A hot potato: G2A has long had a controversial reputation, and once again the popular digital game key reseller is making headlines for the wrong reasons. It's been discovered that the company is charging people a fee if their accounts remain inactive for a certain amount of time.

G2A has been criticized in the past for not doing enough to tackle fraud. Specifically, the selling of illegal game keys sourced with stolen credit cards.

A thread on Reddit has drawn attention to some questionable behavior by the company. G2A Pay, the firm's online payments gateway for businesses and individuals, is charging account holders one Euro If they fail to log into their accounts for 180 days. Another one Euro will be taken from the user every month until they log back in.

G2A Pay's T&C page reads: "If User does not log in through the Website to User's accont [sic] for over 180 (one hundred eighty) days, the Company is entitled to charge the User's G2A Wallet inactivity fee in amount of EUR 1 (one) per each month, or less, if there is no sufficient funds on the User's G2A Wallet to charge entire inactivity fee. The Company is also entitled to terminate User's G2A Wallet, if there is no sufficient funds on it which allows to charge the inactivity fee. Charged inactivity fee is not returnable. The User is to be informed about terminating his account."

In defending the policy, G2A said it costs money to upkeep accounts, and that users just need to log in once every six months to avoid the fee; they don't have to buy anything. It also claims this is a normal practice and that many companies charge a significantly higher fee while requiring users to make purchases.

G2A's explanation behind the charges haven't been well-received, and it seems the company is once again taking a PR hammering.

In 2017, Gearbox withdrew from a partnership with G2A following a backlash over a deal to distribute collector's editions of Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition.