Valve lost my account in spectacular way

[Max]

Here's my amazing communication with steam support: https://imgur.com/a/lCP9A7l

Long story short: my 10+ y.o. account got taken over despite all the security measures on (email, phone, guard app) and with 0 notifications when my password and email was being changed by an attacker.

The most amazing part is, however, my attempt to recover it through Valve's tech support. Grab some coffee and enjoy the long read -- with a bad ending unfortunately.

So children keep spending money on the skins which you will lose.

[ReBoot]

Max の投稿を引用：

Long story short: my 10+ y.o. account got taken over despite all the security measures on (email, phone, guard app)

This is your problem right there. The stern beliefe that doing this rain/security dance will magically keep everything safe.

Reality doesn't work the way you think it does and reality wants you to deal with it on its terms.

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

DCLXVI の投稿を引用：

yea thats why i dont bother with steam their support is useless. i start a new acount every time i buy a new game

throwaway accounts for throwaway service

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

[Kreezio]

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

DCLXVI の投稿を引用：

yea thats why i dont bother with steam their support is useless. i start a new acount every time i buy a new game

throwaway accounts for throwaway service

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

to be fair nothing is yours everything is vavle they own evry rights to terminate you account anytime they want

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

Kreezio の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

to be fair nothing is yours everything is vavle they own evry rights to terminate you account anytime they want

Yes, they can terminate your account if they want. How many times has this happened exactly without any reason at all?

DCLXVI の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

the zandex reciept? what?

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

Not sure what you are trying to tell me with the SSA, I'm aware of it, as well as the ToS.
Has nothing to do with what I told you, nor does it change anything.

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

The nubinator の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Yes, they can terminate your account if they want. How many times has this happened exactly without any reason at all?




Not sure what you are trying to tell me with the SSA, I'm aware of it, as well as the ToS.
Has nothing to do with what I told you, nor does it change anything.

You're beyond a shill and just talking out of your ass since nobody in Valve would ever claim this. They don't own ♥♥♥♥, I and everyone else here own a license to everything we bought and although they can cancel their entire service they can never "remove your account" unless you cross some legal boundaries and even then they'd need a court order. They can limit your access to some online services to protect others and thats about it.

This goes beyond what ever mumbo jumbo they may have put into their user agreements as nations thankfully still have some consumer protection regulations in place, let alone protection against unreasonable contracts.


Take that giant throbbing corporate cucumber out of your mouth, stop talking nonsense, stop shilling and act like a responsible consumer and in your own interest, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Oh, the guy who still doesnt know that Support does not remove any VAC Bans. Cool, your opinion is worth a lot. /s

Yes, they CAN terminate your account. For example for account sharing. Whether or not they actually do it is a different story.
You should probably read what you actually agreed to.

[The nubinator]

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

The nubinator の投稿を引用：

You're beyond a shill and just talking out of your ass since nobody in Valve would ever claim this. They don't own ♥♥♥♥, I and everyone else here own a license to everything we bought and although they can cancel their entire service they can never "remove your account" unless you cross some legal boundaries and even then they'd need a court order. They can limit your access to some online services to protect others and thats about it.

This goes beyond what ever mumbo jumbo they may have put into their user agreements as nations thankfully still have some consumer protection regulations in place, let alone protection against unreasonable contracts.


Take that giant throbbing corporate cucumber out of your mouth, stop talking nonsense, stop shilling and act like a responsible consumer and in your own interest, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

Oh, the guy who still doesnt know that Support does not remove any VAC Bans. Cool, your opinion is worth a lot. /s

Yes, they CAN terminate your account. For example for account sharing. Whether or not they actually do it is a different story.
You should probably read what you actually agreed to.

That doesnt mean they can "terminate your account if they want" silly, as something replied in the context of "anytime they want" . Nobody mentioned sharing. You should learn to think before you read anything.

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

The nubinator の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Oh, the guy who still doesnt know that Support does not remove any VAC Bans. Cool, your opinion is worth a lot. /s

Yes, they CAN terminate your account. For example for account sharing. Whether or not they actually do it is a different story.
You should probably read what you actually agreed to.

That doesnt mean they can "terminate your account if they want" silly.

