Fortnite seems to be taking strict action against V-Bucks providers. Players who purchased V-Bucks there are now reporting removed skins.
What is Epic taking action against now? There are various dubious V-Bucks providers on the internet. There, you can often buy V-Bucks cheaper than in Fortnite itself, which you can then use to purchase skins in Fortnite, for example.
However, these V-Bucks are often obtained illegally: it involves purchases made with credit cards, where the money is later refunded. Epic Games is now taking action against such methods and penalizing players who have purchased V-Bucks on such platforms.
Strict Measures Against Third-party Customers
This is what players are reporting now: On Reddit and Twitter, confused players are showing images that skins have been removed from their accounts. Epic claims that something is wrong with the payments or that the gifts that these skins included have been reversed.
The skins all come from players who have acquired cosmetics or V-Bucks through third-party providers. So far, no one has gotten their skin back. It seems that they are gone for good.
“Switch Method” in Fortnite Under Epic’s Lens
Why is Epic taking such strict action? Among the V-Bucks providers, there are numerous sellers who acquire V-Bucks in illegal ways.
Apparently, the so-called “Switch Method” is used for this, as reported by the site dexerto . For this, providers buy V-Bucks in the Fortnite shop using a credit card. The payment is then quickly refunded, but the V-Bucks remain in the buyer’s account.
Thus, the buyer obtains V-Bucks without having to pay anything. This method seems to work on the Nintendo Switch.
There are also scammers who want your account data.
Epic is being defrauded by the providers. Since this is damaging to their business, Epic is taking action against it. They are penalizing not only the providers but also the customers by removing the skins. This is meant to be deterrent: players will then prefer to buy the skin in the shop for a little more money rather than acquiring it cheaper and then losing it again.
Another known method of “V-Buck” scammers is even simpler. People take over accounts that are linked to credit cards and then use them to purchase V-Bucks. Therefore, many sites are trying to get account information from players. Epic also explicitly warns against such tricks in Fortnite.
This is just one of many strikes against third-party providers. Recently, Epic sued sellers of merchandise that were not licensed.
Am I affected by this? If you have always purchased your skins or other cosmetics in the in-game shop, you should be safe. However, if you have ever acquired V-Bucks or skins through third-party providers, it could well be that you will have them taken away.
Especially frustrating would be if you had one of the 10 rarest skins in Fortnite taken away.
Epic also made headlines when they sued a cheater who was only 14 years old:
