That something fishy is happening was clear to everyone somewhere in June 2019. But signs about Kinguin payout delay of payments to merchants were noticeable even at the start of 2019.
For those who don’t know, Kinguin is a sort of marketplace like eBay but for game keys. Just like Gamivo, Eneba, and G2A. I know there is a lot of misinformation and hate regarding this kind of marketplaces but from my years in this business as seller and buyer I can tell most sellers are honest and it is in their best interest that customer is satisfied.
Most hate comes from the opinion that keys sold there are illegally obtained and that developers don’t get cut from sold keys on Kinguin, G2A, etc. That is absolute rubbish. We get those keys from developers either by purchasing on other stores on discount, buying wholesale or in regions where the price is cheaper. We cant generate keys out of nowhere. But I will not go into that topic more. Haters gonna hate.
POPULAR GAME KEY MARKETPLACES
RECENT UPDATE: I have come to a mutual agreement with Kinguin. I will restore my sales, and Kinguin will start repaying what is due. I have seen a lot of progress from Kinguin recently as many merchants started reporting that they are getting payouts.
Table of Contents
Kinguin Payout Delays
When you sell game keys, all marketplace platforms lock your funds for 7–30 days, before you can withdraw your money depending on the marketplace. In this way, they protect themselves in case the seller sells invalid keys and then tries to withdraw money and scam them. Kinguin used to lock seller funds for 30 days before you can process a payout.
Kinguin, as well as G2A, Gamivo, and others charge various fees for selling. That is how they earn money. When you sell key on Kinguin you get money on your balance which is then in the review period for 60 days before you can use it (previously it was 30 days), and fees go to Kinguin. On May 13, 2019. Kinguin “professionally” updated their sellers via Reddit post about the new policy regarding payout review time.
Here is that announcment:
Hello everyone!
Thanks for your patience while we resolve this matter. We are announcing our new ‘review period’ policy. These updated terms will enable us to be timely with our payment schedule, so our valued merchants no longer see delays.
A key point in the new terms is that there will be a change in review period time up to 60 days. This will allow us to pay all of our merchants within the promised timeframe.
We understand that this delay and our updated ToS will impact our merchants. In recognition, we will offer the following perks to merchants, starting May 17th:
-Decreasing the commission by 10%* *Software Products not included
-Lowering the Listing Fee by 70%
-Increasing the Listing period from 60 to 365 days
-Lowering the price change fee by 80%
-Lowering Payout Fees by 50%
-Lowering Special Deals Participation fee by 20%
If you have any questions or feedback about the new Terms of Service, please contact us at merchants@kinguin.net
They really did apply those changes. The changes were somewhat solid compensation for increasing the review period from 30 days to 60 days. Ok, after 60 days you can create payout and get your money. Wrong! What they didn’t mention is that you can create a payout for your earned money by selling on Kinguin, but you will not get that money. Kinguin problems have just started.
Where Did Money Go?
It was clear Kinguin has a cashflow problem. But how platform which always made payments just a couple days after your requested payout now couldn’t pay its sellers? Where did the money go? Did Kinguin illegally spend money which wasn’t theirs?
Some say Kinguin management made some really bad investments. And that was made with sellers’ money. Those are all speculations. But one thing is sure. Money did go somewhere. Even Kinguin CEO Viktor tried to find someone who will invest by post on Facebook. As it currently seems, he didn’t found his angel.
Kinguin also opened the gaming center so that is one option where the money went. Or maybe it went into their ICO (Kinguin Krowns). Kinguin even had to cut off its worldwide known CS:GO Kinguin E-sports team, 50+ employees and their marketing team.
Some sellers when noticed that Kinguin has cashflow issues starting buying available game keys on Kinguin from other merchants. The plan was simple, as you can’t get your own money from them, then you just buy stock from other merchants on wholesale using balance you have. You then resell those keys on G2A, Gamivo, Eneba, etc.
The problem with this is that you will mostly end in some kind of loss. Most marketplaces have the same or similar price so on top of fees it is hard to sell like that with profit. But many sellers still took that route because better to get something then nothing if Kinguin goes bankrupt or disappears with the money.
