The Internet erupted with a potential “Gaijin fucked up again” scenario. For all those who don’t know, some people suddenly woke up with their accounts locked all of a sudden.
The problem – Kinguin. Yes, we all know those key markets. Sometimes you get the deal of a century, buying a game for a fraction of the official price, but this comes with a risk. There is absolutely no way of verifying if the key wasn’t procured in a fraudulent or outright criminal way. And this is exactly what happened here.
Some, let’s say ‘alternative businessmen’ bought Steam packs for War Thunder using a fraudulent method, most likely stolen credit card data, and then they fenced (let’s not jump around the bush here) the keys to Kinguin. Everything would’ve been fine and dandy if not for the fact that Steam got the cards reported, and the keys were revoked. Why did Gaijin ban the accounts?
Quoting Scarper, head community manager.
“We have to ban because the accounts of the players go into the red, we cant control that, we cannot differentiate between mr daft purchaser and mr crook purchaser. It really isnt easy to resolve. We offer unbans (not actually legally obliged to do so). But we are the bad guys. Yes we have to make money, but it doesnt mean we are greedy.”
And this is the offical post by gromvoiny on the WT forum.
“Recently there was a wave of fraudulent purchases of War Thunder DLC in Steam, and the keys obtained through such illegal means were later resold on third-party websites.
Based on report from Valve, we deactivated all such keys which weren’t used yet, and revoked all items which were already activated. The offending accounts were frozen and have to contact support following this guide https://support.gaijin.net/hc/en-us/articles/200071051-Your-Account-Was-Frozen-8111000E-
Please wait for support reply and don’t create several requests – you’re only slowing down the process this way.
A reminder – purchasing game content anywhere outside official channels (Gaijin Store / Steam / Humble Bundle / Gameflier / PS Store) is againt EULA and may lead to account ban. Be more careful and don’t be fooled by fraudsters.”
According to the posts on reddit and the forum, you can get your account unbanned if you offer a solution yourself.
This really isn’t something unheard of, by the way. Yay back in the past, the Polish auction site Allegro was flooded with cheap premium items for WoT. The situation was identical – people buy the goods en masse, but suddenly HURR DURR ACCOUNT BANNED. Only way to get it back – pay up. Reason – same as here.