Yes, it does. After you did something to give them a reason they can do so if they want. Again, that does not mean they actually do it, but they can.

I have no statistics on how many accounts were terminated by Valve, so I wouldnt know how many times they actually followed through with it.

But If i had to guess it does not happen very often.

[Kargor]

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

From experience, I know when Steam Support ask for a specific proof of purchase they usually do so for a reason.

Also, when I had to prove that my account is mine, they asked for a rather recent purchase (possibly even the most recent one; don't remember for sure though).

It's possible that the account in question simply didn't have a suitable purchase in the last few years... or that a RNG picks the purchase and the victim failed to calmly+friendly explain that he does not have information on that purchase anymore.

[Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥)]

The nubinator の投稿を引用：

No, they can't do anything that they want and that someone having to get a reason or more precisely a justification to do something is the opposite of being able to do what you want.

Boy, it's almost as if that's exactly what I said? If you do something (like, say, account sharing), they CAN terminate your account if they want. Damn.
But yeah, I realize now you DO have difficulties reading.

The nubinator の投稿を引用：

And in the other thread you didn't show me anything, you just said a bunch of people lied and provided no sources and I couldn't bother sourcing ♥♥♥♥. Now I can just mock you without having to source anything and inform people by force of logical conclusions which is more fun while taking less effort.

Yes, I showed you the official page on Steam about VAC Bans.
That's kind of the most direct source you could possibly have. Again - you not being able to read (or just comprehend?) is not my problem, but you were wrong.

[Tito Shivan]

Kargor の投稿を引用：

Also, when I had to prove that my account is mine, they asked for a rather recent purchase (possibly even the most recent one; don't remember for sure though).

It's possible that the account in question simply didn't have a suitable purchase in the last few years... or that a RNG picks the purchase and the victim failed to calmly+friendly explain that he does not have information on that purchase anymore.

Or that Steam Support suspects the real ownership of the account is being contested.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

DCLXVI の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

the zandex reciept? what?

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

It's like paypal, or other bank transfer companines if that help you understand what it was, they rebranded couple years ago when I checked, and now do virtualize credit card as well now, so you would still have an account, I assume they didn't get rid of OP account so all OP has to do is log into their old Yandex account, and get the reciept.

Kreezio の投稿を引用：

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Yeah, they really aren't. They just aren't your magic helpers because you fail to keep your account secure and have nothing to back up that it's yours.

to be fair nothing is yours everything is vavle they own evry rights to terminate you account anytime they want

Correct, the thing is knowing they can do it, doesn't mean they will do it, it up to them to choose to do it, or not.

Unn4m3d (♥AUT♥) の投稿を引用：

Kreezio の投稿を引用：

to be fair nothing is yours everything is vavle they own evry rights to terminate you account anytime they want

Yes, they can terminate your account if they want. How many times has this happened exactly without any reason at all?

I think I only seen this once ever that has happened, not 100% if it was, or person wasn't being honest, but AFAIK from the story the person did a chargeback, and then became hostile towards support demanding to remove restrictions, and wasn't willing to payback the chargeback if I'm not mistaken from my memory, but I can be wrong about that time.

[Max]

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

If I'm not mistaken Yandex is a russia payment method, and if I'm not mistaken again they got rebranded to ЮMoney / Yumoney / Yoomoney so see if you can still gain access to your old account if still around by them hopefully.

I did that. I have hardly any transactions there, none related to Steam. It's possible I used some other account in 2012, but I can't be reasonably expected to even remember that.

Anyways, the absolute vast majority of Steam deposits happened after 2014 and I have all the info: receipts, card numbers, bank statements.

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

- Scammers can know your email as well, the moment you give access to them they know it as well, so telling them you know your email, or saying you have access to it, doesn't mean you're the owner, as support can't just happily hand accounts to those that claim to know, or have access to email, as you would see a lot of accounts get hijack that way.

Well, email is used as a credential to sign in, how can it mean nothing to have access to it? The security system literally relies on communication channels. Especially given the fact that I have the original email of the account created in 2012. And, LOL, my email is in format [e-mail], and I have all the ID documents :)

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

- Phone numbers could be a problem, it understandable to say I have it, and all that, but there is chance someone else can hijack your incoming text for it as well, plus gods know when you would reply, let alone if it theft that stolen the phone to begin with so some services don't trust it due to how people are very irresponsible. Some services may accept it, some may not, take it with grain of salt how some may react to this.

Once again, every 2FA system relies on channels like this, so it can't be "oh we don't trust ANYTHING anymore for no reason" (only "Yandex payment" is reliable, while it's not.)

That's the point of multi-factor auth: If you lose one credential, no biggie: the chances are you still have other credentials.

[Max]

fluxtorrent の投稿を引用：

The ONLY way to ID the real owner is to provide the oldest transaction because thats literally the only thing Valve KNOWS about you, even your saved payment details are not available to them

Jesuis Christ dude, I have a huge list of proof and you're still claiming that original transaction is the ULTIMATE PROOF, while there are several reasons this is untrue:

1) this data has been compromised and this was reported to Valve
2) ANYONE can deposit money to your account this way and use this info to take over the account
3) I have proof for the vast majority of payments for the last 9 years, LOL!
4) I can't be reasonably expected to be able to retrieve this data (I'm not even sure it happened!)

[AmsterdamHeavy]

What you dont realize is that support is actually protecting your account. They want proof that predates any potential compromise date. Since you said that the account was compromised previously, they want proof that predates that event, or you could be the person that compromised the account in 2014 trying to claim it.

So theres that.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

Max の投稿を引用：

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

If I'm not mistaken Yandex is a russia payment method, and if I'm not mistaken again they got rebranded to ЮMoney / Yumoney / Yoomoney so see if you can still gain access to your old account if still around by them hopefully.

I did that. I have hardly any transactions there, none related to Steam. It's possible I used some other account in 2012, but I can't be reasonably expected to even remember that.

Anyways, the absolute vast majority of Steam deposits happened after 2014 and I have all the info: receipts, card numbers, bank statements.

You can try again with new ticket, and explain you have no access to your old Yandex account, and ask how to prove in another way.

Max の投稿を引用：

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

- Scammers can know your email as well, the moment you give access to them they know it as well, so telling them you know your email, or saying you have access to it, doesn't mean you're the owner, as support can't just happily hand accounts to those that claim to know, or have access to email, as you would see a lot of accounts get hijack that way.

Well, email is used as a credential to sign in, how can it mean nothing to have access to it? The security system literally relies on communication channels. Especially given the fact that I have the original email of the account created in 2012. And, LOL, my email is in format [e-mail], and I have all the ID documents :)

There people whom use same password for everything, or across things sometimes, and like you said when you lost both your email, and account, you can already see the problem. Scammers can claim they have it, and have access to it same way you say it to support, that why it not exactly option, if there better options to ask for proof of ownership, so if you had no way to provide proof in any other way for them to be able to ask you, example let say you made a free account with no transaction, support wouldn't know what to ask besides what your 1st email on the account, because that all they had to go off on, if they see there history you have that they can go off on they ask for that instead to ensure they're talking to the actual owner, and not a scammer claiming to be so and so.

Max の投稿を引用：

Dr.Shadowds の投稿を引用：

- Phone numbers could be a problem, it understandable to say I have it, and all that, but there is chance someone else can hijack your incoming text for it as well, plus gods know when you would reply, let alone if it theft that stolen the phone to begin with so some services don't trust it due to how people are very irresponsible. Some services may accept it, some may not, take it with grain of salt how some may react to this.

Once again, every 2FA system relies on channels like this, so it can't be "oh we don't trust ANYTHING anymore for no reason" (only "Yandex payment" is reliable, while it's not.)

That's the point of multi-factor auth: If you lose one credential, no biggie: the chances are you still have other credentials.

No, the fact is 2FA is a tool, it useless if you give the scammer the tool to use agasint you, that why Support can't just go by it, as scammer could've login on their own mobile app using your login info you gave them, and that kind of the problem here, you gave them access to it.

But again try make a new ticket, see if you could ask them for another way to provide proof of ownership, if you happen to own a old Valve game with CD key for it, maybe that could count towards it such as half life, or counter strike, so best of luck recovering your account, and for Yandex maybe check all your emails just in case you might have forgotten if you had made more than one account, there chance some people do things like that and forgotten when they did it.