Unable to redeem gift cards at all (from any source, in any currency) to fund wallet

[PartyAt8]

Hey guys, I'm having a really weird issue. I have always bought gift cards online to fund my wallet, and they have been in USD despite my account being Colombia-based and using COP currency. This was never an issue until recently, and it was always converted with no problem whatsoever. I bought $50 in gift cards from the same seller on the same platform that I've used for years, and suddenly started getting that big orange error that says some stuff about checking for typos or checking the region.

I contacted the seller and sent them the info, as well as Steam support. Steam support was entirely useless and closed the ticket after resending me the same error message I sent them, totally ignoring the actual question I asked about regions and currency conversion. The seller asked for more info which I have sent and now waiting to hear back from them.

In the meantime I figured I'd try two things: buying from a different seller and a different site in USD (both gave me errors), and then buy gift cards in my native currency (COP) to see if maybe there was a Steam policy change behind the scenes that affected currency covlnversion. Sure enough, that works just fine - I redeem about 20 of them (since they're limited to 50k COP each maximum which is roughly $12 USD right now) purchased from a different site, and everything is good. Thinking it's solved, I go back to the main site and seller I use and buy two more of exactly the same card (50k COP) to see if it works there too - they do work just fine, so I buy some games and assume everything is fine.

Now today I tried to buy two more 50k COP cards to take advantage of more sales. I go to redeem the first one and get exactly the same error again. Thinking maybe it's a one-off bad code, I try to use the 2nd and get yet another error. Obviously something else is going on here that has nothing to do with inactive codes, typos, or region/currency.

Is my account flagged for using gift cards? Is there some system issue on Steam's side? I don't understand why it isn't working, but I have over $100 USD in useless gift cards that probably will not be refunded if they can't be made to work. I really need to know what's going on and how it can be fixed if possible... Any ideas?

[Wolf Knight]

steam gift cards are currency locked, they no longer convert. you can only use cards that are for the currency of your account.

if you have issues with a gift card you purchased, this is between you and that seller

there may be limits on how many cards you can redeem during a set period of time

[HikariLight]

Physical cards can only be redeemed if your store region is the same as the currency on the card.
Digitally gifted funds will auto convert using current conversion rates.

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

steam gift cards are currency locked, they no longer convert. you can only use cards that are for the currency of your account.

if you have issues with a gift card you purchased, this is between you and that seller

there may be limits on how many cards you can redeem during a set period of time

Sorry for no tl;Dr in my wall of text, but I explained in detail that I have tried in my currency as well. It worked at first and then stopped working while giving the same error.

I've also used USD cards to fund my account for years, and even the redeem page says that a card in a different currency will be converted to your account's currency so I think your info might be outdated on that. Regardless, I don't see why it would stop me from using cards in my own currency even if that was the issue.

What exactly would the limits be? That should be clearly and visibly stated to avoid situations like this if that is the case.

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by HikariLight:

Physical cards can only be redeemed if your store region is the same as the currency on the card.
Digitally gifted funds will auto convert using current conversion rates.

They're all digital in my case, which is why I've never had a problem redeeming the USD cards. I have no Idea why neither COP or USD is working now but the other guy mentioned there might be limits on how many cards can be redeemed in a given amount of time.

Of course, it would be great if Steam support would have just said that in any of the 3 tickets I've had created and immediately closed about this issue instead of suggesting it's a typo while totally ignoring my actual problem. Does anyone know the card limit per amount of time or is just an arbitrary Steam secret?

[HikariLight]

If Steam believes you might be doing commercial activities via your account they may restrict what you can do.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

You have a cooldown. This cooldown is 24 hours.

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

You have a cooldown. This cooldown is 24 hours.

:nkCool:

That sounds fair, but I did try redeeming the other codes after a day or two before purchasing more and they still didn't work. It had definitely been 24+ hours at that point. Not sure what happened there.

May I ask where you got that info? I didn't see anything mentioning it on Steam or hear it from support, but would have been nice to know of that ahead of time.

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by HikariLight:

If Steam believes you might be doing commercial activities via your account they may restrict what you can do.

If that was the case, is there a way to find out and/or appeal it? The canned responses from support aren't really helping, and if that's what's going on I'd like to be informed.

[HikariLight]

Originally posted by PartyAt8:

Originally posted by HikariLight:

If Steam believes you might be doing commercial activities via your account they may restrict what you can do.

If that was the case, is there a way to find out and/or appeal it? The canned responses from support aren't really helping, and if that's what's going on I'd like to be informed.

Have you been gifting a lot of games to other users?
If so, then Steam may assume they are giving you gift cards to 'pay' for the games.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by PartyAt8:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

You have a cooldown. This cooldown is 24 hours.

:nkCool:

That sounds fair, but I did try redeeming the other codes after a day or two before purchasing more and they still didn't work. It had definitely been 24+ hours at that point. Not sure what happened there.

May I ask where you got that info? I didn't see anything mentioning it on Steam or hear it from support, but would have been nice to know of that ahead of time.

You're still not going to redeem the USD cards. The cooldown is not publicized. Some in the community know after much trial and error.

[Cinemax]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

steam gift cards are currency locked, they no longer convert. you can only use cards that are for the currency of your account.

if you have issues with a gift card you purchased, this is between you and that seller

there may be limits on how many cards you can redeem during a set period of time

There are limits on how many cards or CD-Keys you can redeem in a given hour, but it resets at the top of the our. They both seem to be the same counter. I've hit the limit before.

[Hodman]

Why are you using gift cards instead of local payment methods?

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by HikariLight:

Originally posted by PartyAt8:

If that was the case, is there a way to find out and/or appeal it? The canned responses from support aren't really helping, and if that's what's going on I'd like to be informed.

Have you been gifting a lot of games to other users?
If so, then Steam may assume they are giving you gift cards to 'pay' for the games.

No, I don't gift games to anyone.

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by PartyAt8:

That sounds fair, but I did try redeeming the other codes after a day or two before purchasing more and they still didn't work. It had definitely been 24+ hours at that point. Not sure what happened there.

May I ask where you got that info? I didn't see anything mentioning it on Steam or hear it from support, but would have been nice to know of that ahead of time.

You're still not going to redeem the USD cards. The cooldown is not publicized. Some in the community know after much trial and error.

What do you mean by still not redeeming the USD cards? Are they just permanently unusable now?

[PartyAt8]

Originally posted by Cinemax:

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

steam gift cards are currency locked, they no longer convert. you can only use cards that are for the currency of your account.

if you have issues with a gift card you purchased, this is between you and that seller

there may be limits on how many cards you can redeem during a set period of time

There are limits on how many cards or CD-Keys you can redeem in a given hour, but it resets at the top of the our. They both seem to be the same counter. I've hit the limit before.

That is very strange then, because I hadn't redeemed any cards or keys within 24h before trying to use the most recent ones. If there is a cooldown, it must be significantly longer than an hour - I have tried all the codes multiple times over the last few days and they always give the same error.