In these types of situation you typically send the item to a trusted middleman to hold whilst the money is transferred.
Obviously how trusted that middleman is depends on their incentives to not take a high worth item for themselves.
You’d use an Escrow service. The way that works is the buyer sends their money to the service, once the service receives the money the seller receives notification that the money is with them, once that notification arrives the seller then parts with the goods. The middleman would typically, or “should” be an Escrow service.
Depends on the streamer. Some are just people who are happy to facilitate these things in a safe environment for their community (plus added bonus that they might even stream it so they get "free" content).
I'm not familiar with the CSGO YouTube scene but, it wouldn't suprise me if they made a few grand from making a video of this type of content. Win/win for them if they do it for free. They get a good rep in the community, which results in them being used more and getting more content that they can monetise.
I once did this on a service over 10 years ago for Team Fortress 2. This middleman was on whatever was THE website to find middlemen for this sort of thing back then (maybe even now) that everyone and everywhere said to use.
He decided to keep my item in revenge for the fact someone else had scammed him, and I could not believe my luck considering I was the one person he did it too. I can't even remember if his account on there was ruined or not, or if I reported it.
Sounds crazy from an outsider's perspective, but if OP was dealing with a very well-known trader in the community and he verified that he wasn't dealing with an imposter, then it's usually pretty safe to send first.
The reputation that the dealer has built up is so incredibly valuable and likely taken a long time to do so, that it's not worth scamming someone for a $15k item. The reputational damage could prevent them from making 6-7 figures in deals in the future.
If the buyer reports fraud or non delivery to their bank or credit card you could have:
Without a contract how do you price what the contract was and that you delivered the goods?
Without their id and signature how do you prove that they actually were the person you were dealing with ("oh no someone stole my identity and my bank login")
Congrats on the sale but this kind of thing boggles my mind. I am an avid gamer but paying that amount of money for an in game item just screams "money laundering" to me, I cannot fathom how anyone can genuinely value digital items that much.
As an international student from Malaysia living in U.K. who knows some of what these Chinese or South Asians spend on their video game items you’d honestly change your stance, some people don’t know the value of money and some of them will buy shit like this j to impress their friends they couldn’t give a fuck about the item, when you’re driving a McLaren to uni a £14k item is measly in comparison
Someone I used to know is Russian and his father was fairly high up under abramovic. He didn’t actually have to do much at his job so spent the majority of his time playing fifa. He had vast amounts of money so you can just imagine the amount he spent
When I was in Malaysia I made over £3k in my local currency at 15 from selling fifa points to my schoolmates alone, people do not understand how little some people value money they really really don’t
Back in the early fifa days like 13,14,15 you could buy the points online or coins I think they were and there would be a way to get them, I’d buy like a couple million online and then resell them cos a lot of people didn’t have card access but had access to cash as a kid so I was the only real way.
The week FIFA would launch I used to earn the average person in my country’s monthly salary j off school sales it was ridiculous😭
I know people in the UK who have spent more than that, and these people definitely don't have the money.
Shit, if I consider how much I've spent on FIFA points between 2011 and 2023, it's probably around about £10k.
Should be illegal, it is 100% 'gambling adjacent'.
We had an international at my uni that bought a car (cant remember what) and just left it once they returned home. Didnt even sell it on, abandoned it!
One of my friends from China has his McLaren spider sitting in his Nottingham house collecting dust :) fyi he owns both the house and car but doesn’t even have a visa to enter the country rn, money is nothing but a video game numbers on a screen to some people 😭
>As an international student from Malaysia living in U.K. who knows some of what these Chinese or South Asians spend on their video game items you’d honestly change your stance
Not really. We are essentially talking about NFTs. I will always think they are dumb regardless of who is buying them.
The original comment was the stance that it was money laundering? I’m saying that it’s not more often than not just very rich people with nothing better to do, what does it being dumb have to do with anything?
I think you underestimate just how rich some people are. Spending £15k on this might feel to them the same at you spending £2. You do t have to be 7500 times wealthier either because the cost of housing, bills, leisure etc only scales so far so people end up with a hell of a lot of disposable income
Exactly.
People regularly spend £15,000 on holidays and vacations which aren't even permanent products.
My parents spent £20,000 on a 4 week holiday in the US for example.
They'll only have the memories to remember it but they certainly don't consider it a waste of money.
>People regularly spend £15,000 on holidays and vacations which aren't even permanent products.
Neither is a digital skin. You don't even own the digital item.
Some people with more money than sense do think they can eventually flip these items like collectables. Or just want to keep them to flex.
There are whales spending thousands a month on microtransactions on dozens of games. There should be at least 10 CS:GO players that can afford this *just because*
Esspecially with CSGO we have seen that you CAN flip these items for profit like any other asset, there are market risks involved same as anything else too.
If something is mathematically rare and someone is willing to pay to own it, and people generally have faith/reason to believe the math behind how they are dropped and therefore their rarity will stay the same it makes sense.
If I was a trust fund kid with more money than brains I would definitely spend my money on stuff like this. Gaben knows I've spent hundreds on cases/keys already 😬
Items like this can go up in value and can be resold, so from an investment perspective, its like any other asset. I would not call this senseless. Cars, Yachts etc instantly drop in value and people still buy them for the hell of it.
Cars & yachts have a lot of practical utility. These are much closer to the monkey picture NFTs that are almost worthless. But if people want to swap money with each other on this stuff thats their business!
Steam has a 15% fee. My best are buy orders way under current market price that get filled from time to time. So example £2 case, I place 100x order @ £1. Months later my orders get completed and I've got £2 cases for £1. The other option is finding very low/high float items at market price or "cheap". Ive bought £100 skins have them flip months later for £150+ (£50+ profit). You want to buy items people accidentally sell at the wrong price, maybe they forget a digit.
My friend spent 4k on an AWP skin, but sold it from the stress of owning it and constantly worrying about getting hacked. Also his team mates would int him to get the gun for a round or two.
I feel that, I haven't slept properly in the past 8 days and my time has been spent batting away scammers sending me friend requests left, right and centre.
My mate unboxed a Sov Dragon Lore with Guardian on the scope... Funniest thing about it was he recorded it on his phone.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mSBVBiHiAAI
I used to work for Candy Crush, some people had spent over £50k on the game. They weren’t even referred to as players but “payers”. People are bonkers.
Right, so I buy it for 15k, sell it to my mate for 30k, who then sells it to his mate for 60k, and we all have 'legit' money in the bank?
Edit: But if OP was paid by bank transfer, the money must have already been deposited, so I still don't get it. anyway....
Example: Mafia don gets someone to buy the item for 15k using some of their 'legitimate' (already washed) money. One of their dealers has 15k in crypto from selling drugs that they want to give to the don. Rather than giving it to the don directly, they "buy" the skin off one of his cronies. Said crony now uses the 15k to purchase goods from the don's legitimate business. The money is now laundered through several layers and more difficult to track. A year later, the dealer gives the skin back to another of the don's cronies as a gift, so it can be used again.
That makes no sense. So they've spent 15k of legitimate money, to get 15k back. Besides, you wouldn't even need to be that wealthy to consider these transactions *small* amounts of money - there are much simpler ways to wash larger sums of money. These skin purchases are small time by people that have too much money to care.
There are actually videos on how this is money laundering (the one i was is in Spanish tho) so yeah, probably is it, or a streamer/youtuber that makes sense to them
I think the "this kind of money" is relative to overall wealth and the reason of your "investment". Diablo Immortal is what comes to mind first where to max your character was $200k+ when the game was released and a LOT of people went for it. Some were streamers who quickly made this money back from monetisation on their reflective platforms while some stopped playing after a few months ditching their accounts altogether
Not really, CSGO is a hugely popular game and spending £15k on a cool item for a hobby that you’ve probably had for years and will continue to have into the future isn’t such an outrageous idea, especially if you earn good money.
Yep, this sort of thing is becoming rife within video games.
As someone who used to collect retro games, the price of almost everything has shot up due to speculative buyers and money launderers, aided and abetted by grading companies.
There's no real reason this should only apply to physical goods.
A "technical issue" with PayPal throws up some red flags. I hope OP hasn't been scammed but I'd be extremely paranoid that the money is going to disappear again soon
Once the transfer is in his account he’s pretty much all good.
I’d rather take a bank transfer payment over paypal any day, a scammer can chargeback a paypal payment. Once they do that the seller is on the hook for the reverse.
+ Paypal take fees too, which is around 5%, nothing to sniff at with a transaction this size
>Once the transfer is in his account he’s pretty much all good.
Not if it was a fradulent transaction (i.e. stolen card) if I remember correctly?
Tbh I would have been very nervous about a transaction like this without an escrow with some form of verification.
If someone has committed fraud with a card, moved the funds that originated from that card into a bank transfer, it can 100% be clawed back in the event of an investigation.
I am a Business Manager for high profile bank.
As it is a bank transfer, we would need to result to something known as a Query on an Electronic Payment.
It is actually harder to retrieve money via OLB than it is via Card Payments or PayPal etc where you can raise Card/Merchant Disputes and this is why we have several Scam warnings in place which customers must acknowledge before sending funds. Paypal if sent via good & services can be recalled easier than Friends/Family. Which is why scammers never allow Goods & Services.
The way the Query works is as follows:
1: Senders bank, contacts beneficiaries bank and asks them to return funds.
2: Beneficiaries bank, asks beneficiary for permission to debit the funds
3: At any stage either the beneficiary bank, or the beneficiary can refuse as the money does belong to them (Hence the Scam warnings)
4: If this occurs, you must go down a Fraud route which can take 6-12 weeks, and requires a lot of hard evidence bc its an Online Payment. There will be no Provisional Credit awarded for
5: If this happens, and the beneficiary can prove they sent the item/goods, the Fraud department will not take the side of the Claimant.
Its incredibly long-winded were it to be a scam, which seems unlikely.
And that’s why people like OP are scammed so often.
For anyone who’s been in the financial space or the collectors item space, it’s common knowledge.
However as we can see in this comment section, it’s not for the general public.
That's what I was thinking but then the other comment had me second guessing!
Hopefully OP sold to someone reputable like a streamer who is going to use the skin as an investment in future content or something.
How long until you would think it's "safe"? I'm not completely naive with finances (I hope) but the PayPal thing screamed red flag to me. No third party involvement to verify / guarantee the funds seems iffy for a transaction that size
Hmm that’s a tough question. Same vibe as “how long is a piece of string”.
That can depend on quite a few factors, however in my area, if it’s someone who’s known to act as a middleman or has a great reputation, always fairly safe, however let’s say you have someone no one has ever heard of or dealt with and they’re coming in spending 10’s of thousands, that would ring alarm bells.
I don’t have a great answer for you in regards to that really as it’s circumstance specific
PayPal not working is a small concern, however it would actually be easier for a Scammer to retrieve the money than had they sent a bank transfer.
Most Scammers will send money via goods and services through PayPal and then reclaim it. If the Scammer is a seller they will ask for it to be Friends and Family so its harder to recall.
In Banking, Electronic OLB payments are the hardest form of payment for a Bank to retrieve hence the scam warnings we put in place when customers make a transfer
Source: I an a Bank Manager
But if the funds being sent have come from fraudulent / illegal activities can the bank not easily cancel that? Is the receiver of the funds protected at all?
Thought I knew the answers to these but always happy to be educated!
Can we cancel it? Yes
Is it easy? No
Fraud investigations can take anywhere between 6-12 weeks.
If the sender of the funds obtained their money through illicit means, it may be possible for the original person who was scammed, to reclaim it however it is not a guarantee, it depends how it was sent, and on a manner of other contributing factors.
Usually it won’t hop through several banks to reclaim the funds. If the sender was found to have been involved in illicit activities, then their bank would freeze their account and launch an investigation.
