About fake friend requests on steam

[Stakanov]

For your information, adding a person to your friends list is not dangerous - you can just bannish whoever you like.

However, what happens most often when you add this kind of person is that they'll contact you by chat to give you a steam gift card out of the goodness of their hearts.

It's often a nice sum, between 50 and 100 euros, and of course it's a fake card, with a fake link to a fraudulent steam replica identical to the real website, which will ask you to log in, so your information will be stolen.

I've already seen this kind of scam on my chat, which I've investigated and reported to the steam team.

I know there are people who are naive or vulnerable who could fall into this kind of trap, so I'd rather share what I know.

[ReBoot]

Lng story short, beware of phishing[en.wikipedia.org]. Phishing isn't limited to fake prepaid cards either, it comes in different shapes, sizes & colors. However, once you understand what phishing actually is, you'll recognize it in any shape.

Don't focus a superficial detail lest you miss the forest for the trees.

[Zarineth]

Problem with posts like this (aside of what ReBoot already highlighted) is the fact, that people who need them the most will never read them. How many times I've seen "look guys, a new scam" and then OP started describing something years old. How 100000th thread about the same scam will help, when no one read last 99999?

[Stakanov]

I understand that some people might be annoyed that I'm revealing their game, but when I see all the topics where poor souls have been ripped off, I thought it would be better to create a thread dedicated to raising awareness.

Of course, there aren't 99999 topics that talk about the problem I'm talking about, I checked before creating the topic...

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Stakanov:

Of course, there aren't 99999 topics that talk about the problem I'm talking about, I checked before creating the topic...

I'm not going to dig through the forum to find literally that many threads. Here's few recent ones though:
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/10/3951406749570677634/
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/3951406749571929013/
https://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/3951406749570518600/

My point is, if I was able to find 3 from A DAY in a few minutes, trust me, there's thousands more from all the years hijacking Steam accounts has been a thing.

[Zarineth]

And how exactly your thread do a better job, than all those threads, that are already there?

[Stakanov]

Originally posted by Zarineth:

And how exactly your thread do a better job, than all those threads, that are already there? :ConfusedChris:

I'm talking about a specific problem that isn't mentioned in other subjects, of course there are plenty of scams out there using other methods, I'm not competing with other subjects, the aim is simply to help. I think that a well-rounded person would easily understand the purpose of my subject.

[Zarineth]

Originally posted by Stakanov:

Originally posted by Zarineth:

And how exactly your thread do a better job, than all those threads, that are already there?

I'm talking about a specific problem that isn't mentioned in other subjects, of course there are plenty of scams out there using other methods, I'm not competing with other subjects, the aim is simply to help. I think that a well-rounded person would easily understand the purpose of my subject.

Well, I am starting to understand. Mostly from the way you respond both here and in your previous thread. My fault for taking a bait.
And years old scam, that was covered hundreds of times will not be suddenly better known, because you have written about it...

[Stakanov]

Originally posted by Zarineth:

Originally posted by Stakanov:

I'm talking about a specific problem that isn't mentioned in other subjects, of course there are plenty of scams out there using other methods, I'm not competing with other subjects, the aim is simply to help. I think that a well-rounded person would easily understand the purpose of my subject.

Well, I am starting to understand. Mostly from the way you respond both here and in your previous thread. My fault for taking a bait.

https://youtu.be/bT90D0GKZRM?si=6SoZ1AhsrLlwYCHd

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Stakanov:

I'm talking about a specific problem that isn't mentioned in other subjects, of course there are plenty of scams out there using other methods, I'm not competing with other subjects, the aim is simply to help. I think that a well-rounded person would easily understand the purpose of my subject.

As I said earlier, you're missing the forest for the trees! You focus on the minutae, while ignoring the core point which you actually mentioned yourself:

Originally posted by Stakanov:

, with a fake link to a fraudulent steam replica identical to the real website, which will ask you to log in, so your information will be stolen.

This is the core of it! You've nailed it down to the engine of the scam, so to speak, to the way it works. That's the gist of the matter.

Sticking to what you said there, it's the same (mostly, there's a rare different case few'n'far between) scam as all over the place.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

People are going after trade items not accounts themselves or accounts with thousands of games. Hide your inventory.

[druuu]

I always say whoever falls for such blatant scams probably deserves it.
You can't have a valuable steam account and not know about this.

[Crazy Tiger]

Sadly such psa's don't help. The people who need such info won't read it til after they got scammed. People always ga info hunting after the fact.

That said, what you describe is an old and generally known scam. There have been plenty of psa threads about it. If you haven't found them, you didn't properly search. That also shows how useful psa threads are.

[kitty]

human nature. careless. people who want to secure their virtual goods already asked google what can be done and how to avoid being hurt by bad actors.
people who would get into trouble never bothered to clean up their act (stop using shady 3d party sides, responding to strangers, clicking links etc)
and they won't bother till something happens, then they will learn the lesson. or probably not.

[Crazy Tiger]

Originally posted by kitty:

human nature. careless. people who want to secure their virtual goods already asked google what can be done and how to avoid being hurt by bad actors.
people who would get into trouble never bothered to clean up their act (stop using shady 3d party sides, responding to strangers, clicking links etc)
and they won't bother till something happens, then they will learn the lesson. or probably not.

It happens often enough that people who once got their account hijacked down the line make a second or even third thread about getting hijacked again. Also often enough still blaming Steam, defending shady 3rd party sites they used and arguing with people who want to help them clean up their act.

[HikariLight]

Don't accept random friend invites and don't send out random invites.
Having a full friend list of people you never play with is useless.
Just have users you trust or actually play games with.
Problem solved.