Withdrawing money

[RegeN]

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

[metamec]

It will never be possible for someone else to pay you through Steam for 'gifts'. It's not possible to withdraw wallet funds (which is essentially store credit) because Valve/Steam is not a financial institution or bank and must comply with US financial regulations designed to prevent money laundering. The scenario you describe would represent a loophole: A way of circumventing the restrictions already in place.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

If your money is in your wallet yes of course you can use it to buy a gift to a friend.
There is alo the option to send a digital gift card to your friend so long they are in a supporting country.
https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by RegeN:

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

any attempt to "Cash Out" your steam wallet is DO AT OWN RISK, you get scammed, you are on your own. the only thing support returns is the account. any items/money stolen are not restored. they have added restrictions on using the steam wallet to buy gifts because of people doing what you are trying to do.

your steam wallet is ONLY STORE CREDIT, steam is not a bank. you can buy games with your wallet, but you cannot use it to send others wallet funds. digital wallet funds require an outside payment method.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by RegeN:

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

You may find your ability to send gifts taken away for doing exactly what you're attemping.

[nullable]

Originally posted by RegeN:

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

It might be "OK" in your opinion. But don't expect Steam to kiss your boo boo's when things go awry. And the sorts of websites/services that allege to facilitate such things are often vectors for scams and account hijackings and any consequences you earn from those kind of things will be well earned.

Not to mention using gifts for commercial purposes has gotten lots of people's gifting privileges revoked, and it doesn't seem like it takes much for that to occur either.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by RegeN:

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

The only real way to do this and not risk getting scammed is to only do this with IRL friends who put CASH IN YOU HAND in exchange for you gifting them a game. Just don't do too many games or Valve may block your account from gifting if they think you are selling games.

[feytharn]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

[...] if they think you are selling games.

Which is exactly what they would do, so even with irl friend it is an 'at your own risk' venture.

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Jaunitta 🌸:

If your money is in your wallet yes of course you can use it to buy a gift to a friend.
There is alo the option to send a digital gift card to your friend so long they are in a supporting country.
https://store.steampowered.com/digitalgiftcards/

You can't use wallet funds to send digital giftcards. You need to use an external payment method.

Originally posted by RegeN:

Hey guys, I have an amount of money in my account which I would like to withdraw.
I understand that is it impossible, but I guess it's ok to but someone gifts in exchange for real money.
Is there anyone here who has done this or wants to?

I am sure people have. Keep in mind that it is an unsupported transaction, so if the person never gives you the money, you are out of luck as support won't be able to help. Also, gifting too many games may trigger a lock on the account as it may be detected as being used for commercial purposes. That means you would no longer be able to gift games using wallet funds, but can still use an external payment method to do so.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by feytharn:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

[...] if they think you are selling games.

Which is exactly what they would do, so even with irl friend it is an 'at your own risk' venture.

That's why I said

Just don't do too many games

I don't know how much the OP has in their wallet, but gifting one game, every so often, will probably be OK.

[feytharn]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Originally posted by feytharn:

Which is exactly what they would do, so even with irl friend it is an 'at your own risk' venture.

That's why I said

Just don't do too many games

I don't know how much the OP has in their wallet, but gifting one game, every so often, will probably be OK.

Selling games this way is never 'ok' with Valve - they might not immediatly intervene, but there is a reason they restrict accounts to prevent it.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by feytharn:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

That's why I said
I don't know how much the OP has in their wallet, but gifting one game, every so often, will probably be OK.

Selling games this way is never 'ok' with Valve - they might not immediatly intervene, but there is a reason they restrict accounts to prevent it.

And how would Valve know the reason why someone chose to gift someone a game?
If it's the occasional gift, every now and then, the user will be fine. Especially if they didn't communicate through Steam about what was up. It's usually someone gifting multiple games in a short period that gets restricted.

[feytharn]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Originally posted by feytharn:

Selling games this way is never 'ok' with Valve - they might not immediatly intervene, but there is a reason they restrict accounts to prevent it.

And how would Valve know the reason why someone chose to gift someone a game?
If it's the occasional gift, every now and then, the user will be fine. Especially if they didn't communicate through Steam about what was up. It's usually someone gifting multiple games in a short period that gets restricted.

That they do not know about it makes it 'ok' for the seller, not for Valve. It doesn't matter how often they do it but only if Valve is on to them doing so - they might be restricted the very first time.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by feytharn:

they might be restricted the very first time.

That is not likely to happen unless they are trying to gift an excessive number of games to one or more people, especially people that are "new" friends. It's an automated system that has to flag the gift as suspicious so I highly doubt that a user buying a game for someone that's been on their Friends List for ages is going to raise any red flags.

[Adam]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.