Question about Steam cards (More of a question for the staff)

[Jewel Wildmoon]

I don't know if this is something I would've had to PM a staff member for but hopefully they'll just see it here anyway.

I had a question I've been meaning to ask for a while but didn't bother to mention it as I thought it would've been a stupid question, but I've seen other people doing it so I got curious about it again and figured before I try it, I'd better ask so as to avoid getting banned or anything

Are we allowed to exchange Steam Gift Cards (either offline or Digital code you can send to a friend) for services such as Art Commissions?

Reason I'm asking is because where I'm from, Steam cards don't ship here very often and when they do, they sell fast and because of the conversion rate, tend to be crazy expensive (cheapest I could find so far was about $240 for a $20 Card). I also wanted to do commissions but I can't get PayPal without a credit card where I'm from. I can't get any of my family to let me just give them the money to use their card and put it in my Steam account because they don't trust certain sites with their credit cards and it costs too much to ship from Amazon and in the local gaming shops. So I figured it would work out if I did Art Commissions with the Digital Steam Gift Cards as the payment option, but I wasn't sure if Steam allows it since from what I've seen, most sites and games don't allow you to exchange virtual items/currency for services. Would it be fine in this case? Or does Steam also have that restriction?

[Zekiran]

Thing is: while 'technically' you can accept whatever forms of payment you think you can use / people can send to you physically for goods, the only people who tend to ASK for payment in the form of Steam cards are scammers and thieves.

Just last week there was a guy who lost some godawful amount of money to just such a person.

Be wary. Use money instead.

[Cheezus Crisp]

Not entirely sure why you're asking this in the first place. Are you afraid that you're using gift cards as a payment method for commercial reasons? As far as I can see, people should be free to do whatever they want with gift cards and the reason you receive one shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't relate to money laundering. I could be wrong about this but I don't see anything wrong with accepting gift cards as payment.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

At your own risk.

[Jewel Wildmoon]

Originally posted by Zekiran:

Thing is: while 'technically' you can accept whatever forms of payment you think you can use / people can send to you physically for goods, the only people who tend to ASK for payment in the form of Steam cards are scammers and thieves.

Just last week there was a guy who lost some godawful amount of money to just such a person.

Be wary. Use money instead.

Oh geez. I hope he gets it back somehow

True that it's probably not the best option.

[Jewel Wildmoon]

Originally posted by Ceezus Crisp:

Not entirely sure why you're asking this in the first place. Are you afraid that you're using gift cards as a payment method for commercial reasons? As far as I can see, people should be free to do whatever they want with gift cards and the reason you receive one shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't relate to money laundering. I could be wrong about this but I don't see anything wrong with accepting gift cards as payment.

Yeah I just wasn't sure at first since a lot of sites and games have a rule where you can't use virtual currency or items for stuff outside of the website so I wanted to make sure if it was acceptable or not before doing so as to avoid getting a ban if it was against the rules

[Cheezus Crisp]

Originally posted by JewelFazbear:

Originally posted by Ceezus Crisp:

Not entirely sure why you're asking this in the first place. Are you afraid that you're using gift cards as a payment method for commercial reasons? As far as I can see, people should be free to do whatever they want with gift cards and the reason you receive one shouldn't matter as long as it doesn't relate to money laundering. I could be wrong about this but I don't see anything wrong with accepting gift cards as payment.

Yeah I just wasn't sure at first since a lot of sites and games have a rule where you can't use virtual currency or items for stuff outside of the website so I wanted to make sure if it was acceptable or not before doing so as to avoid getting a ban if it was against the rules

Well, the only thing I've seen that relates to this is the selling of Steam accounts as that's against the TOS. But other than that, a good example of people using real money outside of Valve is CS:GO skins for example. There are plenty of people selling their CS skins for real money but you don't see Valve going against these people.

