Valve kills its retail gift card program due to scammers
For years, Valve's physical Steam gift cards have been the closest you could come to buying a Steam game at a brick-and-mortar store. Now, Valve
For years, Valve's physical Steam gift cards have been the closest you could come to buying a Steam game at a brick-and-mortar store. Now, Valve says it is phasing out the production of new retail gift cards, citing a losing battle against scammers exploiting the hard-to-track payment method.
PC Guide was among the first to note the end of Valve's retail gift card program, which was quietly announced in a recent update to a Steam support page. Since launching the retail cards in 2012, Valve says it has been fighting a constant battle with scammers, who instruct victims to purchase gift cards and share the pertinent details and security PIN.
Those scammers can then resell the gift card details at a discount on gray-market sites to effectively launder the funds, creating an anonymous and hard-to-trace form of payment. Valve says it has made various moves
to slow scammers, including placing limits on redemption and availability and adding a prominent warning on the cards themselves "Never share a pin via email, social media or over the phone." Read full article Comments
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