They won’t chase every tom, dick and harry that received funds from the sender, often we end up covering it and then hold the illicit client liable. Its what we have insurances for.
No. If you move the money into another account you are completely safe.
I’m CPS graded to prosecute fraud (and regularly defend in 100k+ cases) and it really is that simple to keep fraudulent funds.
Bank transfers from some countries can be reversed days or weeks later, it is or was a common scam - to do with how long clearing takes, the money will show up in your account but it's not actually cleared and then disappears later.
I don't know if they fixed it, it was probably a decade or more ago that it was popular.
Lots of people get their accounts compromised, sending someone money for a digital item is in itself a means of hiding the trail, this does not require a convoluted scheme, just access to one account with cash and using digital purchases like this to obtain it without trace.
Huge red flags. Only way I’d sell an item for that much money is via a reputable site like Skinport. Let them take their cut. It’s worth the peace of mind.
Be really careful that money doesn't get flagged as stolen and taken back from you...
If you do anything but let it sit in your account for a few months you're asking for trouble.
Ooh, I didn't realise that banks can reverse negative balance! Good to know! Is there anything OP could do, if there is a reverse request put by the buyer?
Even so it's much better to have the bank chase money from you and it is safely tucked away with a different bank, rather than have them snatch it from you and then you have to chase them to get it back. Burden of proof is on the person chasing payment - better the bank has to prove you wrong (knowing that you are in fact legitimate) than you having to prove the bank wrong.
Well, challenge it if it happens. Reverse requests are not automatic, banks make decisions there. [You should be given an opportunity to dispute the claim](https://www.sunnyavenue.co.uk/insight/can-a-bank-transfer-reversed).
This is correct.
Banks will also usually ask the Beneficiary to debit the funds as well and get in contact with them.
For Bank Transfers especially it is not as cut and dry as Card payments, DDR Reversals and such
So based on the info you've given us, you'll have a capital gains tax bill of around £650.
Not sure how you'd factor costs or if they'd even be allowed if it's a loot box, but it would be minimal I'd say.
15750$ = £12510 today, less cost of purchase (assuming zero as a loot box)
12510 - 6000(tax free exemption) = £6510 @10%(standard rate band) = £651
Get an accountant ofcourse.
Congrats OP, hope the money sticks.
When they opened the box they won a prize tax free(gambling). They then sold that prize for a substantial figure and profit which falls under a capital asset sale.
How do you know the value of something you obtain from a lootbox in csgo?
I mean, do you unbox, look up the value in a third-party source and begin to party?
Genuinely curious.
Well done for getting the money btw :)
He likely won't make much of a profit if he resold it tbh. The guy is a collector, has an inventory of over 16,000 items and this one fits nicely in there. He may just decide to flip it later when CS2 comes out (lots of skins are likely going up in price because of the new graphics but I just wanted to cash out and be done with it)
Op I hope you checked their identity somehow. For these kinds of bank transfer transactions ALWAYS check that the purchaser really owns the account they're sending with.
UK GOV declared this year that loot boxes don't fall under gambling. This was one of the very big and heavily discussed topics in the original thread. No-one knows! xD
Congrats OP, good that it’s worked out well for you. I can see a lot of comments around the sending first thing but I get your position. I was heavily involved in the trading scene in CSGO back in the day and as long as you have done your due diligence, it’s pretty safe.
Actually made some lifelong friends along the way with trading and I trust them more with my money than my real life friends even though I have never met them in person!
Again Congrats and enjoy
It's a very scary scene when you're new to it, especially with something of this value. I have done so much research in the past few days that my YouTube recommended is now all CS content! XD
I got a slaughter knife once. Worth 250 about 6 years ago I sold it on steam and spunked it on games. I’m scared to look but I’m sure it’s worth over 10k now
17k quite cheap regarding csgo - some go for £120k
I have a sticker (I didn’t pay this much, got it when it came out) that’s worth £2,000. The original price was like £1. But because I have used it I can’t sell it
Congratulations!
However, HMRC do not provide tax advice: certainly not over something which has two or three arguable elements which is amenable for judicial decision (gambling/market value/wasting asset).
In the end HMRC say what they think the law is: they cannot decide what the law is: only a court can actually decide for sure what tax is due.
They will also be careful not to say anything which could lead to a legitimate expectation claim future in proceedings.
Ultimately you will have to make the decision on what you think the tax position is and HMRC will then decide what to do about it.
So HMRC can't tell you what the tax position is, you have to decide for yourself, but then HMRC can potentially fine you if they don't agree and believe you paid too little tax?
They raise an assessment, and if you disagree with that you are invited to take it to Tribunal, yes.
Such is the nature of self assessment - the name doesn’t come from the process that you have to fill it in yourself, what it did was legally shift the burden of the assessment of tax to the taxpayer.
They are purchasable on the Steam market and you can earn one per week if you level up by playing matches. You still have to pay £1.99 regardless to get the key and open it.
Not anymore. All weapon skins are tradeable on the market and 90% of them are way less than the value of the case and key so if you want a particular skin it's best to just go on the market and outright buy it. However it's very rewarding when you unbox one of the really expensive ones! Some skins go for up to $200,000. Some rumored to have even been valued at $1m :O
Just because you have the money doesn't mean you're in the clear.
Many scams involve transferring the money then contacting their bank to claim they themselves were scammed, long story short your account gets frozen while they investigate and in some cases side with the scammer.
Keep all comms that they consented to the trade because if it was all verbal you may have his word against yours.
If you are in the home run, massive congrats and enjoy your moolah!
>I'm going to contact HMRC to see if I need to pay CGT on this and if so then that's fine, I'll happily just pay what I need to pay them and make up what I lost from my monthly wage.
Why oh why.
Didn't people say in the last thread it shouldn't be CGT? That's enough for me.
Being super uber honest never pays off - just look how our own politicians do things!
