Is there some secret giftcard doubling jutsu in not aware of?

  • arararagi@ani.social
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    1 day ago

    As someone that used to buy these overpriced cards for PSN: A legit reason is that Sony didn’t accept local credit cards, you needed to have an international one to buy games directly, so a lot of people just resold these gift cards to us poor mortals with our useless credit cards.

    Either that or drug money laundering.

  • RegalPotoo@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    At a guess:

    • People with steam accounts and VPNs in countries that steam doesn’t operate in. Steam will block your “foreign” credit card as a fraud risk, but eBay dgaf cos it’s the sellers problem if they get ripped off
    • This is probably a pretty convenient way to send small amounts of money to people in a way that looks pretty legit. Arrange to buy some drugs off someone over telegram, they get you to buy a “steam card” from them, they send an envelope with a blank bit of cardboard and the drugs
      • papalonian@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Yup. And nobody but their customers will buy (since it’s $150 for a $100 card) so they don’t have to worry about buying a card to send a real customer to look legit.

    • blackbrook@mander.xyz
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      17 hours ago

      So the first guy bought it for 100, suggesting the price used to be 100, and all those purchases may not have been crazy.

      • TJA!@sh.itjust.works
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        18 hours ago

        Yes, they start low it with a discount to build up reputation so that their next sales will not look suspicious

    • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Likely this. Gift cards are popular purchases when using stolen credit card details. The online order makes it easier since there’s no physical card/chip needing to be replicated.

  • AmidFuror@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    People trying to refund a tech support company after accidentally transferring too much money to themselves at the DOS prompt.

  • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    Some people like to use a stored balance as a financial discipline tool. Don’t put a “real” funding source on the account and then you can only spend the $100 you committed to, and not go whale-mad and drop $500 on premium currencies.