Exclusive keys and items intended for Kickstarter backers of ‘Friday the 13th: The Game’ where stolen from an employee of Gun Media’s distribution partner and then sold on eBay for $100 a piece.
The key’s sales on eBay were uncovered by one Reddit user who monitored the eBay account’s activity which included the selling of in-game outfits, which raised suspicion. The eBay user’s feedback page shows that they made tens of thousands of dollars due to this activity.
Gun Media responded to the thread on Reddit and confirmed the stolen keys while also stating that the keys had been stolen from “one of our distribution partners”, announcing the cancellation of any unredeemed keys.
“We previously assumed that backer-content keys being sold on eBay were the same as you; a fan who got in early and purchased extra keys” the company said in a statement.
“After reviewing the information that you have posted, it is absolutely clear that this is not the case. With some investigation, we quickly determined that the keys being sold come from a theft at one of our distribution partners.
“The company has worked to resolve the situation, but unfortunately, both we and the company were unaware of the digital portion of the theft until these auctions were brought to our attention. While there is not a never-ending source for these codes, we will be cancelling any unredeemed codes that have been affected by this theft. Again, thank you for the effort you put into this, and for bringing it to our attention.”
Limited Run Games, who distributed the Kickstarter rewards, has confirmed that the keys were likely stolen by one of its temporary contract workers although they did not identify the person.
“Up until last December, we often utilized many temporary contract workers to assist with the various busy work that shipping thousands of packages on an irregular schedule requires. It’s our best guess that one of these workers took it upon themselves to illicitly access the codes. This was not sanctioned by us nor Gun and neither of us knew it had happened until the community brought it to light.
“We stopped utilizing temporary workers in December when we noticed that our game inventory was off. Without those previous workers around, the inventory loss stopped. We don’t have any reason to believe that the person in question still works for us. Unfortunately, we don’t know who the specific culprit is. We foster a very open and friendly environment at our office and we never expected something like this to occur. These actions completely betray the trust we had in whoever this person is.
“We’re moving into a new office next week that provides deeper levels of security for our partners, our inventory, and ourselves. Rather than utilizing temporary workers, we’re now relying on the killer team of full-time shippers that we’ve built up, love, and trust. All of our employees know that we have a hardline policy against eBay and resellers. The actions of the person selling these codes were not authorized by us and do not reflect us or our values in any capacity.”
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