G2A are Polish or something, and they get Russian keys which are dirt cheap. They're making a business out of something individuals had been doing for years to save money themselves. This is why many of their game pages have separate Russian versions.
Says who? Ubisoft have said the keys were fraudulently obtained. If we don't have proof that says otherwise, then there's not much else to say really. Seems like it's up to G2A to show the keys were correctly obtained, and that's very easy to do (publisher agreements etc), but of course they can't do that.
Seemingly if you try yo get your money back from G2A then you have get in touch with Ubiripoff first to have them verify that you game/key has been revoked before G2A will refund. So good luck with that given that there will likely be thousands or gamers making the same request to Ubiripoff.
Think you missed my point, I was referring to the article you linked advocating piracy to play games which we're removed. I agreed with everything other than that.
On checking game was bought from the Market Place came with GPU someone had bought. The season ticket was bought from G2A and is still there along with the first DLC. But time will tell if it remains. Only cost a few quid anyway and I would not bother to replace it if is revoked if Durgish prison escape and Syringe is the standard of DLC for the game.
Lenderz, that was me that posted the link to the SavyGamer article that ended with advocating piracy. Personally I don't agree with that specific part of the article as piracy rarely helps anyone (the exception to that being when a developer tells their customers to pirate a game when it gets blocked in some countries). The rest of it is interesting though and raises the issue that publishers need to stop actively promoting gaming celebrities who they know advise people to use the websites they don't like. If you want Ubisoft to respond to a support ticket a bit quicker, then it helps to pester them on Twitter/Facebook with a request for them to look at your ticket number. They seem to pay more attention to their social media pages than anything else... They weren't responding to my tickets originally, but within 5 hours of me nudging them on Twitter I had a ticket response... albeit that plain blanket statement, but it's a start. I've done all that G2A have asked regarding the evidence from Ubisoft's reponses, so we'll see if respond with initiating the refund process when I get back home tonight. If they don't, then customers who use PayPal are within their rights to resort to opening a transaction dispute to get PayPal to get you the money back.
Actually I would prefer their customer support/service to be able to answer my question instead of answering me with a coverall script which I liken to the sort of answer one would expect from a politician. But good tip about Social Media, though I don't do Twitter, just don't get it.
Hm, the consensus appears to be gathering that the keys were obtained fraudulently, such as via credit card fraud, rather than simply not being purchased from an "approved" retailer. That then firmly puts the law on Ubi's side, but doesn't wash away a slightly sour taste.
Official Statement From G2A. OFFICIAL STATEMENT ABOUT THE UBISOFT SITUATION As some of you may already know, steps have been taken to remove games purchased indirectly from a publisher, via main marketplaces in the web. G2A.COM is not in any case responsible for any of these procedures. However, we are well aware of this process and will do everything possible to compensate for that. For users who have made transactions without G2A Shield, we will check if the corresponding merchant was responsible for the withdrawal of the code. If so, these users will get a compensation. Any user who used G2A Shield affected by the current process will get either a new code for the game or the money back. G2A.COM will make every possible exertion to prevent this kind of procedures in the future and exclude merchants responsible for such incidents from the marketplace.
Well that's a nothing statement. Probably even worse than Ubi's original efforts, but it does indicate that it is due to fraud. G2A is obviously not the one deleting the keys, so duh. They're simply a facilitator, putting buyers in contact with sellers via a marketplace. They know they have a problem with dodgy keys, hence this charged-for G2A Shield service. In reality, all they're saying is that they might try to remove some sellers who are found to be stealing keys, and that if you paid extra for their Shield service they'll give you a refund or a new key.
I feel really sorry for those out there who had the game bought for them as a Christmas present. It'll be upsetting to both the person who receives the game and the gift giver, who will also feel like an utter dick for getting their friend/family member into this situation. I have to agree, it's an equally null statement which doesn't create much confidence in their user vetting systems. I guess if it all comes down to it, PayPal will certainly opt to act in favour of the customers in this situation who used them to pay, so I wouldn't be too concerned if G2A try to be funny about refunds for those customers. People who paid through other methods might have a slightly worse struggle. I suppose we'll see what happens over the next few days... either way both Ubisoft and the named third parties are getting some pretty bad publicity, more so for Ubisoft when they openly said they wanted to try improve their image after the mess of releases they've had with bugs and graphics anomalies.
A somewhat disturbing update... So I've just had a chat with someone on G2A's live chat and had a very bizarre experience, not from the chat discussion itself, which as I guessed was rather pointless since all I was told it that they had no contact with the complaints team so couldn't give an ETA on refunds... the bizarre factor was that the support agent was using a photograph of a person that I know of. So it seems that now they're not only allowing fraudulent market sellers on their website, but G2A's own team are actively engaging in a form of identify fraud. I'm think I'm going to be writing to Daniël (the person who's photo they used) to see if he was aware that he was the face of G2A's support team member "Dominik L". Based on that rather sketchy experience, I think I'm going to actively avoid their website once I have my money back.
This thread has given me like a million reasons to steer entirely clear of third-party key-reselling sites, frankly. Steam's own sales give me great enough pices that I don't think it will ever be worth the risk.
It was an old photograph of himself that he uses on a few media websites to support his design portfolio.
Update So apparently EA have stepped in with a statement on this (both on GameInformer and EuroGamer), regarding Ubisoft games being purchased off of their Origin store with stolen credit card details. So looks like they may have some evidence for their investigation for the fraudulent keys on sale, though at the same time it seems some people are saying they they sold legitimate keys from GPU's and retail boxes which have been banned...
