Gift card scammers will soon have one fewer option to prey on victims. Valve has updated their Steam Wallet FAQ to announce that physical gift cards for Steam will be a thing of the past, with no more restocks taking place in physical retail locations around the globe.
Valve states they believe that by the end of 2026, all retailers are expected to be out of stock of Steam gift cards, so if you want to give someone a physical gift card for Steam balance, time is running out to do so.
Do note that digital gift cards, which are available on the Steam Store , are not going anywhere and will still be able to be purchased and gifted. The downside being they must be gifted via the Steam platform, there are no codes to distribute, so the sender must have a Steam account; Grandma you might find something fun to play so go make an account!
See below for Valve's full announcement from the FAQ.
Quote From Valve Yes, but only for a limited time.
We introduced Steam Gift Cards to retail stores back in 2012, and added the digital program in 2017. Unfortunately, scammers use gift cards from major brands like Steam to take advantage of all people all over the world.
We’ve responded to gift card scams over the years by taking a number of actions to protect customers, including:
Working with retailers
Working with law enforcement
Making changes to the cards, including adding a prominent scam warning
Limiting redemption to be in the currency of your Steam wallet
Limiting availability of cards
Removing cards from sale when we observed abnormal activity
As we have continued to put more and more restrictions in place, scammers have adapted. They continue to have an impact on Steam customers and other unsuspecting individuals. So we've made the difficult decision to end the Steam Gift Card program at retail stores.
As Steam Gift Cards run out of stock at retail locations, we will not be restocking them. We expect all retailers to be out of stock by the end of 2026. Though we will no longer be selling physical gift cards, you will still have the ability to use your existing gift cards on Steam whenever you choose, subject to local laws.
We also continue to offer Steam Digital Gift Cards , and are working to make this an even better experience. Guest checkout, which we added last year, is another way for family members and friends to gift Steam users with a digital card anytime.
You can learn more about gift card scams here .
Why Gift Card Scams?
Scammers for years now have been using gift cards from major brands to funnel money away from unsuspecting victims all over the world. They place phone calls with the victims, pretending to be a government agency, the police, or a corporation like Microsoft and that the victim has to cover a payment for some urgent service.
Victims are asked to visit a retailer to purchase gift cards, to then send them the codes, and then the scammer resells these gift cards either directly online or to a third-party that buys used gift cards. It's a way to transfer money overseas without creating a paper trail / digital footprint so these scams can continue without getting shut down.
If anyone ever asks you to buy them gift cards over the phone or in an email to pay for a service, you are being scammed . It doesn't matter who they say they are, especially if it's a government agency; Think for a moment, under no circumstance does any governing body need a gift card for Steam, Walmart, or Subway.
The sad part, is retail employees are sometimes on the lookout for these scams so scammers will even ask victims to go to multiple stores to purchase smaller amounts of gift cards so they can fly under the radar. I've personally heard of many elderly individuals trying to buy thousands of dollars of gift cards local to me, and it's just so disappointing that these terrible people out there exist and are okay with tricking the vulnerable.
It's a good move on Valve to distance themselves from people potentially being scammed with their products, but it is disappointing that it's going to make gifting Steam balance more difficult, and for kids who may not have easy access to digital payments to use with Steam, buying games is going to get more difficult. Certainly there are always prepaid credit cards, but those have activation fees and in my experience it's not always possible to even spend the entire balance on them, making it a frustrating method to purchase something.
How do you feel about the change?
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