Can't send steam digital gift cards to friend in foreign countries

[DenizCinemreUS]

I was able to send my friends gift cards on holidays, but I am unable to send gift cards for about 4 days now. Is this a steam technical issue, or did they bring a country restriction to digital gift cards?

[my new friend]

Depends on the countries involved.

[ReBoot]

Do you get an error message?

[DenizCinemreUS]

Originally posted by my new friend:

Depends on the countries involved.

I am in US and trying to send to Turkey

[DenizCinemreUS]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Do you get an error message?

There seems to have been an error initializing or updating transaction. Please wait a minute and try again or contact support for assistance.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by DenizCinemreUS:

or contact support for assistance.

Follow the instructions.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by DenizCinemreUS:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Do you get an error message?

There seems to have been an error initializing or updating transaction. Please wait a minute and try again or contact support for assistance.

Do literally as it says. Attention: forum is not support!

[DenizCinemreUS]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by DenizCinemreUS:

There seems to have been an error initializing or updating transaction. Please wait a minute and try again or contact support for assistance.

Do literally as it says. Attention: forum is not support!

I already contacted to steam and they said we don’t know when we will fix it. I am asking here that did they started region lock on the steam digital gift card? Or is it a technical issue that will resolve in a week or so?

[Cathulhu]

Only Steam Support can answer those questions.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by DenizCinemreUS:

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Do literally as it says. Attention: forum is not support!

I already contacted to steam and they said we don’t know when we will fix it. I am asking here that did they started region lock on the steam digital gift card? Or is it a technical issue that will resolve in a week or so?

It's been going on for about 5 months now so don't expect any fix soon or at all. Sadly the restrictions appear as an error message and Valve themselves have left Support in the dark.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Originally posted by DenizCinemreUS:

I already contacted to steam and they said we don’t know when we will fix it. I am asking here that did they started region lock on the steam digital gift card? Or is it a technical issue that will resolve in a week or so?

It's been going on for about 5 months now so don't expect any fix soon or at all. Sadly the restrictions appear as an error message and Valve themselves have left Support in the dark.

New restrictions? Got some detail on that?

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

It's been going on for about 5 months now so don't expect any fix soon or at all. Sadly the restrictions appear as an error message and Valve themselves have left Support in the dark.

New restrictions? Got some detail on that?

There was a thread ages ago when this started kicking off in droves and a mod chimed in after Support were flooded and said it was intended restrictions but Support were not told why or how to relay users. Seems like it's still not been addressed or expanded upon.

The search function is absolute ♥♥♥♥♥ on here so I don't hold out much hope of digging out the thread but I expect we'll see many of them in the coming days and hopefully someone in authority can provide users with a definitive answer.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

New restrictions? Got some detail on that?

Since July you could not send Steam Digital Gift Cards to someone in Argentina except if you yourself were from Argentina and bought with a external payment method registered in Argentina.
Same " we dont know why" answer from Steam Support.
For the last few weeks its now "Turkey".

Both countries who suffer from very high currency degradation at the moment which attracts a lot of users to create regional accounts there via VPN to shop very cheap for games.
First Steam changed the region switch rules so you need a payment method from that country to create a account there or charge your wallet.
But existing accounts still could be funded from outside those regions via Steam Digital Gift cards.

To give some perspective, a new AAA game may cost as little as 600-1000 peso in Argentina,
many indie titles only cost around 200.
At the same time a 50 Dollar digital gift card converted into about 5500+ peso with the weak currency.
Same happened to Turkey over the last few months with apparently many region hoppers switching to that store after Argentina got too difficult.

So its pretty telling that both those regions can no longer be gifted with digital gift cards and give the same generic error message while Steam Support just says " we dont know".

Seems very obvious at this point.

[Mentally Unstable]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Since July you could not send Steam Digital Gift Cards to someone in Argentina except if you yourself were from Argentina and bought with a external payment method registered in Argentina.
Same " we dont know why" answer from Steam Support.
For the last few weeks its now "Turkey".

