Topic: PSA. cjs cdkeys

I bought a game from this site a month ago and today Nintendo blocked it from being played.

I bought it not realising that how you access the game you buy (by adding a new account to your Switch) was contravening a Nintendo non-commercial usage policy in the Switch's T&Cs. So I would strongly advise against using this site.

Lesson learnt: If something seems to good to be true...

I hope no one else gets burnt.

I don't think this site even sells games.

Edit: oh you mean the thingy in the title is the store you're talking about

I never even heard of them before

Thanks for sharing the info. I was considering buying from them because they are so cheap and appear to be good value. I obviously won’t now, cheers.

Might be worth trying to get a refund from the site? Though probably won’t succeed if it’s in the ts and cs

Correct cjs cdkeys, not nintendolife.

Could you elaborate on how this is in disagreement with Nintendo's Terms and Conditions?

I'm asking because, just last week, I was offered to buy bayonetta 1 & 2 second hand. As you may know, the first game is digital only, and the seller offered me a Nintendo account that has only this game registered. He said I will be able to change the password and the email of the account... But I ended buying the game new for just 5 bucks more.
The thing is: Could I have ended having the same problema as you? What is the exact violation you commit when buying the account with the game from this website?

Even what the site admits to selling sounds sketchy to me. It doesn't sell games and software, just access keys to games. Which raises the question of how they get said cd keys.

Also, anyone offering to sell you a 2nd hand copy of a digital only game... that's is likely not legitimate.

To my untrained legal eye, it was basically that the account used to install & play the game is a commercial account used by a company to sell keys, and not by an individual...but I don't know if they would even allow that(?).

So I'm not sure if you'd have ended up in the same position, but best not to take chances, and only buy physical copies, in my opinion.

I find this a really weird and sketchy company. I have done some research on their website, but it doesn't really become clear to me how it all works. They don't (or at least not clearly) warn you that you need a new account for activating a Switch game. That's weird right? I'd rather pay a bit more or wait for a price drop instead of buying something there.

@Rich10 Thanks for sharing; sorry to hear you got stung. Was that your FIFA19 game?

That's why I buy via https://www.cdkeys.com or via eShop when I have enough Gold Coins get better deal then in website I just mentioned.

Okay, looking over the CJS CDKeys site, it definitely comes across as a "stolen goods vendor" site.

@FaeKnight Really? I don't think so at all. It looks more like you have little to no experience with buying online codes, if you think that this site looks sketchy.

If they would be, then they would practically be the dumbest pirates on the web. All of their contact and company data can be found on the site, there's a direct phone number to their desk, and they have an online support system, which works with tickets. All of which makes them highly visible and easily found by any of the relevant companies that they sell products from, or by any organization that fights online piracy and corruption. And they even use TrustPilot, an online rating system, that is specifically meant to show you how reliable a web shop is or isn't.

And seeing as they've been around since 2009, I would think that if their practices really were all that shady, that they would have been taken offline years ago already, because they sell stuff for all platforms, so they're not exactly a niche website.

Here's their about page:
https://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/pages/About.html

@Rich10 If I were you, I'd simply call them or make/request a support ticket from their site, and explain the issue to them. Just give that a try and see where that takes you. At the very least, they might offer you some advice, or perhaps you can even get a refund, provided you can indeed show them the proof of what happened, so you'd better take some screenshots or something.

As for the site itself: nothing sketchy about it. I'm afraid you've just run into a bit of bad luck. I've used sites like these for almost a decade, for multiple systems, and have never run into any trouble whatsoever.

I do find it strange that you had to make a new account just to be able to access that game, though.
Then again, I don't own a Switch, so I'll have to take your word for it. Either way, give their support desk a try and just email them. They might just surprise you, in a positive way...

It was yeah, but I'll be buying it again when the price drops.

I've contacted the site and requested a refund, so we'll see how it goes.

That sucks, mate. Hope the refund works out for you. I can confirm CJ's is legit, though; at least for Steam stuff. I've bought a handful of games on the cheap using that site, and they've all worked out for me.

There's always some risk associated with those kinds of website, though; from both simple technical error and from nefarious ne'er-do-wells. I'd say never spend more than you're prepared to lose if things don't work out.

