I think I bought stolen keys! Help!

[SKRTS]

I recently purchased a giant Steam key bundle from some site and the keys worked fine. It was a bundle of 100 keys for $75. I think the keys may have been stolen for a few reasons:
1. I got a ton of AAA titles for $75.
2. I have gotten three emails that say "Querry account by cd key."
Here is the message from the email:
This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. It is being sent in response to a query made by a Steam user to discover all account names associated with this CD key.

What should I do if they were stolen? Is it possible for Valve to ban me because of a purchase I made?
I really don't know what to do. Could someone please tell me?

[🜂∴🜏 Cassie]

If the keys are stolen, at worst, the games from the stolen keys will be revoked from your account. I doubt you will get banned for that.

Which site did you use? I can tell you whether or not that site is legit.

[J4MESOX4D]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. It is being sent in response to a query made by a Steam user to discover all account names associated with this CD key.

This is a scam by the sounds of it. They are after your account name. It looks like they are trying to steal your account by getting your account name which you must never ever give away. If the keys were stolen; they'd be revoked automatically by Steam Support and you'd get a red profile notification. That's not to say the games aren't stolen or fraudulently obtained in the first place so they may very well be revoked at some stage and you will lose your money.

Do not respond to the email though.

[Sanguine]

if you are smart delete this thread and enjoy your games

[SKRTS]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. It is being sent in response to a query made by a Steam user to discover all account names associated with this CD key.

This is a scam by the sounds of it. They are after your account name. It looks like they are trying to steal your account by getting your account name which you must never ever give away. If the keys were stolen; they'd be revoked automatically by Steam Support and you'd get a red profile notification. That's not to say the games aren't stolen or fraudulently obtained in the first place so they may very well be revoked at some stage and you will lose your money.

Do not respond to the email though.

I haven't replied to any of the emails yet.

[🜂∴🜏 Cassie]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

The website doesn't work anymore.
The site was {removed}

The fact that you needed to bypass the filter says that it's a shady site. But nothing we can do about that now since you already bought from them and the site no longer works.

In the future, if you want to get good deals legitimately, check this site:
https://isthereanydeal.com/

It lists a lot of legitimate third-party sellers, as well as whether or not something is discounted.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. It is being sent in response to a query made by a Steam user to discover all account names associated with this CD key.

This is a scam by the sounds of it. They are after your account name. It looks like they are trying to steal your account by getting your account name which you must never ever give away. If the keys were stolen; they'd be revoked automatically by Steam Support and you'd get a red profile notification. That's not to say the games aren't stolen or fraudulently obtained in the first place so they may very well be revoked at some stage and you will lose your money.

Do not respond to the email though.

Thats not a scamming attempt, that is a offical Steam email. You get that when another user tries to enter the same serial key you used. He then gets the message that the key was already activated on another account and has the option to send this email to that account.
Its mainly to find missing secondary accounts and such. The user who made the query will not get any information about the account at all.

So its not a scam, at least in the sense that nobody is trying to discover your account name.
But it seems to be that other users have the same serial key, which probably means the shady site sells the same keys to multiple people.

[SKRTS]

Originally posted by R i P P Ξ R J Λ C K:

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

The website doesn't work anymore.
The site was {removed}

The fact that you needed to bypass the filter says that it's a shady site. But nothing we can do about that now since you already bought from them and the site no longer works.

In the future, if you want to get good deals legitimately, check this site:
https://isthereanydeal.com/

It lists a lot of legitimate third-party sellers, as well as whether or not something is discounted.

:rad_rune:

Alright! Thanks for the info!

[SKRTS]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by J4MESOX4D:

This is a scam by the sounds of it. They are after your account name. It looks like they are trying to steal your account by getting your account name which you must never ever give away. If the keys were stolen; they'd be revoked automatically by Steam Support and you'd get a red profile notification. That's not to say the games aren't stolen or fraudulently obtained in the first place so they may very well be revoked at some stage and you will lose your money.

Do not respond to the email though.

Thats not a scamming attempt, that is a offical Steam email. You get that when another user tries to enter the same serial key you used. He then gets the message that the key was already activated on another account and has the option to send this email to that account.
Its mainly to find missing secondary accounts and such. The user who made the query will not get any information about the account at all.

So its not a scam, at least in the sense that nobody is trying to discover your account name.
But it seems to be that other users have the same serial key, which probably means the shady site sells the same keys to multiple people.

So do you think my Steam account is any danger from anything at all? Or is it okay to actually play the games? All 100 of the keys worked for me (except for the ones I already had). If they were given out to multiple people, don’t you think that I would have had at least one key be a duplicate?

