People are being overcharged for Steam Wallet Codes in South East Asia

[先輩]

I can not confirm experiences in each and every market in SEA but this is what from I observe in Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam. Further research suggests that this phenomenon also occurs in other countries in SEA.

Official partners of Steam (ones listed on "Where to buy") who resells these codes charge about 10-20% the value of the wallet code. Because of these prices, it is actually cheaper to get a steam wallet code from another country and use it in your country.

Let's say for instance in Europe. I can get a 20€ gift card at a supermarket and it'll cost 20€ at the cashier. Meanwhile in Indonesia/Singapore, you're expected to pay about 10-20% more than the value in the wallet code (a 10SG$ code could cost 12SG$, Rp 90000 cost Rp 105000, etc).

Concrete example of what I'm talking about:
https://www.reddit.com/r/singapore/comments/28cbru/where_to_buy_steam_wallet_cards_in_sg/
plus pretty much all links in "where to buy" section of SEA.

People have to buy them when they do not possess a credit card. PayPal is also not an option as it's not supported in most of the countries and cannot be linked to a bank account.

There are also plenty of black markets of foreign currency steam wallet codes. This works because steam would convert wallet codes in foreign currencies to your currency based on your market. These sellers charge based on the actual value of the converted currency plus some extra service fee, which surprisingly the total sum is still cheaper and provides more variable payment methods. Some even sell the game directly and will gift the game to consumer, even forfeiting the perks you get from a legitimate purchase (card drops, refundability, market, etc.)

I just hope that Steam would rethink their strategy in this matter as SEA is a really fast growing market and these limitations are what makes people rethink before their purchase.

[Snapjak]

That's not on Valve at all. That's on whomever is distributing them there.

Valve don't own the cards. There are like 2 or 3 major companies in the US that handle most of the gift cards.

[Maulidan Games]

Originally posted by Snapjak:

That's not on Valve at all. That's on whomever is distributing them there.

Valve don't own the cards. There are like 2 or 3 major companies in the US that handle most of the gift cards.

So which companies are distributing the wallet codes?

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Maulidan Games:

So which companies are distributing the wallet codes?

Doesn't matter who is, there will always be a grey market. Vendors can always choose to carry Steam Wallet Cards, but if none in an area want to, then there will always be grey markets that make money off of it.

If nothing can be done about the NES Classic selling for $120+ on Amazon and and Ebay, then there is nothing that can be done about people selling Steam Wallet Card they purchased.

As long as there is a market for it, there will always be people willing to sell it.