Steam Gift Card scam?

Correction: £300 worth.

I have no idea what they are. Have you tried actually asking them? Brian

I would be suspicious too but is it possible that it is a legitimate way of making a purchase online using a gift card - same as you are sometimes asked to enter the promotion code?

Steam cards are gift cards for the Steam gaming platform. They can be bought online or in WHSmith and supermarkets. The number on the back is used to transfer the value from the card to the Steam account.

Yes. (Most likely.)

If you were asked by her in person then she is being scammed.

If you were asked by her by text or email, actually you weren't and you are being scammed.

Steve

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It?s a scam, 100%. Been covered on several radio programs.

Tim

Thanks, folks. A good thing my inner sceptic ruled, and I didn't buy any.

this is someone scamming you out of money that you don't owe

and then using the gift card scam to collect it, so that you have no route to claiming it back when you discover you have been scammed.

The OP wants (FSVO) to pay his friend this amount of money, so can't be being scammed in this way

If the OP is being scammed here, it is much more subtle

Was it really a friend or was it some crook who had scammed her email address?

Bill

There are a number of different gift token scams, this is just another one.

No, the OP is being ASKED, by someone purporting to be his friend to buy expensive gift vouchers and then immediately give away the value of said vouchers by sending images of the codes.

You must get scammed a lot if you can?t see the glaring danger in this. Is your email address valid? ;-)

Tim

Any money you like it?s the latter. ;-)

Seriously, the is a well known and reasonably well publicised scam. Obviously not well publicised enough for some folk here.

Tim

Idiot.

This sounds exactly like a scam reported (again) on R4 this week; especially the "off the backs to reveal PIN numbers, and then send a photo of them".

#Paul

How is your friend going to reimburse you? Why can't she buy them herself?

That depends... If you have actually spoken to the friend and know that it's a genuine request, and you are happy spending £300 on the nieces present, then perhaps its legit.

If you have had some other kind of communication where you can't positively identify the friend, then you need to check with them using an alternative communications channel. e.g. a text or an email alone would be suspect.

There are other ways of buying steam gifts:

Given the information presented so far - that is not at all clear. Yes it could well be, but it could also be legit depending on the circumstance.

If the ?friend? had asked face to face I doubt the OP would have posted here. The requirement to send photos of the numbers rather than posting to a known address is also a huge ?red flag?.

Yes, remotely it could be legitimate but given that this is a well recognised scam doing the rounds at the moment leads me to strongly suspect that this *isn?t* genuine.

Tim

If it was legit then a normal person would ask for a bank transfer of £300 to a known bank account and not use "scratch cards".