Are game key websites safe?

[Cuboid88]

Hey im thinking of getting the newly released bf5 on pc and i was browsing for prices and noticed that you can get it for around 15$ cheaper on hrk keys, ive never bought a game from a key website and im not sure if it's safe or not. I've looked up threads and it seems to be split 50-50 with some people saying that its safe and then others saying my account will get blocked for ileagal keys. JUst some opinions would be helpful and even some sugestions if someone knows a verified place to get game cheaper or that sort of stuff

[Slottr]

Nope.

 

Stick to greenmangaming, fanatical, indigala and humble bundle (if anyone knows any others, please add).

 

Those sites are grey markets and have a plethora of legality issues and other issues like fraud.

[Cigano]

sites like G2A and Kinguin are relatively safe although sometimes not very ethical. Just don't save any debit card numbers to their site or make an account and you should be safe on that end. I've gotten many games from G2A and have never had any kind of problem what so ever. 

[Speed Weed]

I used G2A in the past, and so far the keys I activated no problem. I don't know about now though. 

[Cuboid88]

See what i mean the first response says not to while the next to say that they're quite safe to use

[Ross Siggers]

I've also used G2A several times over the years without issue. It's also worth noting you can checkout with PayPal if you don't want your card details directly on the site.

[RollinLower]

3 minutes ago, Cuboid88 said:

See what i mean the first response says not to while the next to say that they're quite safe to use

well, these sites are known as grey-area. which means that they are probably legit, tough nobody knows for sure and a great deal of the keys are probably stolen.

this doesn't mean that you can't use them tough. i even had a bad key from G2A once, and they replaced it with a working one for free

[Handsonic]

I have always used Kinguin.net for all my steam games and origin games and never had an issue with it! I have never paid the insurance thing (but honestly I wouldn't recommend that, after all you never know). People have also recommended me GreenManGaming when I wanted to buy Monster Hunter World (one of my friends bought it from there), but I stayed to Kinguin.

 

EDIT: Now that I see people talking about G2A, my friend that bought from GMG had issues with G2A so I stayed out of it, but the reality is that most of those websites sell from third-parties and the responsibility usually falls on the seller (not the website itself, that is why they offer insurance fees), that might be reason why you see different stories. In my personal opinion i would go for Kinguin since I have used it before. Regarding hrk keys, i have never used it or heard of it.

[LogicalDrm]

2 hours ago, Cuboid88 said:

See what i mean the first response says not to while the next to say that they're quite safe to use

There's reason. Those are marketplace sites, usually called grey markets. Any site where site itself isn't seller, you can't know for sure how key was squired. Making their legality questionable. Most also make money (besides taking cut from every transaction) by selling buyers protection because they know some of sellers aren't legit or some keys might not work. In the end its your morals which decide what site you use.

 

There are also sites which buy their keys and sell them without being middleman. The prices are notably higher than those of cheap sites, but still cheaper than Origin, Steam or such. These sites buy from markets where MSRP is cheaper when converted to USD. Like East Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and so on. So taking advantage of global markets and low-income regions. Again, about your morals. Personally I would use these latter sites rather than any service which sells buyers protection.

[AbsoluteFool]

The quick and easy answer here is no. If you want a complete and complicated answer: It's also NO. Because while the keys might be legit, there are factors here of how they got the keys and why they are for sale. Also you can think how many times they tried to sell out the same key just because of human greed, easy way of making a few bucks. In theory it's just stupidity that brings people to these sites. And of course greed.