Why You Can’t Purchase Using Balance?
Kinguin noticed what sellers are doing and quickly disabled option to purchase more than few copies telling that it is temporary (I think in the end they entirely disabled wholesale part) and they are working on upgrading platform. That was, of course, a lie.
Very soon Kinguin also disabled option for purchasing via available balance telling another lie that it was temporary, they are making updates, etc. So sellers now cant spend their money which they have on Kinguin nor they can get it as a payout. Basically it is held hostage by Kinguin.
UPDATE: Kinguin sent emails to several merchants in March 2020. telling them that for 2 weeks they will enable balance purchases. But you can only spend 100 EUR per day.
Kinguin Merchant Tiers
Because of this many merchants stopped selling on Kinguin. Kinguin now only has few sellers. Kinguin needs Merchants/Sellers and Buyers/End Customers and at the moment, they lost almost all of their Merchant/Sellers base. To solve that issue Kinguin started to send emails to sellers who left offering them benefits if they start selling again in the form of Kinguin Merchant Tiers.
Basically they say if you start selling again, they will pay what they owe you quicker. So they are basically offering you your own money as an incentive if you start selling again. What a nerve. Of course many have accepted that.
Number Of Merchants On Kinguin
There was so small number of sellers on Kinguin that they had to add their own API seller called Game Changer. So they added seller which is their account to start selling to cover most game listings as they were empty. Of course, Game Changer doesn’t pay fees so it can offer better prices.
It pulls stock from Codes Wholesale using API so that is the reason you will see Game Changer as a seller on almost all listings. They have also faked rating for that account so that it seems more trustworthy and set him as a recommended seller. Be noted that G2PLAY.NET is also a Kinguin account (it is their website).
You will also see sellers like Global Games and maybe a few others who with Game Changer have offers on most listings. Global Games is a very big merchant so I guess Kinguin made deal with them.
Support will just ignore and rarely answer questions about payouts. And if they answer it will be something like “rest assured you will get your payment…” There is also the so-called “account manager” Hristian Y. (maybe there are more of them) who you can contact on Skype which should take care of merchants.
But he will also mostly just ignore you, tell you that he doesn’t know or isn’t aware of anything you ask him and can’t help or he will look into things but will never actually do anything. Really great account manager to have indeed.
Can Kinguin Get Back On Its Feet?
Kinguin traffic heavily decreased. According to SimilarWeb, it went down from 3,9 million monthly visitors in August 2019. to 2,5 million in January 2020.
To me personally, Kinguin owes more than 70k EUR. I am waiting for my payouts from September 2019. There is even no point in creating payouts when you know you will not receive them. But there are many merchants in the same situation.
It is clear Kinguin payout delay and cash flow issues represent big issues. Kinguin only issues payouts to merchants which returned using Kinguin Merchant Tiers.
Kinguin support ignores messages, “account manager” ignores messages, money is held hostage with no clear correspondence or signs if we will receive it. There is no sign of professionalism nor care for merchants. Kinguin being not transparent and not giving any official statement makes the case more fragile on their end.
In fact, they are the ones who call the old money ‘debt’ offering nonsense partnership to merchants where they need to “work” (continue to sell) in order to get their money (if even then).
Unfortunately, it seems accepting their “offer” is only way to get what they owe you (and according to deal it can take years). Kinguin receives fees when merchants sell. But when it is Kinguin turn to pay, there is no sign of them.
When you sell the game key on Kinguin, money is stored on your account balance. And that is your money. Look at it as a bank account. You receive or deposit money and that money is on your bank account. When a certain period passes, you can withdraw that money. So when you create payout you receive that money in a matter of few days.
But now when you create payout you don’t receive money. Imagine going to the bank to withdraw your own money from your own account and the bank refuses or tells you they can’t pay. But you can create payout and wait for the possibility to maybe receive it somewhen in the future.
Kinguin is doing exactly that. The fact is they don’t have money to pay. But how can’t they pay when that is your money stored on your “bank account?” Did money disappear? It is a fact that Kinguin spent money which wasn’t theirs. And now they don’t have it.
Imagine real bank spending their client’s money. That is illegal. But Kinguin did that. Can they answer legally for that? Can you sue them? I am not an expert and I am sure it doesn’t matter if you are registered in Hong Kong, you can always legally be prosecuted.
We all would like that Kinguin recovers as that is probably the only way we will see our money. What will happen next is yet to be seen. I will keep updating this post with the news.
As a seller, I don’t recommend selling on Kinguin at the moment, and for all you buyers, I suggest you check my post where I mention some of the websites like Kinguin which you can use.
Hello!
IM a new merchant on Kinguin and i wonder how much time dose it take to withdraw funds.
Support told me that funds from “Pending” to avilliable taking 30 days and thats alright but i wonder how much time dose it take minutes/hours/days after i press Withdraw in ETH to get into wallet.
And also was there ever a situation when Kinguin Denied Payout for merchant?
And is there still a problem?
Hi,
It should take about 5 business days but usually even longer. About 7 business days is ome average. I have never experience or heard that payout was denied.
Is the merchants discord still active? Looks like the invite link isnt working
Hi,
Yes, it is active.
Do you mind sending me an invite link? Would love to chat with some other merchants.
Here https://discord.gg/mdVBUEbv
weird, says link is expired or invalid
so its scam, still?
Hi Vitek,
Now they do payouts on time. Hope they learned something and their scam will not happen again.
Hello, I have approximately 300 euros in Kinguin and I never requested a payment by paypal or by skrill …
What do you recommend me to do?
I don’t understand your issue then. If you didn’t even requested payout where is the problem?
Do I have a way to withdraw the money? oh have I lost it?
No, you didn’t lost money. You can create payout.
I am joining this late but am also a Kinguin seller that is owed €3800 dating back to December 2019, and wishing I stopped selling sooner.
Have they offered you some kind of repayment deal?
Hi, I just opened the seller account. Is there a problem right now? Do they pay? Thanks in advance for your answers.
Hi,
As you are new seller you will have no issues when receiving payments. Ones with issue of not receiving payments are sellers with old debt from last year.
I came back here because I’ve been having issues with G2A and want to use Kinguin again. What’s your luck with it?
Hi Kevin,
I am selling on Kinguin as that was part of deal to get what they owe me. They are paying as agreed but still they owe me more than half.
Hello
Any updates? They owe me 120,000 Eur nearly a year. Only I can do is keep the payout request evidence. Now I suspended sales more than 3 months ago. But I still see many sellers are selling on their web.
So you didn’t accepted their deal or they didn’t offer you one? I accepted the deal and regularly receive old debt payouts.
I own them this, and still +400 euro waiting : https://i.imgur.com/LQCxlHj.jpg
Moreover, i joined their discord to ask, why this is taking long! They banned me : https://i.imgur.com/e95PFKx.jpg
Hello.
I have created two payouts:
24-DEC-2019 1b0eb524674681
24-DEC-2019 7185df24f27c2b
Still not received my money…
Unfortunately, you are just one of many who still didn’t receive payouts created from last year.
Today I have received my money. Can’t believe))
I left messages on Reddit every day, maybe it did. Even though they deleted my messages.
That is great. Glad to see you received your money finally.
They owe me 10.5k€ and I got an email saying they have no money right now. What should I do? Wait or buy games and lose 30% of my money?
Thank you for sharing your experience regarding Kinguin payout issues. We have already discussed further via email and I hope you will get your money soon.
I am also waiting on 8K since september 2019.
Please let me know if you have proceeded with legal actions.
I would like to be a part of it also.
I also opened a skype group about this if anyone wants to join.
https://join.skype.com/AHit4yQFBoMR
I accepted Kinguin “deal” where I need to get back and start selling again. Unfortunately, that is best way to get what they owe. So far they paid me 8k of what they owe me.