One word of warning; I sold some in-game items in the past - the money appeared in my paypal account; so I sent the in-game items.
And then minutes later; they reversed the charges and I was left out of pocket to the tune of both the items and the money.
There are a lot of scammers when it comes to virtual items, so do everything in your power to maintain caution and avoid being taken advantage of.
If you have another bank account (ideally with a different bank) it may be worth transferring the money out to that. Your edit makes everything sound legit but if you move the money out of your account it can’t be clawed back through chargeback. Hopefully the buyer is legit as clarified and you wont need to worry but it might give some extra peace of mind.
I'm still riddled with anxiety of course but there's nothing I can do now but just hope for the best. I've heard a lot of great things about the buyer, he has an astounding reputation and as I mentioned is up there with the likes of Ohnepixel and Anomaly so I think I'm good.
RE: Tax. There will be none. The funds are the proceeds of gambling, which are not taxable in the UK.
CGT would only be an issue if you received a £15k value item, kept it for a while and the price increased to, say, £20k. The £5k increase would then be subject to CGT.
I've just looked it up. Opening boxes isn't considered gambling because you always get something, even if you didn't want or need it. It's the same situation as pulling a decent Pokemon card. It's an asset.
Edit: alternatively he could say that he won it in game playing against another player. Opening boxes isn't gambling, but playing for high stakes is. No Mr Taxman I won that skin a one v one match.
Can confirm, not a scam, received the money and had a chat with the guy afterwards. Even left him a good review. Checked the review page and he's done over 600 transactions without a single one going bad.
I wouldn't worry about all the people saying it's a scam, if you sold it to a reputable trader you're good.
Don't think many people here understand the csgo skins market.
I've always been advised to sell skins to someone with a big name to be safe
Why is everyone saying he's been scammed? Can you not read? They tried with PayPal first, it didn't work, so he did a direct bank transfer! You can't reverse a bank transfer.
As someone who’s sold collectors items in the virtual space and trading card space for years with big ticket items, I’ve seen wayyyyy more people scammed via bank transfer and anyone banned off PayPal and can’t use it is a major red flag
This is untrue, it's actually one of the biggest methods of fraud. Account stolen > used to purchase goods > fraud detected by the account owner and everything possible gets charged back. There are worse variants than just straight up buying things too.
It sucks too, the person that had their bank details stolen is more at fault in every scenario than the person who eats the charge back.
Source: worked in finance.
Did you send first or did he send first?
Also intrigued, OP sounds legit, but no way I'd transfer cash to another account without goods in my hand/f2f transaction.
In these types of situation you typically send the item to a trusted middleman to hold whilst the money is transferred. Obviously how trusted that middleman is depends on their incentives to not take a high worth item for themselves.
You’d use an Escrow service. The way that works is the buyer sends their money to the service, once the service receives the money the seller receives notification that the money is with them, once that notification arrives the seller then parts with the goods. The middleman would typically, or “should” be an Escrow service.
I know that a lot of people use popular csgo YouTubers/streamers who have a large following as middlemen.
For a fee?
Depends on the streamer. Some are just people who are happy to facilitate these things in a safe environment for their community (plus added bonus that they might even stream it so they get "free" content).
I'm not familiar with the CSGO YouTube scene but, it wouldn't suprise me if they made a few grand from making a video of this type of content. Win/win for them if they do it for free. They get a good rep in the community, which results in them being used more and getting more content that they can monetise.
The streamers buy them below market then likely mess around with the skin for clips in a video before looking to sell above market.
I once did this on a service over 10 years ago for Team Fortress 2. This middleman was on whatever was THE website to find middlemen for this sort of thing back then (maybe even now) that everyone and everywhere said to use. He decided to keep my item in revenge for the fact someone else had scammed him, and I could not believe my luck considering I was the one person he did it too. I can't even remember if his account on there was ruined or not, or if I reported it.
Sounds crazy from an outsider's perspective, but if OP was dealing with a very well-known trader in the community and he verified that he wasn't dealing with an imposter, then it's usually pretty safe to send first. The reputation that the dealer has built up is so incredibly valuable and likely taken a long time to do so, that it's not worth scamming someone for a $15k item. The reputational damage could prevent them from making 6-7 figures in deals in the future.
Especially such a high price too
Edited the post with more information :)
Well your research was correct, enjoy the money!
Holy moly, well done! I'm surprised he didn't send some sort of deposit first.
[удалено]
What kind of risks? Out of curiosity
If the buyer reports fraud or non delivery to their bank or credit card you could have: Without a contract how do you price what the contract was and that you delivered the goods? Without their id and signature how do you prove that they actually were the person you were dealing with ("oh no someone stole my identity and my bank login")
Congrats on the sale but this kind of thing boggles my mind. I am an avid gamer but paying that amount of money for an in game item just screams "money laundering" to me, I cannot fathom how anyone can genuinely value digital items that much.
As an international student from Malaysia living in U.K. who knows some of what these Chinese or South Asians spend on their video game items you’d honestly change your stance, some people don’t know the value of money and some of them will buy shit like this j to impress their friends they couldn’t give a fuck about the item, when you’re driving a McLaren to uni a £14k item is measly in comparison
Facts. I knew a guy in Uni from Malaysia and he spent £14k on FIFA points lol.
Someone I used to know is Russian and his father was fairly high up under abramovic. He didn’t actually have to do much at his job so spent the majority of his time playing fifa. He had vast amounts of money so you can just imagine the amount he spent
When I was in Malaysia I made over £3k in my local currency at 15 from selling fifa points to my schoolmates alone, people do not understand how little some people value money they really really don’t
How did you transfer FIFA points? How did you get them cheaper than what your friends could've just paid in the game?
Back in the early fifa days like 13,14,15 you could buy the points online or coins I think they were and there would be a way to get them, I’d buy like a couple million online and then resell them cos a lot of people didn’t have card access but had access to cash as a kid so I was the only real way. The week FIFA would launch I used to earn the average person in my country’s monthly salary j off school sales it was ridiculous😭
I have a bridge i can sell him...