These gray market key sellers are just that: gray market. Most of them aren't necessarily illegal, but they're not exactly official either. Some of them are accused of selling stolen keys. There are two types of these key sellers. Ones that do it directly and ones that are a "marketplace" where random users can sell their keys thorough the site. Those are very sketchy since you never know who the seller really is or where they got the goods. The ones that do it directly usually are legit. They do one of several things:
1- Acquire bulk keys through some totally legit key distribution channel (usually ones printed on physical cards.)
2- Buy bulk digital keys during authorized store sales, like E3 week sales and such, and then sell them for slightly more later.
3-Use currency exchange rates and region free consoles to buy printed card keys or online codes in countries like India, etc where the exchange rate to Western countries is favorable, so they can sell at discounts by using the exchange rate by selling you technically foreign copies, but with region free, it doesn't matter. Not illegal, not "normal."
4-Buying closeout codes on retail cards that were part of a time limited promotion. Like a T.J. Maxx for printed digital codes. EG: I bought X1 Halo Wars 1 & 2 bundle cheap on one such site, they scanned physical cards for the codes. The cards were the pre-launch promotion printed cards with codes on them advertising the early-access beta dates. Those dates were long expired, so the cards couldn't really be displayed at retail anymore despite being good codes so the place likely bulk bought them from Best Buy , Walmart, or GameStop or such as discount expired merchandise.

It's a mix of legit, illegit, and depending on the site, illegal/stolen goods depending on the site.
Just glancing at this one though it actually looks to be one of the better ones, on the surface. However selling accounts instead of keys seems beyond sketchy. Selling keys is just retail goods. But why are they redeeming the keys before selling them? That's pretty weird.

@ThanosReXXX the cd key sites are sketchy enough with their gray market nature, even when they're legit. But this one is doing something very very weird. From their Switch page:

Here we offer games for the Nintendo Switch, available with instant delivery immediately after payment.

play on your own account, just as if you had purchased the game on it directly
earn achievements, play online, get updates
full, exclusive ownership over the account
set your own email and password to ensure only you have access
all languages the game was released in will be available

We deliver the games as a Primary License. This means the game will come as an account with a prepurchased game.

After setup you will be able to play on your own profile with all the features just as if you had it bought directly in the Store.

To set it up you need to add the account we will provide, download the game from it and then switch back to your own account to play. Do not delete our account from the console afterwards.

Nothing, I mean nothing, is even remotely legit about buying a game that comes as the sole game attached to a complete account, and every game you buy comes with an account, and the game is pre-installed, exclusively, to that account. So then you add that account (per-game, and Switch has a max of 8 accounts!) to your Switch.

Worse they then say you can play under your own account. That's not true. Digital purchases for non-primary accounts can't be played by other accounts (same as X1) only the primary can. So you'd need to make your one-game account your system primary to play it on your own account. And then change primary every time you change games?

And worse, none of that makes sense: If they were selling legit games, they'd be selling keys to redeem on the eShop...no weird "we'll provide the account and you can change the password" nonsense.

I'd say they're using bundles, selling the account to sell pre-installed games, and then scalping the hardware elsewhere....but that also makes little sense since Switch hardware is almost never below MSRP. Maybe buying in small economy countries and selling the hardware at near retail in Western countries on eBay/Amazon? So buy a Switch bundle in Zimbabwe, sell the game in the UK for $30 and the hardware in the US for $275 and make $100 total or so? But....they have games that were never in bundles.

This place is doing some very wrong things, things that don't make sense, and I'd say the fact that they appear otherwise legit means that legit seeming sites need that much more scrutiny since it's so easy to appear legit when you're doing some pretty shady stuff. I can't even figure out where the crime/fraud is occurring or how it works, but it has to be there. Selling 1-game accounts rather than keys is very very not legit.

@Tsurii I kind of agree and don't agree. On paper there's nothing wrong with selling keys...especially a mix of bulk buy digital and paper printed codes bought at retail clearance/wholesale. That really comes from the PC world where multiple competing retailers is the norm, and is retail working properly the way it should instead of weird "authorized dealer" collusion nonsense where producer controls pricing top to bottom like some weird Communist utopia. There's also nothing wrong with abusing exchange rates. How do you think hedge fund managers and investment brokers make their money? That's how the whole of the finance and global business industry work. It's just we're told as good little consumers that's not for us, that's only for them, know your place and mind your tongue.