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

So do you think my Steam account is any danger from anything at all? Or is it okay to actually play the games? All 100 of the keys worked for me (except for the ones I already had). If they were given out to multiple people, don’t you think that I would have had at least one key be a duplicate?

No your Steam account is perfectly safe. None of those users will get any information about your account. Its just a feature to find forgotten secondary accounts and such.
Like i said, the only shady thing seems to be that other users got the same keys as you somehow and had the option to press that " send email to activation account" button.

As for the games , just play them. If there IS a proble you will be notified by Steam. Its a big red exclamation mark in your client in the upper right corner when that happens.
Ususally it will say the game was removed because of payment issues with the original buyer.

Does not mean that this will happen. But it CAN if you buy from those shady reseller sites.

[Winged One]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

Originally posted by Ogami:

Thats not a scamming attempt, that is a offical Steam email. You get that when another user tries to enter the same serial key you used. He then gets the message that the key was already activated on another account and has the option to send this email to that account.
Its mainly to find missing secondary accounts and such. The user who made the query will not get any information about the account at all.

So its not a scam, at least in the sense that nobody is trying to discover your account name.
But it seems to be that other users have the same serial key, which probably means the shady site sells the same keys to multiple people.

So do you think my Steam account is any danger from anything at all? Or is it okay to actually play the games? All 100 of the keys worked for me (except for the ones I already had). If they were given out to multiple people, don’t you think that I would have had at least one key be a duplicate?

Not if you were the first person in the batch

[SKRTS]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

So do you think my Steam account is any danger from anything at all? Or is it okay to actually play the games? All 100 of the keys worked for me (except for the ones I already had). If they were given out to multiple people, don’t you think that I would have had at least one key be a duplicate?

No your Steam account is perfectly safe. None of those users will get any information about your account. Its just a feature to find forgotten secondary accounts and such.
Like i said, the only shady thing seems to be that other users got the same keys as you somehow and had the option to press that " send email to activation account" button.

As for the games , just play them. If there IS a proble you will be notified by Steam. Its a big red exclamation mark in your client in the upper right corner when that happens.
Ususally it will say the game was removed because of payment issues with the original buyer.

Does not mean that this will happen. But it CAN if you buy from those shady reseller sites.

Okay. Thanks for the help.

[SKRTS]

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

So do you think my Steam account is any danger from anything at all? Or is it okay to actually play the games? All 100 of the keys worked for me (except for the ones I already had). If they were given out to multiple people, don’t you think that I would have had at least one key be a duplicate?

Not if you were the first person in the batch

Yeah...I guess that is true. But What about the seller? What was stopping them from using any of the keys before sending them to me? If they were going to sell duplicate keys, what was stopping them from using the keys in their account before sending them to me.

I guess it could be because they wanted me to leave a great review on their site, but why would they shut the site down about an hour later? If they wanted me to leave a good review, wouldn’t they keep the site up until it gets a bad review?

I’m guessing that the scammers were just being dumb, but who knows? I don’t think anyone could be this dumb!

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Not if you were the first person in the batch

Yeah...I guess that is true. But What about the seller? What was stopping them from using any of the keys before sending them to me? If they were going to sell duplicate keys, what was stopping them from using the keys in their account before sending them to me.

I guess it could be because they wanted me to leave a great review on their site, but why would they shut the site down about an hour later? If they wanted me to leave a good review, wouldn’t they keep the site up until it gets a bad review?

I’m guessing that the scammers were just being dumb, but who knows? I don’t think anyone could be this dumb!

the seller is not interested in playing games, they are interested in making money. They dont care about reviews, they can make their own fake reviews if they wanted to. You simply got lucky to be the first in line and activate them.

The scammers are far from dumb, they are the ones making a nice profit off of possibly stolen keys. The dumb ones are given the scammers money.

[Winged One]

Originally posted by Zach Stearns:

Originally posted by theseraph1:

Not if you were the first person in the batch

Yeah...I guess that is true. But What about the seller? What was stopping them from using any of the keys before sending them to me? If they were going to sell duplicate keys, what was stopping them from using the keys in their account before sending them to me.

I guess it could be because they wanted me to leave a great review on their site, but why would they shut the site down about an hour later? If they wanted me to leave a good review, wouldn’t they keep the site up until it gets a bad review?

I’m guessing that the scammers were just being dumb, but who knows? I don’t think anyone could be this dumb!

if the keys were stolen, they wouldn't have activated it themselves as they would know they would be revoked at some point (and possibly not wanting to risk drawing attention to themselves)..


in the end, its a common form of money laundering

[cinedine]

Check you PC for malware in case the site had drive-by downloads. And if you used your CC or anything other than a middle-man payment provider, check your bank statements from now on.