That's one hell of a coincidence. Perhaps the picture was in your temp files and there was some kinda clash. I'm reaching, but that coincidence is one in a billion.
I really hope it was just a coincidence from something like that, as the chances of spotting something like that as you say are beyond rare. I'm fairly tempted to pop on their live chat a few more times with random questions, just to see if that photo pops up again...
I'm just surprised this as has never happened before. Some of the prices are to cheap to be real sometimes. Friend of mine got far cry 4 gold edition for under £20 told him at the time there's cheap and too cheap. The game was removed from his uplay account was told the same thing a few others have been told. Buying from cheaper countries and selling them as most 3rd party sites do is not a crime. Using stolen credit card info is though.
I've never got used to the new Steam pricing, so to me it's just 'as you were'. They're pricing like Steam used to before they realised they ****ed up the market and started to try and reverse it a few years ago.
What I find weird is the way G2A handles the new reverse charge system for private customers. I don't know if you are aware but since January 1st 2015 VAT is charged depending on the residency of the customer instead of that of the seller (reverse charge*). Poland has a VAT rate of 23% on digital goods. Germany has a VAT rate of 19%. So my price shouls have gone down by about 3.5%. What actually happens is that G2A adds an additional 19% of VAT. they are even charging the 19% on their charity programm. This leaves three options: 1. G2A is trying to up their cut by the respective VAT. 2. G2A did not account for VAT in Poland before. 3. Both. Whatever, I will avoid them in the future. Not that I bought from them much before. *Edit: I have chosen the wrong word here as I am not fluent in English financial terminology. Reverse charge does not apply here as the shops will have to register in every European country they wish to do business in. The principle remains the same though.
Final update on my purchase Well, I'm happy to say that after a little bit of bouncing back and forth between G2A and Ubisoft support with evidence, that I have now received a full refund from G2A on my purchase... along with an extra 5 euro discount code as compensation for the hassle of going through that mess of a situation. Not entirely sure if I'm going to use that code or not, perhaps if I spot a 5 euro game that I want to grab for free... I have a month to use it so no immediate rush to decide. I'm glad that all of that trouble is over, hopefully anyone else who is in the same position has a smooth enough refund process.
So, Ubi are reactivating some keys - it appears you need to have activated and played the game for this to be done. Likely a reaction by Ubi to the negative press they were getting, and I'm sure involved money changing hands somewhere. Still, it's a warning about use of key sellers...
These things always seem to get sorted out in the end. Unless I've forgotten someone, I've only seen people say they had a problem only for it to eventually get sorted.
I can confirm that Ubisoft have re-activated my copy of Far Cry 4 Gold on UPlay. Pretty interesting situation really, as I now have the game for free because of the G2A refund happening before the game got returned to me...
G2A Greetings, Thank you very much for your additional feedback. On the G2A Marketplace we present you with a wide range of trusted sellers. To ensure our customers with the best quality of products, all codes are vetted and monitored. In case of any issues with key purchased from g2a please feel free to contact us at helpdesk@g2a.com. We will be glad to assist ! Best Wishes, G2A Team
I ended up getting paypal to get me my money back one time. complained to the site and never got a reply, code was originally working then revoked by ubisoft. Never used again use instant gaming or cdkeys for my fix now adays
I ordered Cities Skyline from a G2A seller, which was included the pre-order bonuses. Except it didn't come with the pre-order bonuses. When I contacted support, I was eventually told that since the game was already released the pre-order bonuses weren't valid. Which is a load of **** for 2 reasons, a) I've bought games post release with pre-order bonuses and I've received the bonuses. Sure if it doesn't come with a key and the bonuses are tied to the time of activation then.. b) why allow someone to sell an item with a pre-order bonus that doesn't exist? Which is still being sold today. Edit: It also took 4 months for them to "resolve" the issue, with them saying the key was correct and then closing the issue with that response leaving me no option to respond.
I've been buying from G2A for about two years now. I've only had two bad experiences out of about 50 tbh. The first one was a copy of Windows 8.1. Well, a raw code. It worked for about 6 months then it deactivated one day. I got hold of G2A who were not very helpful so I started a case with Paypal - instant win. All I had to do was show the serial being put in and refused, refund given. The second issue I had was sort of my own fault really. I bought a copy of Borderlands : The Pre Sequel for £15. It was a Russian key. G2A give you instructions on how to activate it, so I simply used a Russian IP, installed the game and then supposedly I would be able to play it forever more. Only right about that time Steam made it so that you could only then play it in the country of origin. So if I tried to launch it from a UK IP it would say "Sorry, this game is only playable in the country of origin". Given that I knew it was dodgy I did not pursue a refund, though really if I wanted to be a swine I could have opened a dispute etc. Since then G2A do not show you how to activate the game as they have obviously realised Steam have cottoned on to what was going on and blocked it. So now I still use G2A where they are cheaper than retail. I also used Kinguin recently and cdkeys for the first time. I had an issue with the cdkeys order, but it took less than an hour from sending them a email to getting a code from support. I accept that sites like G2A and Kinguin are dodgy. However, nobody would use them unless the prices weren't far lower. For example Need for speed. EA want £50+ for that, I got it on cdkeys for £22. That's not to be sniffed at. All that is happening with high retail game prices is they are creating an under economy. It's very similar to back in the 90s with console imports (because consoles took far too long to reach the UK an entire business structure was created). I used to buy all of my consoles and games from importers, then all of a sudden Sony and Microsoft decided not to knob over the Brits and closed down hundreds of businesses. I think this is very similar tbh. If game prices are really going to be £50 for a game that may not even work then all of the time you can buy and use an EU key (Polish, more than likely) then people are going to. As for G2A? don't bother with their shield or whatever it's called. I already have one - Paypal.
Funny how one's perspective can shift over time. I've since used G2A a few times and it's been absolutely fine. To be honest, I wouldn't use them for stuff like preorders, special DLC packs and whatever else - just regular purchases of released products that are widely available. That seems the safest bet.
I think for the most part you just stick in the code and that's it (not counting the FC4 thing). That's pretty much all I have done and I initially paid for their protection (though god only knows why, given I pay with Paypal) but now I just get the cheapest key I can. I stuck in the Origin code for NFS earlier. It went in fine and I've preloaded the game (though 12gb seems awful light for a game that supposedly has dedicated 4k textures in) so I guess we'll see what happens. But yeah, at £50 for a PC game that may be incompatible/probably won't work at first/may never support more than one GPU they are having a laugh.
In countries like Poland games cost a lot less. I guess it's all based on economics and disposable income. So, they buy the games in bulk and then sell them to us Brits, making a small profit on each one.
Not to mention any time they come up in a sale somewhere. Valve and other publishers could easily put a stop to the whole thing by making regional keys language-specific, and it's always seemed odd to me that they don't. How many British people are there living in Poland/Czech that would be burned by not being able to buy an English-language version of a game?
