Empire Total War pre owned, Duplicate Key

[Pirgh]

So I recently purchased Empire Total War pre-owned off Ebay and when I attempted to install it it opened up my Steam Account asking for a cd key, when I put it in it said it was a duplicate key and won't install for my account, Can anyone help?

Also does this mean more games could have this problem if you buy them pre-owned?

[kristijanH]

You cannot activate a game that was activaed once before. You just wasted your money.

[LoTekRabbit]

You were scammed; you should contact Ebay and that seller should have his/her Ebay account banned.

[kristijanH]

Actually if that person was selling a pre-owned copy of E:TW then that's not a scam since that is what s/he sold :)

[Pirgh]

They mentioned nothing about Steam being needed or anything though, I contacted Steam, If they can't swap ownership of the Cd Key or something then so be it, It was only a couple Euro and I doubt the seller even realised his mistake.

[kristijanH]

You cannot sell activated games. They cannot and will not change the ownership of a CD key. You were scammed. E:TW is a steemworks title. You cannot play it without steam. It wasn't a mistake believe me.

Edit: On a sale it will probably cost 3,5€ and if bought in a bundle it would cost you even less.

[JustaNeutralist]

Maybe the seller didn't think u would activate it through steam or something? Maybe he thinks you're going to install it through DVD? Sorry if it can't be installed through DVD, I don't really know but what the other people said are mostly true