OTOH, as it's not an official channel....there does run the risk for a lot of abuse. And sites like this clearly highlight how hard it can be to tell legit from not. The legit ones aren't always cheaper and are often more expensive except when they're cheaper. It doesn't help that most of them are headquartered in sketchy places in Asia.

@NEStalgia Hm... that actually does sound odd, even to me, although I don't own a Switch and have no idea how accounts on that console should/could work. Either way, I do still stand by the general gist of what I said. You can't be shady for almost 10 years and be so visible, all while selling multiple products and services from all console manufacturers and Steam. And they actually sell physical games as well.

It's just a store buying in bulk, which is more than likely the only reason why they can afford to sell stuff at such reduced prices.

And like I said, they're already under scrutiny, from TrustPilot, and probably some other instances as well.
They are registered as a trusted website, and they're even an award-winning web shop (follow the link that I posted, and you'll see), and these qualifications don't just fall from the sky, so they must have been doing something right, in the 9 years of their existence.

And a shop being in Asia or wherever doesn't make it sketchy by default. That's a little bit too much of a thing called negative generalization...
Them being located in any other country than right under your nose is not a red flag per sé. Hell, I would locate my company in another country as well, if I had the option. Nothing shady about that, just more profitable and/or convenient concerning p&p handling and import costs.

So, ultimately, apparently the only weird thing on there, is how they handle Switch products, but the rest is just the same as any other trustworthy online key selling shop.

But perhaps an interesting path to follow, would be to send them an email with those exact concerns/questions, and seeing with what answer or reasoning they can come up with, to explain that.

I am sketchy with sellers and sites based in Asia especially after Play Asia ripped me off. I am still waiting for a controller I ordered from them like 3 years ago.

@Tasuki Hah. Play Asia is super legit, they're a plain old retailer, so if there's an issue on that, they should be taking care of it! They seem to have a distributor network though. My last order from them shipped from The Netherlands for all Japanese content. No idea why. Last I checked that's not near Asia....maybe it moved? I prefer the Japan-based dealers when possible but nobody has the amount of content Play Asia does. They just take forever to ship things. 3 years though...that's something they need to fix. They're probably the only thing in Hong Kong I'd consider remotely legit though...

@ThanosReXXX Switch accounts are (as of 6.0 and NSO) pretty much like XBL accounts. You can have max 8 users on your machine. One user is the primary (Home XBox), and the other users on that system can game share the purchases of the primary. (And logging in as yourself on another Switch lets you play your own games as well.) Pretty identical to XBox now other than the 8 account limit. So imagine every game you buy from these guys they ship you, not a key, but credentials for an XBox/Microsoft Account that has the game in it's library instead of sending you a key to redeem in your account.

Same thing here for Switch. If that's not shifty, I'll sell you this box of solid gold coins for only $300.

Maybe they are legit, or have been legit....but this Switch business isn't legit. "Buy a game for less than MSRP and instead of a game or key we give you an account that redeemed the key, and you can change the password." Sounds like The Best of eBay Volume III

It depends where in Asia. I don't know where these guys are (could be the UK for all I know.) They don't list their address on the contact page. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, sure I'd trust that. PRC/Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, etc? No, red flags have to go up. Not that I've never purchased anything from PRC/Hong Kong since it's kind of unavoidable, not putting your scam radar up from these places infamous for scam behavior would be just plain irresponsible. India has entire business districts dedicated to international scam/extortion calls. It's not actually illegal there, they actually have office buildings for that stuff. They actually pay taxes on income from those shakedown calls overseas. Caveat Emptor.

Edit: Even the real cdkeys.com. They're legit, I've used them multiple times. But they list their address as a building in an office park in Hong Kong. A very expensive office park. The kind of park you might find companies like Huawei, Lenovo, HSBC, Tencent, etc. I find it hard to believe a little online game keys seller is actually renting at rates like that. So where are they really, a tent in the parking lot?

@NEStalgia thanks for your detailed analysis. I've been reading and checking up into this site now a few times. I really wonder how it works for them, mainly out of sheer interest. Where on earth do they get ACCOUNTS with preinstalled FIFA games (for example) from?? Only profitable and non-hacking way I can think of, is that an insider (employee) is arranging it somehow. I don't want to falsely accuse them or anything, but until someone's able to explain their methods a bit clearer I'm no way gonna give them the benefit of the doubt.