Another Dodgy Grey Key Site Promoting Itself
Deals
https://www.latestdeals.co.uk/@flower22?category=Video+Gaming
https://www.latestdeals.co.uk/@gamerrrrgirlll
This is going to carry on unless you are able to remove the deals from the site (if they are still left on but expired it is still advertising) and without an IP ban they will just make new accounts.
Hey guys,
There seem to be a few of these sites being shared on LD now that have a confusing reputation - some sources saying they're legit and above board and others saying they're a bit dodgy.
Do you guys have any suggestions as to how we should best handle it? We wouldn't want to unnecessarily ban retailers if they're actually above board but at the same time we obviously don't want dodgy sites on LD as it may lead to members making bad buying decisions.
One of the things we're going to be looking at shortly are better ways to automatically detect duplicate accounts and flag them as suspicious - so hopefully that'll help us detect and resolve dodgy posters.
But I don't know the best approach to retailers.
We could perhaps have a message next to new retailers that has to be manually removed by a mentor/admin warning people that this is a new retailer that hasn't yet been tried and tested by the LD community?
Should we just rely on, for example, their Trust Pilot score? If it's good: let them be. If it's below a certain threshold or non existent: remove them?
Or perhaps we could just carry on as we are but streamline the process from you guys flagging a potentially dodgy retailer/poster to us actually reviewing it and making a decision/removing/banning them?
We'll be upfront and honest that we haven't internally agreed who should be responsible for handling these issues and so it's definitely an area we need to improve on - so apologies for that!
Thanks for your efforts in highlighting these concerns btw 
It is a minefield - but I do like the idea of new retailers like this that pop up having a note on them warning that they have not been fully tried and tested by the community. There is a wealth of knowledge out there amongst the members of LD I am sure people will add their experiences when such traders pop up for the first time.
Kelsey Reddit is a great way to know if a digital game retailer is legit or not as that community knows better than anyone else out there, so using them as a way to verify a digital retailer's authenticity is one way to do it. Another is doing some research and coming to a conclusion.
NoKeys and Gamivo are pretty shady websites and I'd not even trust them with 1p.
Hi Kelsey sorry been away for a few days. With digital games there are 3 types of retailers. Legit, grey key sellers and marketplaces. Legit buy from official sources and then sell them on to you with zero chance of any of the games being used, missing content or stolen. Grey key sellers don't buy from official sources and get there keys from less than reputable sources in other countries meaning keys can be used and stolen. Marketplaces allow people to sell to each other much like eBay and again can be used and stolen. IIf somebody buys keys from any of the 3 different types and gets a working game they call it legit because they received what they wanted to buy. That doesn't make the store legit. Legit sellers are places like Amazon, GAME, Direct2Drive, Humble bundle, GOG, Gamersgate etc. Grey Key sellers are places like CDKeys and InstantGaming. Marketplaces are places like G2A and Kinguin. Now many will swear CDKeys is legit because they do have a high success rate of not selling stolen and used keys so most people will be fine and they are one of the better grey key sellers. They have sold stolen and used keys though because it is inevitable with how they acquire their keys and not going through the official channels. r/Gamedeals is very popular on reddit as protects buyers not allowing any grey key sellers on their sub and people know they are buyinbuying legit keys and not taking money away from publishers.
Here are their rules on sellers.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/wiki/rules#wiki_4._unauthorized_resellers
And some risks
https://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/comments/2yhlw4/key_resellers_and_what_they_mean_for_you/
They also have lists of legit sellers.
So long story short buying and getting your keys does not make a store legit. Dealing with authorised sellers does. There are different levels of how bad not legit stores are.
Hi Kelsey
Good quality companies nearly always publish their UK registered office / company address on their website under About Us / Contact Us or at the foot of the Home Page.
Poor quality companies typically don’t!
I think LD’s default position could be not to post deals at retailers that do not have a UK registered office / company address published on their website under About Us / Contact Us. This is usually a dead giveaway that the retailer could be dodgy.
Unless there's a UK address I suggest LD prohibit deal posts, unless and until the company concerned has been recommended by X number of known and trusted LD users.
When things go wrong it It is very hard for a consumer to seek redress from a company in the UK if there’s no street address, no named individuals and often no office.
If that company is outside the UK, getting redress can be almost impossible, delivery can take longer than expected, and typically their returns policy is user unfriendly (i.e. too expensive).
Sadly even Amazon can't keep track of the dodgy dealers on its marketplace
Johnny
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