand...
Chances are you buying a stolen account, so purely from an ethical standpoint I would steer well clear.
 
ci_newman said:
Rather than stolen, I'd actually guess these accounts were registered when the game was on a free giveaway - then stored to be sold later when the giveaway ends.
Click to expand...
Sounds reasonable. There appears to be endless number of steam accounts up for sale on the Key sites and ebay. If most were in fact stolen I'd imagine steam users would be up in arms and steam would be upping thier security measures to stop hacking and theft.

Is this "account buying" akin to piracy? Even though accounts can be bought and sold on several legitemate sites? Or is it legal and just frowned on by steam because it affects their profits? Forgive my naivety but us old farts need spoon fed sometimes :).
 
Last edited:
It's to get around region blocks on keys. Cheaper in some markets, so they're bought there but can only be activated in those regions, so they sell an account with it activated instead.

The only theft associated with this stuff is if the keys were bought with stolen cards in the first place.
 
Yeah lot of misinformation from people who don’t really understand here.

Assuming you mean key sites and eBay stores, they’re not stolen accounts. They typically buy games from their local region (Thailand for instance), register the game to a Steam account, then sell the account.

I’ve purchased several games like this as I was able to get Half-Life Alyx for £15. It always worked fine (clocked up a fair number of hours) and it had zero impact on my 19 year old main account.
 
MoNkeE said:
Yeah lot of misinformation from people who don’t really understand here.

Assuming you mean key sites and eBay stores, they’re not stolen accounts. They typically buy games from their local region (Thailand for instance), register the game to a Steam account, then sell the account.

I’ve purchased several games like this as I was able to get Half-Life Alyx for £15. It always worked fine (clocked up a fair number of hours) and it had zero impact on my 19 year old main account.
Click to expand...

While what you say is probably true for a large number of accounts, it's almost certain that there will also be those which have been bought with stolen credit/gift cards etc. I still wouldn't risk it personally, both to avoid supporting that kind of activity, but also to protect my main account (and yes, I did acknowledge that the chances of anything happening to it are negligible, but still potentially £4k+ of games up in smoke)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom