Is CDkey legit?

Associate
Joined
1 Nov 2009
Posts
1,657
Never had an issue with a key being revoked (One of my mates had an issue once, but far as he said they took care of it quickly), only issue I ever had was they issued me the wrong key for a game (ie I'd order the deluxe and they gave me the standard) and they sorted that the same morning.
 
Soldato
Joined
14 Sep 2007
Posts
3,616
Location
West Yorkshire, England
G2A and CDKeys aren't the same sort of thing.

CDKeys are more in line with Green Man Gaming, they source their keys legitimately last I checked.

They really aren't. GMG source keys directly from developers, I remember one time GMG made the mistake of sourcing from other stores when they had more pre orders then they did keys, but this caused them a heap of issues. Even the reddit /r/GameDeals removed them until they proved where the rest of the keys came from (which they have now done).

CDKeys buy from cheap regions in bulk where it is very cheap to purchase games, most likely due to their currency not being worth as much or they get paid very little. As in them countries, any sale is better than no sale. Where as in our more developed countries they charge more as its more affordable and what people are willing to pay.

People argue the price difference but if they gave us extremely low prices like other countries, most likely the sales wouldn't net them much but they can't sell a game to poorer regions at our price as nobody could afford to buy, losing potential sales. The keys they are selling was never intended for our market

I love how as soon as anyone mentions CDKeys, a huge amount of people jump in to support of them. They may not be illegal but they sure don't play by the same rules as the other key sellers like GMG.

If you want to look at key sites who are ligitimate, use isthereanydeal.com and also the /r/GameDeals sub-reddit. They only list stores that obtain keys directly from the publishers /developers.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
Posts
20,999
Location
Just to the left of my PC
I had some "fun" with CDKeys tonight...

I've bought a key from them before, no problems. So I decided to have a look at how much they were charging for a Wasteland 3 key. I've just finished Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (which I bought from Steam for £25) and I fancied playing Wasteland 3 but not enough to pay £55 for it.

£27 for Wasteland 3 on CDKeys. OK, I'll go for that.

Login...hmm, no that's not the password I used. No worries, there's a "forgot your password" button. Click on that...reset link sent to my email address.

Except that it wasn't.

Hmm...OK, I'll make a new account with a different email address. I have half a dozen email addresses.

No problem there, new account created. Wasteland 3 added to the shopping trolley. While I'm there, may as well have a look at what they have to sell...

...a couple of hours later and I have 10 games in my trolley. Enough is enough, or I'll be here all night. Time to buy them. Name, address, phone number, card details, the usual...


...payment failed. No reason given. The usual suggestion blaming ad blockers. Which I don't use. But I do use a security plugin that blocks adverts that are served in an insecure way. Hmm...well, by now I'm a bit bull-headed about buying this stuff so I disable my browser security plugin and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.

By this stage I'm so bull-headed I'm tempted to feel my head for horns, so I switch browsers and use Edge, which has no security, log in with that and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.


So I went on Gog and saw that Wasteland 3 is currently on sale for £36. I bought it. No problems. It's downloading now. £9 extra for something that works. Worth it.

So now I'm just wondering if CDKeys is going to charge me for those 10 games 3 times despite saying that the payment failed. Hopefully not.
 
Associate
Joined
17 Oct 2007
Posts
1,778
Location
Some where in England
Used the site for years never had any issues ! Like others have stated make sure you use the correct site ! & don’t use links on emails! A prime way to be scammed is by using fake links from emails to clone sites & you’re be surprised at how many people fall for it.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 May 2013
Posts
10,137
Location
Kent.
Touch wood, CDKeys has been fine for me. The only problem I ever had was a bit late getting a Forza Horizon 3/4 key. Had nothing like the above.

If you want to stick to legit sites and get a good service I would recommend using Gamesplanet or Green Man Gaming. Both are verified steam key sellers.
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Oct 2011
Posts
3,133
I had some "fun" with CDKeys tonight...

I've bought a key from them before, no problems. So I decided to have a look at how much they were charging for a Wasteland 3 key. I've just finished Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (which I bought from Steam for £25) and I fancied playing Wasteland 3 but not enough to pay £55 for it.

£27 for Wasteland 3 on CDKeys. OK, I'll go for that.

Login...hmm, no that's not the password I used. No worries, there's a "forgot your password" button. Click on that...reset link sent to my email address.

Except that it wasn't.

Hmm...OK, I'll make a new account with a different email address. I have half a dozen email addresses.

No problem there, new account created. Wasteland 3 added to the shopping trolley. While I'm there, may as well have a look at what they have to sell...

...a couple of hours later and I have 10 games in my trolley. Enough is enough, or I'll be here all night. Time to buy them. Name, address, phone number, card details, the usual...


...payment failed. No reason given. The usual suggestion blaming ad blockers. Which I don't use. But I do use a security plugin that blocks adverts that are served in an insecure way. Hmm...well, by now I'm a bit bull-headed about buying this stuff so I disable my browser security plugin and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.

By this stage I'm so bull-headed I'm tempted to feel my head for horns, so I switch browsers and use Edge, which has no security, log in with that and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.


So I went on Gog and saw that Wasteland 3 is currently on sale for £36. I bought it. No problems. It's downloading now. £9 extra for something that works. Worth it.

