Anyways I'm poor and I cant afford to buy most games with real prices so no shame.
If you need to buy something, you go to keyshops:
https://gg.deals/game/hi-fi-rush/
Since Steam has raised prices, I have purchased a lot of bundled games from there and none of them were revoked.
Only one time a key was already activated, but I sent a message to the trader with a screenshot and he replaced it for me.
If you want to buy from someone on SteamTrades or Barter, you need to check their reputation first.
Judging from what I see on GG Deals, the lowest Hi-Fi Rush was is $6.19, so if someone is selling for lower than that it should raise questions.
Yeah, I'm aware of GG.deals, but if you found someone who just wanted to get rid of his keys, you could get games for much cheaper than even the cheapest price on GG.deals.
For example, I got Kingdoms of Amalur: FATE Edition for 5 dollars on Steamtrades, even though it should be 8 dollars at least.
Or from the same guy who sold me Hi-Fi Rush, I also got Atari: 50th Anniversary for 2 dollars, but it's 3.18 dollars on GG.deals. (This is why I'm not sure if he was a scammer, because the Atari game is working fine so far).
But after having that experience, I'm going to be much more cautious.
Steam removing a game from your library usually happens when either the publisher revokes the key or if the store contacts steam when someone does a chargeback on their credit card. Stolen credit cards are usually the biggest reason why keys are revoked. What was his reputation on steamtrades? I never had a problem there but I only trade with people with public steam accounts and very high positive reputations. Seems weird someone would nuke his account for 5 bucks. Did he block you on steam? Cant you check his account in you trade history?
I also only had problems with key sellers once, when a dude sold me RUS locked key, he apologized and refunded the full ammount for me in less than an hour.
I see. So the stolen credit card theory is the strongest. Do you know how long it takes for this to take effect? For example, can a game be revoked months after being activated?
His reputation on Steamtrades was +11. I know that's low, but I bought keys from lower reputations and I was fine.
His steam profile was not public. That should have been a red flag, but I didn't think anything of it. I should pay attention to that from now on.
He didn't nuke his account. Just closed all the open deals. He also made some deals with others. Some of them are resellers, so if he sold them a bad key, it would take a while for them to find out.
I have sent him a friend request again. I doubt he would accept it, but we'll see.