can steam games be gifted to a friend using steam wallet money?

[ben]

i tried to, and it error’d me, do i have to link my credit card instead of steam wallet money?

[Ogami]

In general Steam does not like it if you use Wallet funds to gift games to friends.
That often triggers a "suspected of commercial trading" flag for your account.
You can either contact Steam support to remove the flag from your account or use a external payment method like a credit card to buy the gift, that will always work.

[wuddih]

gifting with wallet funds is highly restricted.
gifting with other payment methods should normally work though.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

I gifted a game with Steam wallet credit and it was fine. I don't do it often though. You cannot buy Digital Steam Gift cards with Steam wallet funds however.

Does Steam Valve have a "trustee" system in place or something? Some people can do things while others cannot. Seems odd...

[Bee🐝]

Wynters님이 먼저 게시:

I gifted a game with Steam wallet credit and it was fine. I don't do it often though. You cannot buy Digital Steam Gift cards with Steam wallet funds however.

Does Steam Valve have a "trustee" system in place or something? Some people can do things while others cannot. Seems odd...

The auto-flag system seems to be pretty sensitive - any behaviour that even slightly appears to be commercial activity will cause a lock.

Now, Support can remove that block and they often do, but loads of times people trigger the flag again for exhibiting the same odd behaviour. Support does not remove the block a second time - that pretty much tells you everything about their feelings on the matter.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Bee🐝님이 먼저 게시:

Wynters님이 먼저 게시:

I gifted a game with Steam wallet credit and it was fine. I don't do it often though. You cannot buy Digital Steam Gift cards with Steam wallet funds however.

Does Steam Valve have a "trustee" system in place or something? Some people can do things while others cannot. Seems odd...

The auto-flag system seems to be pretty sensitive - any behaviour that even slightly appears to be commercial activity will cause a lock.

Now, Support can remove that block and they often do, but loads of times people trigger the flag again for exhibiting the same odd behaviour. Support does not remove the block a second time; that pretty much tells you everything about their feelings on the matter.

I see. Thank you.

[ModernSamurai]

I don't understand. Why is it bad that one person gifts to another person using steam wallet? Or maybe it's the same person with 2 accounts and wants to buy a game for account A with the money from account B. Why is it bad?

Also, if a ban happens, who does it affect? The sender of the gift or the receiver?

[nullable]

ModernSamurai님이 먼저 게시:

I don't understand. Why is it bad that one person gifts to another person using steam wallet? Or maybe it's the same person with 2 accounts and wants to buy a game for account A with the money from account B. Why is it bad?

Also, if a ban happens, who does it affect? The sender of the gift or the receiver?

The sender of course. If it was the receiver then malicious users could weaponize that to harm other's accounts.

As for why wallet funds are somewhat restricted, I would have to venture it has to do with how prevalent scams are and how wallet funds can be transferable via the market. Or how giftcards are used in scams. Buying gifts with wallet funds may effectively be a form of laundering in those cases. It's definitely a "this is why we can't have nice things" type of problem.

At any rate I'm sure Valve has a visibility into what's going on and it's not an arbitrary decision.

[ModernSamurai]

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

ModernSamurai님이 먼저 게시:

I don't understand. Why is it bad that one person gifts to another person using steam wallet? Or maybe it's the same person with 2 accounts and wants to buy a game for account A with the money from account B. Why is it bad?

Also, if a ban happens, who does it affect? The sender of the gift or the receiver?

The sender of course. If it was the receiver then malicious users could weaponize that to harm other's accounts.

As for why wallet funds are somewhat restricted, I would have to venture it has to do with how prevalent scams are and how wallet funds can be transferable via the market. Or how giftcards are used in scams. Buying gifts with wallet funds may effectively be a form of laundering in those cases. It's definitely a "this is why we can't have nice things" type of problem.

At any rate I'm sure Valve has a visibility into what's going on and it's not an arbitrary decision.

Okay so what should I do if I have 2 accounts, and I don't use one of them, but it has some wallet funds in it, and I want to transfer that money to my main account?

There seems to be 2 ways. Either directly buy a game and gift it to myself, or buy items with it from the market and trade the items to myself. (In the form of item instead of money.)

So both those things are considered bad by Steam? Or trading is okay?

There seems to be a lot of strict laws about these things. That's why I'm asking, I don't want to break any rules and want do things legitimately.

[nullable]

ModernSamurai님이 먼저 게시:

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

The sender of course. If it was the receiver then malicious users could weaponize that to harm other's accounts.

As for why wallet funds are somewhat restricted, I would have to venture it has to do with how prevalent scams are and how wallet funds can be transferable via the market. Or how giftcards are used in scams. Buying gifts with wallet funds may effectively be a form of laundering in those cases. It's definitely a "this is why we can't have nice things" type of problem.

At any rate I'm sure Valve has a visibility into what's going on and it's not an arbitrary decision.

Okay so what should I do if I have 2 accounts, and I don't use one of them, but it has some wallet funds in it, and I want to transfer that money to my main account?

Buying yourself a gift with wallet funds isn't against the rules and isn't strictly forbidden prevented. If your account isn't already gift restricted or anything it shouldn't be an issue unless you're buying lots of gifts. The threshold where you'd trigger a restriction is a bit fuzzy and ill-defined. Most normal user behavior shouldn't trigger it.

ModernSamurai님이 먼저 게시:

There seems to be 2 ways. Either directly buy a game and gift it to myself, or buy items with it from the market and trade the items to myself. (In the form of item instead of money.)

So both those things are considered bad by Steam? Or trading is okay?

There seems to be a lot of strict laws about these things. That's why I'm asking, I don't want to break any rules and want do things legitimately.

I would just do the former, playing grabass with the market to transfer funds is way more problematic in my opinion.

If it were me I wouldn't be using wallet funds to buy myself tons of gifts in multiple transactions, it would be a one shot deal, so I wouldn't be worried about restrictions. If your plans involve something different then that may warrant more consideration.

[ModernSamurai]

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

I would just do the former, playing grabass with the market to transfer funds is way more problematic in my opinion.

If it were me I wouldn't be using wallet funds to buy myself tons of gifts in multiple transactions, it would be a one shot deal, so I wouldn't be worried about restrictions. If your plans involve something different then that may warrant more consideration.

I'm thinking maybe if the trading is also a one shot deal it shouldn't cause any problem? (Since it's just ONE person transferring things between their OWN accounts.)

But I will take your advice. If you think directly buying and gifting to myself is safer than using market to transfer money, then I will probably do that.

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

Buying yourself a gift with wallet funds isn't against the rules and isn't strictly forbidden prevented. If your account isn't already gift restricted or anything it shouldn't be an issue unless you're buying lots of gifts. The threshold where you'd trigger a restriction is a bit fuzzy and ill-defined. Most normal user behavior shouldn't trigger it.

Yes It honestly shouldn't cause any problem. These rules are very strict in my opinion. But again, maybe some people did bad things in the past that made Steam how it is today. (It's truly why we can't have nice things.)

I was just asking because of others people's comments that said gifting with wallet is bad:

Ogami님이 먼저 게시:

In general Steam does not like it if you use Wallet funds to gift games to friends.
That often triggers a "suspected of commercial trading" flag for your account.
You can either contact Steam support to remove the flag from your account or use a external payment method like a credit card to buy the gift, that will always work.

wuddih님이 먼저 게시:

gifting with wallet funds is highly restricted.
gifting with other payment methods should normally work though.

[nullable]

Well they were responding to OP's question, and your scenario may not be same. OP's question was a bit more specific because of an error, so answers reflected what might be happening in their circumstance.

So my take on it is, when you tried to buy a game for your alt account, what happened? Did it work, or did you have the same error?

Also the problem with trying to use the market to transfer funds, is you'll have to pay the market fees to accomplish that. Trying to transfer $30 might only leave you with $25.50, and if you can just skip that tax by gifting a game that would generally be preferable. The only time using the market might be viewed as better is if you could not gift a game.

[ModernSamurai]

nullable님이 먼저 게시:

Well they were responding to OP's question, and your scenario may not be same. OP's question was a bit more specific because of an error, so answers reflected what might be happening in their circumstance.

So my take on it is, when you tried to buy a game for your alt account, what happened? Did it work, or did you have the same error?

Also the problem with trying to use the market to transfer funds, is you'll have to pay the market fees to accomplish that. Trying to transfer $30 might only leave you with $25.50, and if you can just skip that tax by gifting a game that would generally be preferable. The only time using the market might be viewed as better is if you could not gift a game.

No I haven't done anything yet. My case is very simple. I just have an alt account that has wallet money in it, and I was just asking in the forums before I did anything. Because I know that sometimes Steam have some strict rules. But maybe not in this case.

And yeah, Steam has a tax when selling items. Gifting sounds like a better option then. I'm just afraid because I'm a paranoid person and I don't want anything happen to my account.

But thanks for the replies.

[76561199033349676]

This angers me to no end. I am simply trying to give my roommate's kid 100 bucks. I had no option other than to stick the 100 in my wallet. This place frankly blows.

Now I have 100 dollars in my steam wallet just sitting there.

It took days to register because the email system barely works. It took me 8 days to finally log back in due to said mail issue.

How the actual F*ck do I send the boy the cash? His birthday was 2 freaking weeks ago.

Do I have to have him sit here and pick games and then I can transfer them to him?

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

NigelLew님이 먼저 게시:

This angers me to no end. I am simply trying to give my roommate's kid 100 bucks. I had no option other than to stick the 100 in my wallet. This place frankly blows.

Now I have 100 dollars in my steam wallet just sitting there.

It took days to register because the email system barely works. It took me 8 days to finally log back in due to said mail issue.

How the actual F*ck do I send the boy the cash? His birthday was 2 freaking weeks ago.

Do I have to have him sit here and pick games and then I can transfer them to him?

Why didn't you send a digital gift card?

Are you beyond the 2 weeks for a refund?

[76561199033349676]

cSg|mc-Hotsauce님이 먼저 게시:

NigelLew님이 먼저 게시:

This angers me to no end. I am simply trying to give my roommate's kid 100 bucks. I had no option other than to stick the 100 in my wallet. This place frankly blows.

Now I have 100 dollars in my steam wallet just sitting there.

It took days to register because the email system barely works. It took me 8 days to finally log back in due to said mail issue.

How the actual F*ck do I send the boy the cash? His birthday was 2 freaking weeks ago.

Do I have to have him sit here and pick games and then I can transfer them to him?

Why didn't you send a digital gift card?

Are you beyond the 2 weeks for a refund?

:winterbunny2023:

It would not let me. Said I had to wait a week. Then it said I had to be friends with the fellow for more than 3 days or I could not send him anything in the first place.

Steam had no problems taking my cash, though lol..