Account Hacked - Money Stolen Steam refuses refund

[Marujido]

Hi Everyone,

My account was hacked, it had 60 dollars left in it due to funding the account at the beginning of CoronaVirus. I wanted to buy a few older games that I use to play for fun. They made my position essential due to sensitive data center work that needed to be done. So I stopped playing for awhile again.

I came back this week to find out my account's password was wrong it took me 3 days to figure out how to login only to find my funds gone and a gift sent to account Barboskin.

I requested a refund and was denied because this guy decided to play the game for more than 2 hours.

What can I do? Small claims court or what?

[Brian9824]

There isn't anything you can do, you logged onto a phising site or didn't secure your account. You need to take better care of your account so people can't get access to it.

[Wolf Knight]

unless you can identify who stole the money, nothing you can do. if you work in a sensitive data center, account security should be one of your top priorities. you are the one that somehow leaded your account log in.

learn from your mistake, and do a better job protecting your account log in. if you cant keep that safe, you are working in the wrong place.

[Brian9824]

Also the account wasn't hacked, you compromised yourself and someone got your password. Big difference between the two.

[⚡ Fl1tS ⚡]

First of all, let's make it very clear that your account wasn't 'hacked'. Your account may have been compromised because you didn't use the proper security measures that Valve has put in place or you might have given your credentials away on a phising site. Either way, you neglected to properly protect your own account. As a result you will have to face the consequences of that.

There is nothing you can do, apart from securing your account properly.

[Marujido]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Also the account wasn't hacked, you compromised yourself and someone got your password. Big difference between the two.

That's the definition of hacked. Not sure if you understand how hacking works. But thanks for replying to my post.

If someone accesses my account without my permission then I was hacked.

[Marujido]

Originally posted by ⚡ Fl1tS ⚡:

First of all, let's make it very clear that your account wasn't 'hacked'. Your account may have been compromised because you didn't use the proper security measures that Valve has put in place or you might have given your credentials away on a phising site. Either way, you neglected to properly protect your own account. As a result you will have to face the consequences of that.

There is nothing you can do, apart from securing your account properly.

Wow people don't change on forums do they? I don't know how eveyone feels the need to white night steam right now. An unauthorized person gained access to my account. That's the definition of hacking someones account.

hacking
[ˈhakiNG]
NOUN
the gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer.
"outlawing hacking has not stopped it"

[Wolf Knight]

Originally posted by Marujido:

Originally posted by brian9824:

Also the account wasn't hacked, you compromised yourself and someone got your password. Big difference between the two.

That's the definition of hacked. Not sure if you understand how hacking works. But thanks for replying to my post.

If someone accesses my account without my permission then I was hacked.

hacked means they found a way to exploit the system to get into the network. they didnt find a way into the steam network, they only found a way into YOUR account. that is not done thru hacking, it is done by phishing your log in. YOU are the one that gave them access to the account, YOU are the one that needs to figure out how you failed.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Marujido:

Originally posted by brian9824:

Also the account wasn't hacked, you compromised yourself and someone got your password. Big difference between the two.

That's the definition of hacked. Not sure if you understand how hacking works. But thanks for replying to my post.

If someone accesses my account without my permission then I was hacked.

Nope, because you GAVE them the info, the accurate term is saying you got phished and tricked into giving away your login credentials, or they hacked your computer and got your info,

The steam account itself was not hacked. That would mean someone bypassed steam's security to gain access to your account which isn't what occurred.

Anyways the answer is still the same, the money is gone, and you need to learn from your mistakes and make sure you actually secure your account.

There is nothing you can do to get the money back.

[⚡ Fl1tS ⚡]

Originally posted by Marujido:

Originally posted by ⚡ Fl1tS ⚡:

First of all, let's make it very clear that your account wasn't 'hacked'. Your account may have been compromised because you didn't use the proper security measures that Valve has put in place or you might have given your credentials away on a phising site. Either way, you neglected to properly protect your own account. As a result you will have to face the consequences of that.

There is nothing you can do, apart from securing your account properly.

Wow people don't change on forums do they? I don't know how eveyone feels the need to white night steam right now. An unauthorized person gained access to my account. That's the definition of hacking someones account.

hacking
[ˈhakiNG]
NOUN
the gaining of unauthorized access to data in a system or computer.
"outlawing hacking has not stopped it"

I am not white knighting Valve, I am pointing out your stupidity. By implying your account was hacked you would imply that Valve's security measures have failed. And they have not, you have just failed to use them properly.

[ShelLuser]

Stop using your Steam account to log onto websites which aren't Steam; it's quite certain that this led up to your problems. I couldn't help notice "key" as one of your previous Steam names which kinda makes me suspicious, because of the context.

As for the refund: that wouldn't work anyway. Even if it was within 2 hours then you still can't "just" refund a gifted game without the consent of the new owner. Imagine how unfair that would get: you gift something, you then start disliking your friend for whatever reason so to "get even" you suddenly take back (aka refund) the gift. That's just not fair!