Hello,
As you said I tried to get a part of my money by purchasing games from Kinguin but there is a limit (200 Euro per day) and furthermore there is another fee as “Platform Development Contribution” and it costs extra 15% if you pay with Kinguin Balance as a merchant account (for normal accounts it is about 1%)!!! and If I get my money in this way, I lose about 30%-40% of money.
Kinguin owes me about 5K Euro.
Yes, using balance to purchase keys and then resell is not worth it. You end up in significant loss.
Kinguin owes me 10k€+ I made payout in January and still no money.
Thank you for sharing your experience and how muck Kinguin owes you. Have you been offered any deal?
Kinguin currently owes me about +- 3k euro.
Last pay out I created was 100 days ago and has been sitting on verified since then.
Multiple tickets created / numerous chats with their service desk.
stating “they will bump my ticket ” but no their sellers department never respond
and even when they did it was a copy pasta stating we pretty much have no money..
but maybe maybe… in the future you might see your money.
I also haven’t received any offer for their bogus “merchant tiers”
I think it’s safe to stay that money is lost in some greedy polski’s wallet.
hope his wife gets robbed from the Jewelry we helped pay for..
maybe he will change his ways knowing there are bigger crooks out there than him.
TLTD:
Money grubbing polski stole all the money.
PS: sorry for the rant but I’m fed up with these scammers.
I am sure they will offer you deal at some point but yeah Kinguin really messed it up. Thank you for sharing your case.
Hi,
Kinguin owner is Czech with Bulgarian ties, not a Pole. Most of board is Bulgarian. Company is only based in Poland. I used to work there for a while, left when company started to downgrade any standards
Kinguin owes me 1.3k euros. They won’t answer any ticket and it’s been almost a month of wait. I have email you guys.
I might missed your email. Please send again, and I will be sure to reply.
i was accept kinguin deal, any advice kinguin owe 5k euro
If you accepted their deal then you were proposed payout plan.
Hi, same story here they own only 425 EUR, i need the money urgently to buy some food, i have a 7 years old girl to feed, i was fired on my work due to Covid19, i am in quarentine and cannot get out to work…
How much time had passed since you created payout?
Hi
I started selling in beginning Jan 2020.
I have now sold for around 4 k Euro!
Im waiting for my payout now but still no answer.
I have been reading threads like this and it seems many is having issues with payouts.
Worldwidegames, i have looked on your profile, and you have sold alot there. Did you not recieved your payouts either ?
Thanks
VB
Yes, many sellers have not received payouts. Even some from last year.
Hi, Kinguin also owes me money since 2019. I havent received any e-mails regarding it, and my reddit posts got deleted. It is not as big amount as other people’s (about 500EUR), but I’m still willing to pursue some action against the site. I’m a Polish citizen and seeing as they have at least one of their offices in Poland, I’m going to look into it. It would be good to make a discord group or otherwise coordinate the actions, and involve as many people as possible to mitigate the eventual court fees.
If everybody owed pitched in, this could be big.
There is Discord group for Kinguin merchants where we also discuss Kinguin payout delay issues.
Discord group link is broken, could you send an invite link please?
Here https://discord.gg/wRynJzs
I’ve been selling on Kinguin since 2016, first as a community seller and then as a “merchant”. But when that 60 days + XXX months of wait time started, I stopped selling. Mind you, they only owed me 500 USD and paid it, albeit two weeks later than what they promised but I left.
I hate using G2A but I reckon its still a terrible time to go back to Kinguin?
PS: I realized I got like 20 dollars there from something I sold but I can’t even use it. =x
Yup, that 60 days is too much. I wonder if the same rules apply to new merchants. I agree regarding G2A. I also don’t like selling there as they have so many various and high fees.
But G2A has huge traffic so it is the best option for selling. I don’t think Kinguin is a smart choice to sell there. They still owe to huge number of merchants.
It is just that sellers are forced to go back and sell there in order to get what Kinguin owes them.
I just make payout like 1 week ago. And its say completed, but when I check my bank account, there is nothing. Is this normal?
It depends on your bank, but it usually takes 3-5 business days for payment to complete.