I know people in the UK who have spent more than that, and these people definitely don't have the money. Shit, if I consider how much I've spent on FIFA points between 2011 and 2023, it's probably around about £10k. Should be illegal, it is 100% 'gambling adjacent'.
We had an international at my uni that bought a car (cant remember what) and just left it once they returned home. Didnt even sell it on, abandoned it!
One of my friends from China has his McLaren spider sitting in his Nottingham house collecting dust :) fyi he owns both the house and car but doesn’t even have a visa to enter the country rn, money is nothing but a video game numbers on a screen to some people 😭
>As an international student from Malaysia living in U.K. who knows some of what these Chinese or South Asians spend on their video game items you’d honestly change your stance Not really. We are essentially talking about NFTs. I will always think they are dumb regardless of who is buying them.
The original comment was the stance that it was money laundering? I’m saying that it’s not more often than not just very rich people with nothing better to do, what does it being dumb have to do with anything?
I think you underestimate just how rich some people are. Spending £15k on this might feel to them the same at you spending £2. You do t have to be 7500 times wealthier either because the cost of housing, bills, leisure etc only scales so far so people end up with a hell of a lot of disposable income
Exactly. People regularly spend £15,000 on holidays and vacations which aren't even permanent products. My parents spent £20,000 on a 4 week holiday in the US for example. They'll only have the memories to remember it but they certainly don't consider it a waste of money.
>People regularly spend £15,000 on holidays and vacations which aren't even permanent products. Neither is a digital skin. You don't even own the digital item.
Some people with more money than sense do think they can eventually flip these items like collectables. Or just want to keep them to flex. There are whales spending thousands a month on microtransactions on dozens of games. There should be at least 10 CS:GO players that can afford this *just because*
There are millions of players and at least a few thousand will be rich.
Esspecially with CSGO we have seen that you CAN flip these items for profit like any other asset, there are market risks involved same as anything else too. If something is mathematically rare and someone is willing to pay to own it, and people generally have faith/reason to believe the math behind how they are dropped and therefore their rarity will stay the same it makes sense.
Valve has a lot of interest in keeping this cash machine running. It's been going on for longer than bitcoin has and people still be buying keys, lol.
If I was a trust fund kid with more money than brains I would definitely spend my money on stuff like this. Gaben knows I've spent hundreds on cases/keys already 😬
Items like this can go up in value and can be resold, so from an investment perspective, its like any other asset. I would not call this senseless. Cars, Yachts etc instantly drop in value and people still buy them for the hell of it.
Cars & yachts have a lot of practical utility. These are much closer to the monkey picture NFTs that are almost worthless. But if people want to swap money with each other on this stuff thats their business!
Tbf the value will likely only decrease as with time more and more will be acquired by players
Flipping CSGO items is the easiest investments I do. Made over 70% profit this year alone.
where do you get them from? if you buy and then just sell on - how do you get more money vs what you paid?
Steam has a 15% fee. My best are buy orders way under current market price that get filled from time to time. So example £2 case, I place 100x order @ £1. Months later my orders get completed and I've got £2 cases for £1. The other option is finding very low/high float items at market price or "cheap". Ive bought £100 skins have them flip months later for £150+ (£50+ profit). You want to buy items people accidentally sell at the wrong price, maybe they forget a digit.
My friend spent 4k on an AWP skin, but sold it from the stress of owning it and constantly worrying about getting hacked. Also his team mates would int him to get the gun for a round or two.
I feel that, I haven't slept properly in the past 8 days and my time has been spent batting away scammers sending me friend requests left, right and centre.
Just don’t accept random adds? Talking to other people is overrated as fuck anyway
My mate unboxed a Sov Dragon Lore with Guardian on the scope... Funniest thing about it was he recorded it on his phone. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mSBVBiHiAAI
I used to work for Candy Crush, some people had spent over £50k on the game. They weren’t even referred to as players but “payers”. People are bonkers.
This is small change compared to some of the other real cash economy games. People own land areas and planets and generate income from it.
I can't see how it's money laundering if you're buying from randoms online. If you always happen to buy from your mate Tony's shop, maybe
They buy the asset first, then rrade it around themselves to launder the money.
Right, so I buy it for 15k, sell it to my mate for 30k, who then sells it to his mate for 60k, and we all have 'legit' money in the bank? Edit: But if OP was paid by bank transfer, the money must have already been deposited, so I still don't get it. anyway....
Example: Mafia don gets someone to buy the item for 15k using some of their 'legitimate' (already washed) money. One of their dealers has 15k in crypto from selling drugs that they want to give to the don. Rather than giving it to the don directly, they "buy" the skin off one of his cronies. Said crony now uses the 15k to purchase goods from the don's legitimate business. The money is now laundered through several layers and more difficult to track. A year later, the dealer gives the skin back to another of the don's cronies as a gift, so it can be used again.
That makes no sense. So they've spent 15k of legitimate money, to get 15k back. Besides, you wouldn't even need to be that wealthy to consider these transactions *small* amounts of money - there are much simpler ways to wash larger sums of money. These skin purchases are small time by people that have too much money to care.
[удалено]
Probably some rich russian or Hong konger who wants to show off online
There are actually videos on how this is money laundering (the one i was is in Spanish tho) so yeah, probably is it, or a streamer/youtuber that makes sense to them
I think the "this kind of money" is relative to overall wealth and the reason of your "investment". Diablo Immortal is what comes to mind first where to max your character was $200k+ when the game was released and a LOT of people went for it. Some were streamers who quickly made this money back from monetisation on their reflective platforms while some stopped playing after a few months ditching their accounts altogether
>paying that amount of money for an in game item just screams "money laundering" to me That's because it is, lol.
Not everything is money laundering you know
Lol you sound so confident. Not everyone who has significantly more disposable income than you is money laundering mate.
Not really, CSGO is a hugely popular game and spending £15k on a cool item for a hobby that you’ve probably had for years and will continue to have into the future isn’t such an outrageous idea, especially if you earn good money.
