Bad thing in my opinion.
I used them to menage my funds to not to overspend.
Need to connect card to account, leaks happen.
More info to steam, you could use steam even without giving any personal details just by buying physical gift cards.
I had given them few times as gift.
Relatives would give them as gifts to me as well.
I am sad about this.
One thing that can help with leaks is to not save your CC info with the account. Then it just gets used for the transaction and isn’t saved outside of the payment system, so less of a vector for it to make it on a leak database. Also helps control spending by adding more inertia between this side and the far side of a purchase.
Change to a bank that cares enough of their customers to enable virtual cards, you can create and revoke numbers as much as you like.
Revolut single use cards. No saving, no leak.
I think there are others as well
You good bro? ;)
Like others have said, I only have debit cards, as does the large majority in my country. Credit cards are only ever useful while traveling. And I’m not going to gift my private info to data brokers like paypal just because I want video games. Meaning I’m literally looking at the end of an era, because I don’t know of any other way to purchase games on steam anymore.
Steam takes debit in certain regions. And a debit card, from the point of view of what private information is managed, is identical to a credit card. Many debit cards now even allow international use.
Sadly I’m not in one of those regions. Here are my available options:
I used to use paysafecards, they are prepaid single use codes you can buy physically
You have way more than I do, with more flexibility. Definitely not tied to Visa and MasterCard. Skrill for example, accepts crypto and debit. PaySafe I think is outside of the Visa network and takes debit for prepaid cards as well.
I took a look at it. Skrill is just Paypal with crypto. And I already excluded data brokers. I could maybe create a pipeline by buying monero, to charge my Skrill account, to then charge my Steam account. But that’s just too much of a hassle when FitGirl is right around the corner.
What provider is your debit card using? Is it not MasterCard or Visa? I’m genuinely curious, there are very few countries not duopolized by these two giants.
It’s called Maestro, which is owned by MasterCard. Which doesn’t help however since it has no credit card number
Ah! I have one of those too. It’s being retired soon, though, and banks using it are now do the switch to MasterCard for newly issued cards.
(Maestro is a MasterCard brand)
Edit: Nevermind, not every country is retiring Maestro as of today.
New Maestro Card haven’t been issued in a while. If you’d replace that card now, you’d likely get one cobranded girocard/MasterCard instead of girocard/Maestro. Works just like a credit card online. There’s a few banks thag issue girocards with no cobranding, but that’s rare.
Even most Sparkassen have started giving out a cobranded Master/Visa by default.
So what you said was true 10 years ago, but likely isn’t/soon won’t be anymore.
Prepaid visa’s not an option?
I’ve had to look up what that is, that’s how rare credit cards are here. It seems to exist. However, I’m reluctant to adopt a whole new payment method for one single use case. Also Visa and Mastercard aren’t necessarily more trustworthy than paypal and co.
Visa and Mastercard are the reason steam removed a bunch of adult games and itch.io removed all adult games.
Because a payment processor is a moral arbiter for what you spend your money on.
You could pay cash for the visa gift card, and just load the money into your Steam wallet. Then the only thing they would know is that a person (presumably) bought a visa gift card and put the money in Steam.
I have never seen a visa gift card in my life but I’ll keep a lookout. Thx for the suggestion
I only use debit cards on steam. But then my debit card had a Visa logo on it so maybe it’s different than what’s available in your country.
My debit card does not have a credit card number I can use in online forms, and thats the only card related options steam allows in my region
You have a Visa debit card, which can work like a credit card.
Sail the seas then m8
Is Monzo not available in your country? That’s basically just a prepaid card that you link to a debit card or a credit card.
Looked it up. Not available AFAIK. Thx tho
I can only speak for the US, but debit cards look identical to credit cards to Steam (Visa or MC, based on which one your bank uses. Look for the logo on your card).
It’s not ACH, you’re not giving them your banking info.
Our debit cards do not have a credit card number I could use in online payment forms.
What’s the difference ? I only ever heard of credit cards
I’m not sure, since I’ve never owned a credit card. Debit cards pull directly from your account and you have very limited credit available. Also you don’t have card numbers etc. you could use online.
I think you’re imagining the difference between them from a technological point of view to be much bigger than it actually is.
I have debit and credit cards, Visa and Mastercard for both. Using them feels identical; one draws from your bank account balance and the other goes towards an invoice sent to you at the end of the month.
When you pay with them, the vendors themselves don’t see any private information about you, other than the card number and the way your name is written on the card. Some of my cards only have my first initial and my last name.
They can, however, track that card number across multiple purchases or with partners to build a profile.
Visa and Mastercard themselves can see a lot more, but that’s a given if you use any kind of banking services anyway.
In terms of where they’re accepted, I’ve used them all over the world and the only time it mattered which type I use, is this one flight where Ryanair was not accepting debit when I was trying to buy water… Somehow you have to borrow money to eat/drink on board, which is just silly.
Also some Citi cards let you make a virtual account number that is revocable so you never send your real card data somewhere online
You can get the same thing if you use Apple pay or Google wallet.
better to have that with the bank than yet another party with visibility into your finances.
A debit card in DK is exactly like a credit card in every way except one; you can’t get credit, or anything related to credit.
I have a credit card, a debit card, and a savings card. But essentially they can all be just used interchangeably and you don’t really have to worry about it.
The big difference between a debit card and a credit card is that you don’t have to have the money in the account when you make the purchase with a credit card. But you can just think of it as a debit card and just use it like that, and not worry about the short-term zero interest loan options that they offer.
I don’t really use the savings card for anything, I in fact don’t know where it is, but it’s essentially just a debit card with a limited amount of money. They’re often used by kids whose parents top them up every now and then. As an adult they’re a good way to keep a handle on your accounts and prevent you from accidentally overspending. Although obviously you can just transfer obscene amounts of money into it, so you have to have some self-control or it doesn’t work.
Steam will take all of them.
As far as trusting the card companies goes, I don’t really trust any of them but I also don’t think they’re going to sell my data, there would be too much of a scandal if they did that.
but I also don’t think they’re going to sell my data, there would be too much of a scandal if they did that.
why do you think there would be even a little scandal?
Ok, that sounds almost like what we call a “credit card” here (FR) except they do have the numbers for online use…
that’s interesting. Here a debit and credit card are functionally identical (both have numbers etc) and only the source of the money changes
How is that card even used if it doesn’t have a number? Can you use it only physically with payment terminals? I have a debit card and it can be used just like credit card but without the loans part obviously.
Can you use it only physically with payment terminals?
Yup. Every business has them tho. The modern terminals are barely bigger than the card itself.
You have a debit card?
Who doesn’t? Basically every adult has one. Or do u pay everything in cash? And don’t u get automatically a debit card when u open a giro bank account?
My point is you can add that into steam
What I learned from this thread is that you’re either in a region that allows debit as payment method, or your debit card has a credit card number. Sadly neither of those apply to me.
Oh, huh.
Credit card system continues to suck. Sorry.
Debit and credit card are not the same card.
Not everyone is american
Lots of countries use debit cards.
We have debit cards in America
I remember saving up for those and then spending the money in Steam sales. Shame for all the kids who want to buy games that can’t use their parents credit card.
parents should just use PayPal. it requires you to approve purchases.
that or setup a steam family.
No one should use PayPal if they can help it.
I have to use it for a side gig I do. I make sure that as soon as money hits PayPal it goes right out and into my bank account. Fuck PayPal.
My bank lets me set up a kid debit card, I can see and approve purchases and set limits.
Also, IMO kids should either ask their parents to buy a game for them, or be old enough to have their own bank account.
Giving your kid a credit card is how they end up with a gambling addiction because AAA is an unsanctioned casino.
If my parents had that for me I wouldn’t have been able to buy and play half the games I did.
Gonna buy up all the local stock and re-sell it for profit
Tap for spoiler
/s
Scalping gift cards. Now that is a million dollar idea! (in debt)
Word on the street is that a $20 steam gift card today is worth $22 tomorrow.
Well, no more Steam gift cards as birthday presents from my employer, I guess. The colleagues will have to come up with something else. How annoying.
They can still do digital steam gift cards
I hate gift cards but work gives them out for our birthdays each year. I always request games related gift cards. To hear that Steam are no longer selling them is disappointing considering that it’s my main gaming platform.
This really sucks. I give and receive Steam cards as gifts frequently and I know many people that only use steam because they can use cash to buy them. Most of these people will just pirate games now I imagine.
That sucks, they were the best for shady deals. Buy em with cash, and treat it like cash.
Say you didnt read the article without saying it
Scammers use steam cards to launder money. Hence the shady deals I talk about. I reread the article and I don’t see how my initial comment would make you think I didn’t read the article.
So, what scams are happening? Is this a “do not redeem” type of thing?
There are a lot of scams out there but a common one is to trick people into buying gift cards and giving scammers the info.
(Like calling your grandma and telling her you got kidnapped with an AI impersonation of your voice) or (stealing credit cards, using them to buy a shit load of cards and flipping those cards before the credit companies can cancel them)
Scammers sell the cards on 3rd party sites for cash and those sites resell them for a profit. You can often find deals for less than in retail stores.
It’s a grey area tho as there are some legitimate people just selling cards they got for a holiday and don’t want.