Both countries who suffer from very high currency degradation at the moment which attracts a lot of users to create regional accounts there via VPN to shop very cheap for games.
First Steam changed the region switch rules so you need a payment method from that country to create a account there or charge your wallet.
But existing accounts still could be funded from outside those regions via Steam Digital Gift cards.

To give some perspective, a new AAA game may cost as little as 600-1000 peso in Argentina,
many indie titles only cost around 200.
At the same time a 50 Dollar digital gift card converted into about 5500+ peso with the weak currency.
Same happened to Turkey over the last few months with apparently many region hoppers switching to that store after Argentina got too difficult.

So its pretty telling that both those regions can no longer be gifted with digital gift cards and give the same generic error message while Steam Support just says " we dont know".

Seems very obvious at this point.

I concur. I bet the same "error" will mysteriously happen again for the next currency that faces devaluation. Even if we were to end up in a situation where digital gift cards are only able to be sent to the US and EU while the rest of the world is getting an "error", Steam would still give the same awkward "we don't know what's going on" line.......yeah right, biggest platform being clueless as to why their own system is unable to work for half the globe?

Steam is being disingenuous in this regard. It's obvious this "issue" is one they created themselves but they pretend as if they do not know what is going on. There is no fix to this because they are likely waiting for those currencies to grow back to previous levels(eg pre-pandemic) which is essentially impossible or will take a very long time(think decades). As such, this issue will never be "fixed" and those poor countries will be effectively cut off forever from the rest of the international community in terms of digital card gifting. So much for globalization. Steam prefers to take the blunderbuss approach and make pariahs of entire countries - not allowed to gift games, not allowed to gift wallet.

[Cielnoir]

Originally posted by Mentally Unstable:

Originally posted by Ogami:

Since July you could not send Steam Digital Gift Cards to someone in Argentina except if you yourself were from Argentina and bought with a external payment method registered in Argentina.
Same " we dont know why" answer from Steam Support.
For the last few weeks its now "Turkey".

Both countries who suffer from very high currency degradation at the moment which attracts a lot of users to create regional accounts there via VPN to shop very cheap for games.
First Steam changed the region switch rules so you need a payment method from that country to create a account there or charge your wallet.
But existing accounts still could be funded from outside those regions via Steam Digital Gift cards.

To give some perspective, a new AAA game may cost as little as 600-1000 peso in Argentina,
many indie titles only cost around 200.
At the same time a 50 Dollar digital gift card converted into about 5500+ peso with the weak currency.
Same happened to Turkey over the last few months with apparently many region hoppers switching to that store after Argentina got too difficult.

So its pretty telling that both those regions can no longer be gifted with digital gift cards and give the same generic error message while Steam Support just says " we dont know".

Seems very obvious at this point.

I concur. I bet the same "error" will mysteriously happen again for the next currency that faces devaluation. Even if we were to end up in a situation where digital gift cards are only able to be sent to the US and EU while the rest of the world is getting an "error", Steam would still give the same awkward "we don't know what's going on" line.......yeah right, biggest platform being clueless as to why their own system is unable to work for half the globe?

Steam is being disingenuous in this regard. It's obvious this "issue" is one they created themselves but they pretend as if they do not know what is going on. There is no fix to this because they are likely waiting for those currencies to grow back to previous levels(eg pre-pandemic) which is essentially impossible or will take a very long time(think decades). As such, this issue will never be "fixed" and those poor countries will be effectively cut off forever from the rest of the international community in terms of digital card gifting. So much for globalization. Steam prefers to take the blunderbuss approach and make pariahs of entire countries - not allowed to gift games, not allowed to gift wallet.

I feel u bruh, u r not alone
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/4739473745785805018/

add me as friend? we discuss further..

[vgNz]

Hello, I have the same problem, steam disabled to send to Turkish friends in steam, this problem is because lira lost value and when u send USD or Euro he gets them into lira when they accept ur gift in steam, steam does not know what to give them because lira losing value every day, till lira is stable this will be disabled maybe .