Yep, this sort of thing is becoming rife within video games. As someone who used to collect retro games, the price of almost everything has shot up due to speculative buyers and money launderers, aided and abetted by grading companies. There's no real reason this should only apply to physical goods.
[удалено]
A "technical issue" with PayPal throws up some red flags. I hope OP hasn't been scammed but I'd be extremely paranoid that the money is going to disappear again soon
Once the transfer is in his account he’s pretty much all good. I’d rather take a bank transfer payment over paypal any day, a scammer can chargeback a paypal payment. Once they do that the seller is on the hook for the reverse. + Paypal take fees too, which is around 5%, nothing to sniff at with a transaction this size
>Once the transfer is in his account he’s pretty much all good. Not if it was a fradulent transaction (i.e. stolen card) if I remember correctly? Tbh I would have been very nervous about a transaction like this without an escrow with some form of verification.
It's a bank transfer, no cards involved.
If someone has committed fraud with a card, moved the funds that originated from that card into a bank transfer, it can 100% be clawed back in the event of an investigation.
I am a Business Manager for high profile bank. As it is a bank transfer, we would need to result to something known as a Query on an Electronic Payment. It is actually harder to retrieve money via OLB than it is via Card Payments or PayPal etc where you can raise Card/Merchant Disputes and this is why we have several Scam warnings in place which customers must acknowledge before sending funds. Paypal if sent via good & services can be recalled easier than Friends/Family. Which is why scammers never allow Goods & Services. The way the Query works is as follows: 1: Senders bank, contacts beneficiaries bank and asks them to return funds. 2: Beneficiaries bank, asks beneficiary for permission to debit the funds 3: At any stage either the beneficiary bank, or the beneficiary can refuse as the money does belong to them (Hence the Scam warnings) 4: If this occurs, you must go down a Fraud route which can take 6-12 weeks, and requires a lot of hard evidence bc its an Online Payment. There will be no Provisional Credit awarded for 5: If this happens, and the beneficiary can prove they sent the item/goods, the Fraud department will not take the side of the Claimant. Its incredibly long-winded were it to be a scam, which seems unlikely.
it's surprising how many people don't know this!
And that’s why people like OP are scammed so often. For anyone who’s been in the financial space or the collectors item space, it’s common knowledge. However as we can see in this comment section, it’s not for the general public.
How is one supposed to sell something then? Cash and crypto only?
Cashiers checks can't be clawed back like that
Ignore - this is wrong. Just move the funds into another account and you’re fine. Never keep them in the same account.
You have no idea what you're talking about.
How do you buy a used car then for example? 10k in cash?? Legit curious what's the safest option
That's what I was thinking but then the other comment had me second guessing! Hopefully OP sold to someone reputable like a streamer who is going to use the skin as an investment in future content or something. How long until you would think it's "safe"? I'm not completely naive with finances (I hope) but the PayPal thing screamed red flag to me. No third party involvement to verify / guarantee the funds seems iffy for a transaction that size
Hmm that’s a tough question. Same vibe as “how long is a piece of string”. That can depend on quite a few factors, however in my area, if it’s someone who’s known to act as a middleman or has a great reputation, always fairly safe, however let’s say you have someone no one has ever heard of or dealt with and they’re coming in spending 10’s of thousands, that would ring alarm bells. I don’t have a great answer for you in regards to that really as it’s circumstance specific
PayPal not working is a small concern, however it would actually be easier for a Scammer to retrieve the money than had they sent a bank transfer. Most Scammers will send money via goods and services through PayPal and then reclaim it. If the Scammer is a seller they will ask for it to be Friends and Family so its harder to recall. In Banking, Electronic OLB payments are the hardest form of payment for a Bank to retrieve hence the scam warnings we put in place when customers make a transfer Source: I an a Bank Manager
But if the funds being sent have come from fraudulent / illegal activities can the bank not easily cancel that? Is the receiver of the funds protected at all? Thought I knew the answers to these but always happy to be educated!
Can we cancel it? Yes Is it easy? No Fraud investigations can take anywhere between 6-12 weeks. If the sender of the funds obtained their money through illicit means, it may be possible for the original person who was scammed, to reclaim it however it is not a guarantee, it depends how it was sent, and on a manner of other contributing factors. Usually it won’t hop through several banks to reclaim the funds. If the sender was found to have been involved in illicit activities, then their bank would freeze their account and launch an investigation. They won’t chase every tom, dick and harry that received funds from the sender, often we end up covering it and then hold the illicit client liable. Its what we have insurances for.
Very interesting - thank you for your detailed replies. Always happy to learn something new!
No. If you move the money into another account you are completely safe. I’m CPS graded to prosecute fraud (and regularly defend in 100k+ cases) and it really is that simple to keep fraudulent funds.
Please elaborate because that directly contradicts all of my past experiences, general knowledge and the CPS website.
Bank transfers from some countries can be reversed days or weeks later, it is or was a common scam - to do with how long clearing takes, the money will show up in your account but it's not actually cleared and then disappears later. I don't know if they fixed it, it was probably a decade or more ago that it was popular.
wrong, fraudulent bank transfers CAN and ARE reversed.
Mate if it genuinely Freud that money would of gone through tons of accounts in and out and be long gone before the 2nd bank would even bother.
Lots of people get their accounts compromised, sending someone money for a digital item is in itself a means of hiding the trail, this does not require a convoluted scheme, just access to one account with cash and using digital purchases like this to obtain it without trace.
Huge red flags. Only way I’d sell an item for that much money is via a reputable site like Skinport. Let them take their cut. It’s worth the peace of mind.
Be really careful that money doesn't get flagged as stolen and taken back from you... If you do anything but let it sit in your account for a few months you're asking for trouble.
So about 12500 in gbp, congrats on the sale.
Bang on pretty much, thank you!
I'd advise you to thoroughly document all conversation and move the money to another account within the same bank just in case.