[Jewel Wildmoon]

Originally posted by Ceezus Crisp:

Originally posted by JewelFazbear:

Yeah I just wasn't sure at first since a lot of sites and games have a rule where you can't use virtual currency or items for stuff outside of the website so I wanted to make sure if it was acceptable or not before doing so as to avoid getting a ban if it was against the rules

Well, the only thing I've seen that relates to this is the selling of Steam accounts as that's against the TOS. But other than that, a good example of people using real money outside of Valve is CS:GO skins for example. There are plenty of people selling their CS skins for real money but you don't see Valve going against these people.

Ohhh. I guess it should be ok then XD I've seen people do commissions for Steam currency before but still figured I'd ask cuz I worry too much bout the risk of getting banned lmao

[Radene]

Originally posted by JewelFazbear:

Originally posted by Ceezus Crisp:

Well, the only thing I've seen that relates to this is the selling of Steam accounts as that's against the TOS. But other than that, a good example of people using real money outside of Valve is CS:GO skins for example. There are plenty of people selling their CS skins for real money but you don't see Valve going against these people.

Ohhh. I guess it should be ok then XD I've seen people do commissions for Steam currency before but still figured I'd ask cuz I worry too much bout the risk of getting banned lmao

Likely won't get banned, but you are taking a risky deal, and might be scammed if you're not really careful and thorough.

[Jewel Wildmoon]

Originally posted by Radene:

Originally posted by JewelFazbear:

Ohhh. I guess it should be ok then XD I've seen people do commissions for Steam currency before but still figured I'd ask cuz I worry too much bout the risk of getting banned lmao

Likely won't get banned, but you are taking a risky deal, and might be scammed if you're not really careful and thorough.

I'll give it some thought for now then. Way too busy currently with University to start commissions so until I get the time I could decide

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

"Are we allowed to exchange Steam Gift Cards (either offline or Digital code you can send to a friend) for services such as Art Commissions?"

Sure I see no issue behind that to be honest, it's no much different than anywhere else. But be warned, if that person does a charge back on the digital gift card, this will cause two things, one that his account will be locked until he pay it back, and two this affect whatever you used that money on such as specific games the money was used on specifically which will be temporarily disabled/revoked, or if used on market only can either deduct your wallet for the amount or be in the minus, which again he need to pay back the amount or his account will be lock forever, you be fine as you wouldn't be punished like him for account issue such as lock, but you can contact support to resolve your own issue as well, if you don't want to wait on him to resolve the issue he cause, but more can be explained when you contact support, which I'm sure you get the best answers from support.

Steam support > My account > Data related to my account scroll to the bottom click on contact support.

Also if you have a bank account that PayPal support, then all you have to do is link them, and that's about it, if there's other bank transfer options in the payment options, check them out as well.

[Jewel Wildmoon]

Originally posted by Dr.Shadowds 🐉:

"Are we allowed to exchange Steam Gift Cards (either offline or Digital code you can send to a friend) for services such as Art Commissions?"

Sure I see no issue behind that to be honest, it's no much different than anywhere else. But be warned, if that person does a charge back on the digital gift card, this will cause two things, one that his account will be locked until he pay it back, and two this affect whatever you used that money on such as specific games the money was used on specifically which will be temporarily disabled/revoked, or if used on market only can either deduct your wallet for the amount or be in the minus, which again he need to pay back the amount or his account will be lock forever, you be fine as you wouldn't be punished like him for account issue such as lock, but you can contact support to resolve your own issue as well, if you don't want to wait on him to resolve the issue he cause, but more can be explained when you contact support, which I'm sure you get the best answers from support.

Steam support > My account > Data related to my account scroll to the bottom click on contact support.

Also if you have a bank account that PayPal support, then all you have to do is link them, and that's about it, if there's other bank transfer options in the payment options, check them out as well.

Ohhh. I'll see whether to go through with the gift card payment or not. Main reasons I considered it is because how PayPal works where I'm from, you have to have a credit card to use PayPal but I don't xD