MangaGamer Hit By Fraud
Today, MangaGamer announced that they would no longer be offering complementary Steam keys for games purchased from their website. The payment gateway on the MangaGamer website is also closed and no timetable has been released for when it will reopen. These unfortunate issues come on the weekend MangaGamer released Kindred Spirits on the Roof: a highly anticipated yuri visual novel. Also, according to the publisher, these issues are not accidental. In their statement, MangaGamer staff points to well-organized fraudulent activity that ultimately forced their hand. This highlights the importance of engaging expert financial partners similar to FastSpring (visit the site to know more) to handle all financial transactions as well as actively monitor systems for fraudulent activity. In spite of all of it however, sometimes mishaps can happen. From their statement,
Over the past few months we have been suffering from a drastically heightened number of fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards on our site. The fraudulent activity has been focused almost exclusively on games that come with Steam keys, with the intent to re-sell on third party websites.
By the time the chargeback occurs and the victim receives their money back, this small yet determined group or individual has already taken the complimentary Steam keys we offer with these titles and sold them elsewhere. Each fraudulent purchase and subsequent chargeback severely damages our relationship with our payment processor, gateway, and creditors.
We’ve been making every attempt possible to thwart these illegitimate purchases with some limited success in the past months; however, as a small business we lack the resources to mitigate the risks associated with offering complimentary Steam keys, and with great regret we must announce that we will not be able to provide them for the foreseeable future.
While the online store is shut down, several selections from the MangaGamer catalog can still be purchased on Steam. You can read MangaGamer’s full statement on the matter here and we will keep you updated as the story progresses.
