ebay vs digital games

[Fabrizo1]

A few weeks ago I sold a digital game code (Watchdogs 2) through ebay for the first time ever, and sent it via the ebay message system. Today, the buyer did a chargeback. They have 100% positive feedback because they wait until the feedback can't be modified anymore (30 days) before doing a chargeback. And apparently both ebay and paypal have no protections at all for sellers of digital goods. The only way to sell digital goods and have some sort of seller protection is to ship them physically (envelope with the code written on paper inside) with tracking information.

I made this thread just to warn anyone who may consider selling digital goods on ebay / using paypal in the future.

[banditwolf]

I thought it's been mentioned that codes are a no-no on ebay?

[Fabrizo1]

No, its ok, their policy: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/downloadable.html

[Gypsy]

Yeah, I only sell codes on forums for gifted paypal.

[KrownKlown]

Ill do codes on forums like gametz and Ill buy codes for psn and live off of ebay, but I don't sell them on those sites because I find it too risky.

[Fabrizo1]

One additional note if anyone makes the same mistake I did and gets scammed; Even though ebay and paypal wont help you without a tracking number, what you can do is contact customer service from whatever store it was bought from (Humble Bundle, Bundle Stars, Amazon, etc.) and tell them that you want the code disabled. In my case they had no issues with turning off the stolen code and reissuing a new one. The scammer may leave you negative feedback on ebay for it (if they haven't already as part of their scam), but its better then just taking the loss.

[Gypsy]

Can that stop it if the code was already redeemed? Glad it at least worked out for you, sort of.

[Fabrizo1]

I'm not 100% sure on Origin and Uplay, but on Steam it is possible to revoke a key. The person with the game will get a message saying that there was a problem processing the payment.

Generic picture of the message from google images:

[DinoDerek]

Ive sold quite a few codes on Ebay over the years. Be it Live cards or full game code cards for Xboxlive. I always ship the physical card or like you said ship the code on the envelope. As long as its tracked and delivered, its hard for scammers to get off easy. I also email the code if they ask but still ship the physical part of it.

[Fabrizo1]

Has anyone ever tried to scam you, and if so how did things turn out? Would love to hear about any problems you've encountered selling digital goods and how you solved them.

As a side note; Someone else actually tried to scam me just a few days ago on ebay, but the were really obvious about it (zero feedback, account made that day, contacted me saying their paypal address was wrong and to send it somewhere else).