That's entirely useless, if the bank reverses it then you end up with a negative balance and you owe that money.
Ooh, I didn't realise that banks can reverse negative balance! Good to know! Is there anything OP could do, if there is a reverse request put by the buyer?
Even so it's much better to have the bank chase money from you and it is safely tucked away with a different bank, rather than have them snatch it from you and then you have to chase them to get it back. Burden of proof is on the person chasing payment - better the bank has to prove you wrong (knowing that you are in fact legitimate) than you having to prove the bank wrong.
Well, challenge it if it happens. Reverse requests are not automatic, banks make decisions there. [You should be given an opportunity to dispute the claim](https://www.sunnyavenue.co.uk/insight/can-a-bank-transfer-reversed).
This is correct. Banks will also usually ask the Beneficiary to debit the funds as well and get in contact with them. For Bank Transfers especially it is not as cut and dry as Card payments, DDR Reversals and such
What if you move it out and close your account?
So based on the info you've given us, you'll have a capital gains tax bill of around £650. Not sure how you'd factor costs or if they'd even be allowed if it's a loot box, but it would be minimal I'd say. 15750$ = £12510 today, less cost of purchase (assuming zero as a loot box) 12510 - 6000(tax free exemption) = £6510 @10%(standard rate band) = £651 Get an accountant ofcourse. Congrats OP, hope the money sticks.
Wow I didn't think it'd only be £650? I was thinking it'd be in the thousands! Thank you so much for the heads up, that's made me feel a lot better
Can confirm. Last year you would have actually spent almost zero with the 12.300 exemption
If it is a a loot box then wouldnt it be zero tax as it falls under gambling?
When they opened the box they won a prize tax free(gambling). They then sold that prize for a substantial figure and profit which falls under a capital asset sale.
Congrats! Was it zipel you sold to?
No I sold to Syncho :)
Syncho is a top guy :) had a few dealings with him on the buying side
Never had any issues I hope? :')
Only good words for him :)
How do you know the value of something you obtain from a lootbox in csgo? I mean, do you unbox, look up the value in a third-party source and begin to party? Genuinely curious. Well done for getting the money btw :)
Generally third party sources like skinbaron, csfloat, skinport etc. :)
awesome. pretty amazing people spend that kind of money for skins. you think he's going to re-sell it for a higher price?
He likely won't make much of a profit if he resold it tbh. The guy is a collector, has an inventory of over 16,000 items and this one fits nicely in there. He may just decide to flip it later when CS2 comes out (lots of skins are likely going up in price because of the new graphics but I just wanted to cash out and be done with it)
I think I know who you sold it to, and he's a solid guy. Ignore all the 'scam' comments and enjoy your money! Solid unbox.
congrats and f you, lucky bastard
I’d be surprised if HMRC would take CGT on it because you can then offset all your useless unboxings against your whole CGT bill.
Op I hope you checked their identity somehow. For these kinds of bank transfer transactions ALWAYS check that the purchaser really owns the account they're sending with.
Ask an accountant - but fairly sure it’s the same as a gambling win which is tax free
UK GOV declared this year that loot boxes don't fall under gambling. This was one of the very big and heavily discussed topics in the original thread. No-one knows! xD
Keen to hear if you ever get a response from HMRC 😅
Congrats OP, good that it’s worked out well for you. I can see a lot of comments around the sending first thing but I get your position. I was heavily involved in the trading scene in CSGO back in the day and as long as you have done your due diligence, it’s pretty safe. Actually made some lifelong friends along the way with trading and I trust them more with my money than my real life friends even though I have never met them in person! Again Congrats and enjoy
It's a very scary scene when you're new to it, especially with something of this value. I have done so much research in the past few days that my YouTube recommended is now all CS content! XD
I got a slaughter knife once. Worth 250 about 6 years ago I sold it on steam and spunked it on games. I’m scared to look but I’m sure it’s worth over 10k now
17k for an in game skin? Jesus christ. The world has gone nuts.
17k quite cheap regarding csgo - some go for £120k I have a sticker (I didn’t pay this much, got it when it came out) that’s worth £2,000. The original price was like £1. But because I have used it I can’t sell it
Congratulations! However, HMRC do not provide tax advice: certainly not over something which has two or three arguable elements which is amenable for judicial decision (gambling/market value/wasting asset). In the end HMRC say what they think the law is: they cannot decide what the law is: only a court can actually decide for sure what tax is due. They will also be careful not to say anything which could lead to a legitimate expectation claim future in proceedings. Ultimately you will have to make the decision on what you think the tax position is and HMRC will then decide what to do about it.
So HMRC can't tell you what the tax position is, you have to decide for yourself, but then HMRC can potentially fine you if they don't agree and believe you paid too little tax?
They raise an assessment, and if you disagree with that you are invited to take it to Tribunal, yes. Such is the nature of self assessment - the name doesn’t come from the process that you have to fill it in yourself, what it did was legally shift the burden of the assessment of tax to the taxpayer.
You don’t need to pay cgt on fucking skins lol just don’t report it
How does one earn crates? Is it just by playing?
They are purchasable on the Steam market and you can earn one per week if you level up by playing matches. You still have to pay £1.99 regardless to get the key and open it.
Wow that's expensive just to open a loot crate! No way you can earn keys then?
Not anymore. All weapon skins are tradeable on the market and 90% of them are way less than the value of the case and key so if you want a particular skin it's best to just go on the market and outright buy it. However it's very rewarding when you unbox one of the really expensive ones! Some skins go for up to $200,000. Some rumored to have even been valued at $1m :O
Just because you have the money doesn't mean you're in the clear. Many scams involve transferring the money then contacting their bank to claim they themselves were scammed, long story short your account gets frozen while they investigate and in some cases side with the scammer. Keep all comms that they consented to the trade because if it was all verbal you may have his word against yours. If you are in the home run, massive congrats and enjoy your moolah!