My suggestion: start using 2 factor authentication (Steam Guard), never give the Steam guard codes away and most of all: stop logging onto websites which aren't Steam while still using your Steam account. It's just not worth it. Also also (no typo): be sure to use different passwords on different websites as well, just to make sure.


I'm really sorry to hear you lost your stuff, seriously, but... you have to be more careful.

(edit)

Originally posted by Marujido:

Originally posted by brian9824:

Also the account wasn't hacked, you compromised yourself and someone got your password. Big difference between the two.

That's the definition of hacked.

Not really... In fact, the definition is quite vague on that end, you're merely the victim of a scamming effort. So, not hacking but scamming. Hacking normally refers to bypassing security measures in order to gain access. But in your case the other party used those security measures to gain regular access to your account.

Lockpicking would be hacking, opening the door with a stolen or gifted key not so much.

[Marujido]

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

Originally posted by Marujido:

That's the definition of hacked. Not sure if you understand how hacking works. But thanks for replying to my post.

If someone accesses my account without my permission then I was hacked.

hacked means they found a way to exploit the system to get into the network. they didnt find a way into the steam network, they only found a way into YOUR account. that is not done thru hacking, it is done by phishing your log in. YOU are the one that gave them access to the account, YOU are the one that needs to figure out how you failed.

Hacking is a very broad term. You're trying to use one definition for it as a catch all. Yet Hacking is more than just brute force attacks on a system to gain access to information.
My account was hacked because someone gained unauthorized access.

Just because you don't understand how hacking works doesn't mean I wasn't hacked.

[A no-brainer]

"My account was hacked"

If you work for a data center you might know the difference between hacking, phishing and giving away freely your login credentials to a fake website, spoofing or using the same login for multiple situations and one getting hacked and they just try your login everywhere and hope for a hit....

Steam did not get hacked. Your account and your devices got compromised. Huge difference.

Steam probably could be held responsible for getting hacked, you letting your account/devices getting compromised is your responsibility and the only thing you could do would be to find out who did it yourself and then drag them into court.

Unfortunately these people might not even live in a country where a law against this exists and even finding out anything about them besides a Steam account might be impossible. Also the account in question could have been stolen from someone else that has nothing to do with what happened to your account and that lost their account as you did lose yours.

Last: You could have gifted the game to yourself/to someone for money on another account and now wanting the money back. Valve can't tell.

[Marujido]

Originally posted by ShelLuser:

Stop using your Steam account to log onto websites which aren't Steam; it's quite certain that this led up to your problems. I couldn't help notice "key" as one of your previous Steam names which kinda makes me suspicious, because of the context.

As for the refund: that wouldn't work anyway. Even if it was within 2 hours then you still can't "just" refund a gifted game without the consent of the new owner. Imagine how unfair that would get: you gift something, you then start disliking your friend for whatever reason so to "get even" you suddenly take back (aka refund) the gift. That's just not fair!

My suggestion: start using 2 factor authentication (Steam Guard), never give the Steam guard codes away and most of all: stop logging onto websites which aren't Steam while still using your Steam account. It's just not worth it. Also also (no typo): be sure to use different passwords on different websites as well, just to make sure.


I'm really sorry to hear you lost your stuff, seriously, but... you have to be more careful.

I have enabled extra security on my account. if you check my games history it's obvious I don't use steam much for games.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Marujido:

Originally posted by Wolf Knight:

hacked means they found a way to exploit the system to get into the network. they didnt find a way into the steam network, they only found a way into YOUR account. that is not done thru hacking, it is done by phishing your log in. YOU are the one that gave them access to the account, YOU are the one that needs to figure out how you failed.

Hacking is a very broad term. You're trying to use one definition for it as a catch all. Yet Hacking is more than just brute force attacks on a system to gain access to information.
My account was hacked because someone gained unauthorized access.

Just because you don't understand how hacking works doesn't mean I wasn't hacked.

Nope because again STEAM or your account were not hacked, YOU were. There is a massive difference between the two.

YOU either failed to secure your account, gave away your info, or didn't secure your device. Regardless of which it is, again, there is no change to the answer.

Your money is gone and you have no way to recover it.

[Marujido]

Originally posted by A no brainer:

"My account was hacked"

If you work for a data center you might know the difference between hacking, phishing and giving away freely your login credentials to a fake website, spoofing or using the same login for multiple situations and one getting hacked and they just try your login everywhere and hope for a hit....

Steam did not get hacked. Your account and your devices got compromised. Huge difference.

Steam probably could be held responsible for getting hacked, you letting your account/devices getting compromised is your responsibility and the only thing you could do would be to find out who did it yourself and then drag them into court.

Unfortunately these people might not even live in a country where a law against this exists and even finding out anything about them besides a Steam account might be impossible. Also the account in question could have been stolen from someone else that has nothing to do with what happened to your account.

True I don't disagree with how my account was taken over. This isn't the issue. The issue is that no refund or no action will be taken? Like what the hell is that.... at least give me the game that was stolen so I can play it right?