A am membet of kingun 4 years. Now have closed seller account and wait 2.5k euro verifed, and 5k balance. Wait for payout from avust 2019. And…, no answer..
Yup, you and many other sellers. Thank you for sharing your issue.
I’ve just started
I made 500 euros
But I was late reading this
Is there anyone who has received his profits or is the problem still imams? I am really worried now
you 99% wont get paid.
HOLY SH*T, i hope i found your site before i began selling. they are very responsive when i apply to become a seller, but a month later after i made a payout they become very unresponsive. FU*K KINGUIN
https://pasteboard.co/J2blGbb.png
Unfortunately, many sellers wait for months to get payout.
They OWE ME 200k++ and im not sure if they will be pay me, i want to do legal but idk where to start T_T, and im not from europe anyway
https://pasteboard.co/J22ShRx.png
I have not seen anyone who they owe that much. Wow. Contact me via contact form, I can send you contact details for Kinguin account staff member who is in charge for setting repayment options.
hey you can also contact us support@help.gamingdragons.com we will publish your story, you’ll get some exposure.
Usually when they see noise they move around things faster.
Hi, i have same problem, still not get my payout since 2019, i don’t what should i do since i new here, they owe me around 16k euro
https://ibb.co/GpYg2R8
You are also one of many that they owe and don’t pay. I thought that the max limit for payout is 8000 EUR. You made over 15k in a single for PayPal.
Have you been offered any deal in the form of merchant tiers by Kinguin?
idk about that limit, since i don’t get payout since october 2019, i decide to immediately take all my money and take most of my key from their site
btw i found a lot of bug too on their website since they keep updating their site badly, so i don’t think this site will survive, i’m afraid they will take most profit from sales until the site dead because lack of seller and close their site
i’m not found any goodwill from them too, they just keep ignoring my question and sometimes they just reply email like a robot
Contact me via contact form, I can send you contact details for Kinguin staff member which could help you get your money faster if you come to agreement.
Hi, im a seller too, i don’t sale much, but it’s still a lot of money for me, my last payout is january 2020, and still don’t received my money and they never reply my email
How much they owe you?
Around 900 euro
is there any way literally? like threatening them or something? has anything worked?
They are holding 10k Euro from me too.
Share more info. How long have you not received payout and have you received Kinguin tiers proposal?
I have been waiting for 5 months since my payout request changed to verified. I have received nothing. no tier proposal, no deal, nothing. Apparently cause the 10k amount is not that much, they won’t even look in to it.
However I sent them a ticket today and threatened them that I’m filing a legal complaint. also asked the online chat to bump my ticket up. now i’m waiting for their respond.
Thanks for sharing more info. It doesn’t matter if they owe you a small or big amount. From what I know they have some kind of list and every 2 months they contact sellers which they didn’t contact before and propose them deal in form of Kinguin Merchant Tiers.
Essentially they offer plan to pay you what they owe if you start selling again. Depending on how much they owe it can take months or years to get the whole amount. As they don’t have the money currently, they need to offer to a few sellers that deal each 2 months.
As they are not able to pay if they offered a deal to all merchants at the same time.
Tickets will be ignored until the moment they contact you with an offer.
I was also robbed by Kinguin of more than 15k euros. Now they are not responding to any ticket or any email I wrote.
Since this is not a small amount, I will intensively try to raise money in any way.
Sorry to see another Kinguin victim, but I had to remove private details you added to your comment as this is not allowed.
Hello!
Currently kinguin ows me around 9.5k EUR. I am waiting since september as well. They offered me to give me 2.7k EUR now and the rest in 500 EUR chunks every month, and of course I will have to also pay the withdraw fee. WTF is this. Is there any chance I will actually recieve my money? I will not upload any new titles to their website until I get the amount they owe me.
Unfortunately, they know most people will do nothing or can’t force them in any way so if it doesn’t benefit Kinguin, then they will not pay. They are a scammy company and think only about themself but it seems the only way to get money is to “accept deal with the devil.” From what I hear they at least pay on time sellers which accepted their “slavery deal.”
I suggest you accept that deal as there is currently no other way to get money (and it is questioned if it will be another way in the future). At least in this way, you will get money in 13 months (according to what they offered you). It could be worse. Sellers that Kinguin owes greater amounts will probably need to sell on Kinguin for couple years to get all money (if nothing changes).
Hello I was a merchant on Kinguin also. I have about 18k that must be withdrawn but I have no idea when will they proceed with the payout considering I requested to be withdrawn almost all of it using bank account which I am not sure I will ever receive.
I heard gamingdragons got paid for most of his money but I am not sure if anyone else received what’s theirs at the end of the day.
Name on kinguin is ‘ Worldwidegames ‘
They mostly do PayPal payouts. They also did sometimes payouts via Payoneer but they have recently removed it as a payout option. Some say they started doing finally bank payouts.
Unfortunately, as it seems only sellers who have been offered their “deal” and who accepted it and started selling again, will eventually (maybe) receive what Kinguin owes them in few years (depending on “deal). There is no incentive for Kinguin to pay sellers which don’t bring them money (didn’t accept deal) and it is clear Kinguin doesn’t care and will ignore all seller tickets and questions about debt.
Highly unprofessional. I have tickets on Kinguin which are not replied for months. They don’t respond to any ticket I open no matter what issue or question is. I have never been offered a “deal”. And I have not received any payout for 6 months now and counting.
I have talked to a few people and I am definitely pursuing legal way. I am in search of a lawyer currently who is specialized in this kind of case. Unfortunately, do all this with coronavirus nothing works (everything is closed) so I will need to wait until going further.
Really sorry to hear that mate. I could say my case is even worse considering I have only issue the payouts on January 10th and the rest like 2 weeks ago or something like that.
If there’s anything you might need help with let me know. I am also lost for words as to how these guys deal with stuff not only on their website but on reddit also. They deleted a thread of mine where I complained that they never issued any payouts in that same very day.
Yes, they will remove any Reddit post or comment in their subreddit and will try to ask from Reddit admins that they remove from other subreddits mentions about issues with Kinguin payouts as well as in other sites like Medium.
Yeah right. Because protecting someone who doesn’t comply with their duties is something that should not be seen, right?
This whole story is just bs. Me or any other merchant not being paid out and his money being held as hostage is something most people would refrain from but it seems like they don’t care. As long as someone like reddit removes threads people will still buy from there.
The only positive thing I could say is that the recent quarantine thing had an impact of almost 20% more in terms of customers so I guess that’s a good thing because their website skyrocketted from where it previously was.
Let’s see if they end up paying most of the merchants (if not all). Fingers crossed.
I think they will pay over time. But fact that you will be ignored and not get any money they owe you unless you accept their offer and start selling again is not right in so many ways.
Hello, I’m a seller, starting to sell on Kinguin since September 2018 until now. Kinguin owes me about 4750 Euro (A 3650 Euro payout request from August 2019 and multiple small payout that not recieved yet.)
I’m selling un-papular games, right now but I gonna stop selling no matter what. (G2A scammed me before and locked out my account with 100 Euro balance and did not accepted my merchant application just cause my country and international financial sanctions against political regime in my country. Maybe that money means nothing to you or you think that’s not so much. But for me that’s a lot of money, with that money I can leave this fucking country and fucking dictatorship regime that fucked my country up. Kinguin, YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE!
Sorry to hear that you also have issues with Kinguin. There is huge number of sellers which Kinguin doesn’t pay.
another victim https://www.gamingdragons.com/kinguin_is_fraud.html
Yes, I have read it already. I will add it to article.
Hello,
I’m zhang. I’m from China.
I have sold a few games on Kinguin under the alias DDgames.
From 2019/9/3 so far，I have € 100000 not received.
I tried to contact the website, but they kept asking me to wait and they never gave me specific time.
I recently received their email and they gave me an almost impossible plan.
I didn’t even ask for interest and compensation.
I don’t know what to do now, this money is most of my assets.
Now I have to suspend sales.
Yup, they are ignoring me too. I personally, never received offer for “merchant tiers.”