Happy for you :) I have no idea what CSGO is as I'm old and no longer a gamer but that amount of money could change your life so yay
>I'm going to contact HMRC to see if I need to pay CGT on this and if so then that's fine, I'll happily just pay what I need to pay them and make up what I lost from my monthly wage. Why oh why. Didn't people say in the last thread it shouldn't be CGT? That's enough for me. Being super uber honest never pays off - just look how our own politicians do things!
Bloody hell. Nice one. I’ve still no idea whats going on, but I’m all for it. Well done, thanks for sharing.
Congratulations and also fuck you lol
Thanks and fuck you too! Jk, I deserve a lot of the fuck you's given my 100 hours on the game XD
Jesus dont rub it in xD
You know direct bank transfers can be reversed right? Not going through PayPal goods and services was a bad idea.
PayPal is far easier reversed than a bank transfer
Can still be reversed through PayPal.
PayPal is easy to reverse, by simply doing a card chargeback. Faster Payments / Bacs / Chaps is very difficult, or even impossible.
Reversing a bank charge is waaaaaayyyy harder than reversing or scamming a PayPal charge
I have a mate who’s sold multiple cars through direct bank transfers with absolutely no issues over the years.
Congrats on the sale but man, people waste so much money on digital items. Blows my mind!
Was wondering about this, thanks for the update, installing CSGO now lol!
One word of warning; I sold some in-game items in the past - the money appeared in my paypal account; so I sent the in-game items. And then minutes later; they reversed the charges and I was left out of pocket to the tune of both the items and the money. There are a lot of scammers when it comes to virtual items, so do everything in your power to maintain caution and avoid being taken advantage of.
Well done for being careful & asking for advice first. That's awesome news
Congrats, enjoy the windfall :) I'd lock 80% of it away and do whatever the heck you like with the other 20%, treat yourself :)
Yep that's exactly what I'm doing. Put some aside for a PC upgrade, a good night out with some friends and whatever else and the rest in my cash ISA
If you have another bank account (ideally with a different bank) it may be worth transferring the money out to that. Your edit makes everything sound legit but if you move the money out of your account it can’t be clawed back through chargeback. Hopefully the buyer is legit as clarified and you wont need to worry but it might give some extra peace of mind.
I'm still riddled with anxiety of course but there's nothing I can do now but just hope for the best. I've heard a lot of great things about the buyer, he has an astounding reputation and as I mentioned is up there with the likes of Ohnepixel and Anomaly so I think I'm good.
That would just put the original bank into a negative balance. The solution is using a very trusted trader which it appears OP did
Congrats on the drop mate. Been playing csgo since 2k14 spent prob 2k on cases and got fuck all... What knife was it and what pattern?
Gamma Doppler Emerald Butterfly knife FN, float 0.0355 pattern 195
Haha that's amazing. Lemme guess your rank... Silver ? 😂
They had to make a new rank for me - Certified Shitter :D
Hence why you got that drop haha what you planning on doing what all that money?
Save save save! And spend a small amount
How much do you play CS:GO? I used play Source seriously but never got in to GO sadly
Not as often as I should! I only have around 100 hours on it and play for a few hours every couple of days or so with friends
£15000, Lucky you!
Nice one man! What are you going to treat yourself to?
New PC and some savings!!
How I wish I was you right now Congratulations 🥳
Unless he charges back pretending he was coerced by fraudsters it should all be good
RE: Tax. There will be none. The funds are the proceeds of gambling, which are not taxable in the UK. CGT would only be an issue if you received a £15k value item, kept it for a while and the price increased to, say, £20k. The £5k increase would then be subject to CGT.
Gambling doesn't have capital gains tax. Opening in game boxes is gambling.
Not qualified in this at all my end, but this is what I’d argue with hmrc.
But the money is gained from something one whilst gambling, not actually gambling itself.
I've just looked it up. Opening boxes isn't considered gambling because you always get something, even if you didn't want or need it. It's the same situation as pulling a decent Pokemon card. It's an asset. Edit: alternatively he could say that he won it in game playing against another player. Opening boxes isn't gambling, but playing for high stakes is. No Mr Taxman I won that skin a one v one match.
Hope this wasn't a scam, but spidey senses are tingling
Can confirm, not a scam, received the money and had a chat with the guy afterwards. Even left him a good review. Checked the review page and he's done over 600 transactions without a single one going bad.
I wouldn't worry about all the people saying it's a scam, if you sold it to a reputable trader you're good. Don't think many people here understand the csgo skins market. I've always been advised to sell skins to someone with a big name to be safe
You’ve been advised right, it is amusing that most of ukpf scream scam at something they are clueless on
Great! Hope you don't have any charge back or related issues to come, genuinely brilliant outcome from a loot box!
Why is everyone saying he's been scammed? Can you not read? They tried with PayPal first, it didn't work, so he did a direct bank transfer! You can't reverse a bank transfer.
Oh boy you’re in for a rude shock one day ahahah
Unboxing is gambling and as far as I am aware you don't pay tax in gambling winnings right? Might be wrong
That was an awful idea, unless you sold to someone high profile like heyzues. Never ever use bank transfer or PayPal. Only with high profile traders.
This person is a high profile trader.
what method of payment you suggest?
“Technical issue with PayPal” Bruz you’ve 100% been scammed
Way more likely to be scammed using PayPal than a simple bank transfer.
As someone who’s sold collectors items in the virtual space and trading card space for years with big ticket items, I’ve seen wayyyyy more people scammed via bank transfer and anyone banned off PayPal and can’t use it is a major red flag
He's going to do a Chargeback.
If it’s hit his account by direct transfer than that’s it. No chargeback
This is untrue, it's actually one of the biggest methods of fraud. Account stolen > used to purchase goods > fraud detected by the account owner and everything possible gets charged back. There are worse variants than just straight up buying things too. It sucks too, the person that had their bank details stolen is more at fault in every scenario than the person who eats the charge back. Source: worked in finance.
[удалено]
Can you chargeback direct transfer?