So now I'm just wondering if CDKeys is going to charge me for those 10 games 3 times despite saying that the payment failed. Hopefully not.

Could be that you used a new account and were ordering lots of keys. I always use Paypal. Also there was a warning about fake CDkeys website that was spoofing the real site.
The fact you did not get a reset link would have been a bit of a red flag for me tbh.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,213
I had some "fun" with CDKeys tonight...

I've bought a key from them before, no problems. So I decided to have a look at how much they were charging for a Wasteland 3 key. I've just finished Wasteland 2 Director's Cut (which I bought from Steam for £25) and I fancied playing Wasteland 3 but not enough to pay £55 for it.

£27 for Wasteland 3 on CDKeys. OK, I'll go for that.

Login...hmm, no that's not the password I used. No worries, there's a "forgot your password" button. Click on that...reset link sent to my email address.

Except that it wasn't.

Hmm...OK, I'll make a new account with a different email address. I have half a dozen email addresses.

No problem there, new account created. Wasteland 3 added to the shopping trolley. While I'm there, may as well have a look at what they have to sell...

...a couple of hours later and I have 10 games in my trolley. Enough is enough, or I'll be here all night. Time to buy them. Name, address, phone number, card details, the usual...


...payment failed. No reason given. The usual suggestion blaming ad blockers. Which I don't use. But I do use a security plugin that blocks adverts that are served in an insecure way. Hmm...well, by now I'm a bit bull-headed about buying this stuff so I disable my browser security plugin and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.

By this stage I'm so bull-headed I'm tempted to feel my head for horns, so I switch browsers and use Edge, which has no security, log in with that and try the purchase again...

...payment failed. No reason given.


So I went on Gog and saw that Wasteland 3 is currently on sale for £36. I bought it. No problems. It's downloading now. £9 extra for something that works. Worth it.

So now I'm just wondering if CDKeys is going to charge me for those 10 games 3 times despite saying that the payment failed. Hopefully not.

I had the same issue once, turned off my VPN and it worked.
 

Pij

Pij

Associate
Joined
6 Feb 2003
Posts
200
Location
Norfolk
I've used CDkeys for years and had no issues, though I've had a couple of problems this year, first was buying Battletech and it said key pending for around a week, and last week I purchased the Bioshock collection and it says the key has been used, they got back to me asking for more info, screenshot, region of account etc, still not heard back from them yet.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
5 Dec 2003
Posts
20,999
Location
Just to the left of my PC
@Angilion are you sure the transaction wasn't being blocked by your card provider?

Maybe, but who knows? I haven't been given any information. Which is part of what annoys me. Maybe my card provider is blocking payments to CDKeys specifically for some reason, but that would affect a lot of people and not just me.

Could be that you used a new account and were ordering lots of keys. I always use Paypal. Also there was a warning about fake CDkeys website that was spoofing the real site.
The fact you did not get a reset link would have been a bit of a red flag for me tbh.

I always don't use Paypal. Besides, if the payment had been blocked by CDKeys because it was an order for 10 keys on a new account then the method of payment would be irrelevant. Spoof site? Maybe, but if so it's a perfect spoof including the apparent URL. The lack of an email reset link was a bit of a red flag, but I was being a bit bull-headed. Also, it wouldn't be the only site. For example, if I request a password reset email from Just Eat it will take ~24 hours to arrive.

I had the same issue once, turned off my VPN and it worked.

That could be it. Well, their loss. I bought what I wanted from somewhere else instead.

Or maybe it's because a new account was made and was using the same card details as an existing account. I didn't think of that yesterday, but it's occured to me since. Same person, same card, but the site couldn't know that. It would be a reasonable security measure. Although it would also have been reasonable to give the reason rather than "unknown error" and to email the accounts to warn that the same card details were being used on >1 account.

Well, their lack of information has cost them some trade and probably a customer. I would have bought 10 games from them yesterday. I could probably buy dozens more. But not if I can't (obviously) and it's unlikely I'll get around to banging my head against the brick wall of "it won't work and we won't tell you why".
 
Associate
Joined
4 Jan 2020
Posts
912
So I bought a Mafia: Definitive Edtion Steam key on CDkey, and Steam revoked the key couple of hours later stating that there was an issue how the thrid-party reseller acquired the key. CDkey is refusing to give me a new key or a refund. Are they legit business? I just opened a case PayPal.

I bought Mafia from a denuvo website for 60 pence.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 May 2010
Posts
11,818
Location
Minibotpc
got my Cyberpunk code this morning, not bad for £39 when i pre-ordered the code
Same got mine from there too and been using it for years, spent near £250 there over the many years with them. Never had a issue and all my keys are still available there incase i need them.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Aug 2010
Posts
3,037
Usually it's fine but recently they sold me a key that wasn't actually in stock. Gave me a refund quickly after I raised a PayPal dispute.

With these key sites it's wise to skip their customer service and raise the issue with paypal. They respond far quicker that way.
 
Associate
Joined
31 Jan 2018
Posts
539
Location
Bury St Edmunds
Used them for 10 games now only had one issue wi5h a key not being delivered instantly took about 30 mins. However this key was for Microsoft store where all the others had been steam keys.
 
Associate
Joined
20 Apr 2009
Posts
1,237
The keys are legit in as much as they work fine, but they are didn't in sad much as how they are basically credit card fraud. People are money laundering through these sites
 
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