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The Almighty Buck Games

Valve Discontinues Physical Steam Gift Cards Due To Scammers (pcguide.com) 26

Posted by BeauHD from the scammers-gonna-scam dept.
Valve is discontinuing physical Steam Gift Cards and says it will stop restocking them as retailers sell through remaining inventory. In a blog post, the company blamed persistent gift card scams as the reason, though Steam Digital Gift Cards will remain available and existing physical cards can still be redeemed. PC Guide reports: Valve says it has "responded to gift card scams over the years" -- but this doesn't stop scammers from adapting. The Steam creator has actively worked with retailers and law enforcement, among other precautions, to counteract scams, but says the issue can never be fully resolved. Steam Digital Gift Cards will continue to operate as normal.
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Valve Discontinues Physical Steam Gift Cards Due To Scammers More

Valve Discontinues Physical Steam Gift Cards Due To Scammers

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  • This has been my only gift from my mother for many many years now. She can't navigate online well to purchase them there. Guess I will have to think of another thing for her to get me. Was a good run and I get the reasoning. Just gonna miss them.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      I will have to think of another thing for her to get me.

      How about just straight up cash? No tackier than a gift card. More flexible (literally and figuratively), though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Himmy32 ( 650060 )

        Gift cards for a specific purpose feel better as gift because the intention of giving someone a luxury beyond what they normally spend on.

        So a card or note with directed intention of how to spend the money could be a fix to any tacky feeling.

    • Perhaps now is a good time to tell your mother you have outgrown birthday/xmas gifts and thank her for all those you have received in the past. I know, mothers are sometimes persistent though. I finally got my mother to stop buying me holiday gifts when I was around 35 (I'm 58 now), but I'll be damned, every year I still get a birthday card with $20 in it. LOL

      • Tried that many years ago. I was able to convince her to drop the price so now I get the $10 birthday steam card and $20 chirstmas card. She said she didnt get the excitement of my "nintendo" but I liked it so she was going to support it. She said it let her be part of that experience. Thats pretty hard to debate for me.
      • Just tell her to buy you a nice shirt. Then when she visits make sure to wear it. She'll appreciate it at lot and if you're anything like me she has better fashion sensibilities and will pick out something nice. One or two new shirts per year is enough to maintain a wardrobe. Your mom is going to want to get you something regardless of you having outgrown birthday or Christmas presents decades ago and their wiring will make them disappointed if you tell them to stop.

        Mom is happy that she gets to give a t

    • And other Mom's get hurt ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Wednesday June 10, 2026 @05:50PM (#66185052)

      This has been my only gift from my mother for many many years now. She can't navigate online well to purchase them there. Guess I will have to think of another thing for her to get me. Was a good run and I get the reasoning. Just gonna miss them.

      And other Mom's are getting calls from kids saying the card is already registered and I can't use it. I need your receipt to prove I am the legitimate owner, please send it. And Mom never saved the receipt because she didn't know that once she bought the card it became a race between the thief that NFC'd the card on the store kiosk and their daily blind registration attempts, and her kid. And now Mom feel like crap because she not only lost the money but ruined he kid's Christmas.

      FYI, I always saved such receipts expecting trouble, and about half the time the thief won the registration and spending race. And the card people make it so intrusive to get a replacement funded card that I bet some people give up. Why do I went to send my ID screenshots and personal info to people who have demonstrated they already can't be trusted.

      • Why do I went to send my ID screenshots and personal info to people who have demonstrated they already can't be trusted.

        Why can't they be trusted? They aren't the ones scamming you.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Why do I went to send my ID screenshots and personal info to people who have demonstrated they already can't be trusted.

          Why can't they be trusted? They aren't the ones scamming you.

          They're the one's whose packaging allows the contents to be NFC'd.

  • There are some people who don't want credit card or debit cards and gift cards allowed them to budget and avoid uncontrolled spending. For people concerned about privacy, it let them pay for games in cash.

    I know scammers are a problem. I see the signs on the gift card rack at Publix. I haven't bought one in years for anybody. But I still feel like this is the wrong direction. It's another step in eliminating cash and moving us towards digital only currency. You will one day not be allowed to selling anyt

    • There are some people who don't want credit card or debit cards and gift cards allowed them to budget and avoid uncontrolled spending.

      This is quite possibly one of the dumbest things I've heard. If you're in this situation there has to be a better option that storing your cash temporarily at a vendor in the form of a promised credit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SumDog ( 466607 )
        Yes, people back in the 90s withdrew cash and put everything in its own envelope. They paid bills in person and never used a check or card. You might think it's dumb, but for people with poor spending habits, it was the only way to get things under control. I heard a number of financial people on the radio recommending this.

        It's now impossible. I've never needed to do this myself. I'm good at managing my money and have a lot of savings, but I know people who used the envelop method and it really kept the
  • Now how am I supposed to pay my IRS debt that I knew nothing about? They keep calling me!
  • There is no way this can be good for their business, physical cards everywhere gets eyes on their product and makes it easier to buy. There must be something they are doing wrong with their gift cards if scammers are hurting them or their customers that badly while other companies are still using gift cards.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Cyno01 ( 573917 )

      A steam gift card can be laundered entirely within the steam economy tho, a dunkin gift card doesnt let you buy and resell special donut skins.

    • Other companies are selling them because they're not run in the same way Steam is. Steam might not be perfect, but they've shown an inclination not to go for the "profit at any cost" model. Newell is happy to put "Do no harm" over "Maximize value for what a psychopath thinks shareholders are"

      Additionally a sizable number of physical gift cards are for brick and mortar services. Not all of them. But a sizable number.

      Steam isn't doing anything "wrong with their gift cards", they're just choosing to opt out of

  • I feel like this is an excuse to do away with physical gift cards to save money. If the "scamming" is primarily just a method of moving money, then ANY other gift cards for any other services can be used. This includes debit gift cards, Walmart gift cards, on and on.

    Unless someone knows how this is only specific to Steam in some way?

    • It's definitely not specific to Steam. Apple and Google Play gift cards are also used a lot in scamming, they may even accept Target and Home Depot cards. Really, they go for any gift card that is easy to re-sell. There are black markets for this kind of thing, people can buy cheap gift cards from sketchy sites and turn those stolen gift cards into cash or crypto. And to the retailer, it makes no difference... they already sold the gift card, the customer's money is gone and if someone else uses it, it's no

  • Just make it so folks can purchase online gift cards and then print up their own physical version to toss in sock or stocking or something.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      I'm guessing gift cards were handier for unbanked and underbanked people, such as teens who earn a cash allowance or earn cash from yard work for neighbors but aren't old enough to have a bank account in their own name.

    • I get $100 every Christmas from my wife's 70+ year old aunt, and am very happy when it occurs. Christmas 2024 though, since she couldn't find physical cards at a store, she went to Best Buy's website and bought them. I got them and tried to redeem them, and one of the $25 cards didn't redeem. I contacted support and gave them the number and they said it hadn't been activated correctly. I never got that $25. She tried to reach out to them, but either it went nowhere, or she secretly is playing some $25

      • edit: directly to the Steam account you want *via the Steam account's* email.

        I should have read it closer. Back on the naughty list for me I suppose.

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