Account hacked, hacker bought games for his main account

[Kaptin]

So my account was taken. I had a little over $40 (I think) in my steam wallet, and the guy who had access to my account used that money to gift himself some games. I managed to get my account back and requested a refund, but steam denied me because it was technically a gift and the recipient needs to approve of the refund request.

What? How ridiculous is that? Why would someone who stole money from my account choose to give me my money back? Why do I have to have his permission to get my money back? I even explained the situation in the ticket description, and I still got rejected.

So now I have to resort to asking the guy (I know who has the stuff, I just have to check my own purchase history) to give me my money? What the hell?

That's one of two games he bought; the other refund was rejected because he's played the game for 5 hours, exceeding the 2 hour limit. He hadn't hit that limit when I sent in the ticket, but either way, it really shouldn't matter.

[jason2005]

I think you could be making this up in order to try to get more games.

[Kaptin]

How would this accomplish that goal? I just want my money back and I assumed that in the process his account would lose access to those games.

[jsp]

They won't give you you're money back haha you're profile is private anyways they won't trust you

[Kaptin]

Who won't trust me, the guy who stole my account?

And that's what I'm saying - he'll never give me my money back, and I shouldn't have to ask him. Steam should do it. I filed a report suspecting him of hacking, and talked about what happened in my refund requests.

[Kaptin]

I have emails from Amazon and Google saying my accounts had been access suspiciously, and I even have emails from the guy that bought the games on my account, admitting he had wrongful access. Is there any way to show all of this to steam as evidence?

[Pcnuttie]

Steam really need to beef up their security and tech support department so bad it puts our favorite retailer to shame the fact that Origin can solve a problem within 4 mins with tech support. I wonder why steam don't have live chat at all? Are they running a skeleton crew?

[Kaptin]

And for what it's worth, my account is now publicly viewable.

[Kaptin]

Originally posted by Kal-el:

Steam really need to beef up their security and tech support department so bad it puts our favorite retailer to shame the fact that Origin can solve a problem within 4 mins with tech support. I wonder why steam don't have live chat at all? Are they running a skeleton crew?

Right? I don't blame them for my getting hacked - I'm sure there's more I could have done to protect the account - but not having a live chat or any way to speak with someone instead of just going through an automated process is really frustrating in situations like these.

[The Giving One]

You know how easy it is to fake an account hijack ?

This could be easily exploited if they simply gave you the money back fo the games.

And it is all irrelevant anyway. Account security is 100% the responsibility of the user that made the account.

There are no exceptions to this fact.

So someone could fake an account hijack, gift games to an alt account, even with a different IP (also easily faked) and then ask for the money back, keeping the games on the other account, at least long enough to play them before they were removed in this example.

Sorry, but that would just be exploited by bad people.

[Kaptin]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

You know how easy it is to fake an account hijack ?

This could be easily exploited if they simply gave you the money back fo the games.

And it is all irrelevant anyway. Account security is 100% the responsibility of the user that made the account.

There are no exceptions to this fact.

So someone could fake an account hijack, gift games to an alt account, even with a different IP (also easily faked) and then ask for the money back, keeping the games on the other account, at least long enough to play them before they were removed in this example.

Sorry, but that would just be exploited by bad people.

Which I would very much agree with, if I didn't have him admitting he had wrongful access to my account. It's even written in Steam chatlogs, if they have access to those, and I have emails admitting the same.

If I can't get back the game that has 5 hours of play time, then that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥, but fine, whatever. But the game that has 40 minutes of playtime should easily fall under some kind of refund policy, and forcing me to go through the recipient for permission to get the refund is a ridiculous policy.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by KaptinSkorge:

Which I would very much agree with, if I didn't have him admitting he had wrongful access to my account. It's even written in Steam chatlogs, if they have access to those, and I have emails admitting the same.

If I can't get back the game that has 5 hours of play time, then that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥, but fine, whatever. But the game that has 40 minutes of playtime should easily fall under some kind of refund policy, and forcing me to go through the recipient for permission to get the refund is a ridiculous policy.

So I log on under a different IP (again, easily faked) pretend to be this "other person" in that chat, and then apply my example above.

What someone states in a chat proves nothing.

[Kaptin]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by KaptinSkorge:

Which I would very much agree with, if I didn't have him admitting he had wrongful access to my account. It's even written in Steam chatlogs, if they have access to those, and I have emails admitting the same.

If I can't get back the game that has 5 hours of play time, then that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥, but fine, whatever. But the game that has 40 minutes of playtime should easily fall under some kind of refund policy, and forcing me to go through the recipient for permission to get the refund is a ridiculous policy.

So I log on under a different IP (again, easily faked) pretend to be this "other person" in that chat, and then apply my example above.

What someone states in a chat proves nothing.

And independent emails from Amazon and Google stating there's suspicious activities on my account from Greece (I live in the US) are me hacking myself? I mean sure, it's possible, but all this seems like an awful lot of work to play a Japanese porn game for 5 hours just to ask for a refund.

And again - the less than 2 hours rule should still apply to the game that has less game time, and that one shouldn't have an issue. I don't get why I need to go through the other party.

[The Giving One]

Originally posted by KaptinSkorge:

And independent emails from Amazon and Google stating there's suspicious activities on my account from Greece (I live in the US) are me hacking myself? I mean sure, it's possible, but all this seems like an awful lot of work to play a Japanese porn game for 5 hours just to ask for a refund.

I always find it interesting how people use the word "hacked" when describing an account compromise.

"Hacking" places blame on a totally different person or entity. It removes the blame from the "victim", making them look not at fault or responsibile for that very compromise.

What probably happened, is your account was instead "phished", and that puts the responsibility back on the rightful user of the account.

Again, sorry, but too easily exploitable, and people have even tried to scam Steam support in ways that you may be unaware of.

We cannot help with account issues here in the forums. All we can do is give advice, information, and opinions really. If you have exhaused all avenues with Support over this, posting about it here will surely not resolve anything.

[Kaptin]

Originally posted by The Giving One:

Originally posted by KaptinSkorge:

And independent emails from Amazon and Google stating there's suspicious activities on my account from Greece (I live in the US) are me hacking myself? I mean sure, it's possible, but all this seems like an awful lot of work to play a Japanese porn game for 5 hours just to ask for a refund.

I always find it interesting how people use the word "hacked" when describing an account compromise.

"Hacking" places blame on a totally different person or entity. It removes the blame from the "victim", making them look not at fault or responsibile for that very compromise.

What probably happened, is your account was instead "phished", and that puts the responsibility back on the rightful user of the account.

Again, sorry, but too easily exploitable, and people have even tried to scam Steam support in ways that you may be unaware of.

We cannot help with account issues here in the forums. All we can do is give advice, information, and opinions really. If you have exhaused all avenues with Support over this, posting about it here will surely not resolve anything.

He didn't just get access to my steam account; he got access to my email account, and from there, went through a password reset to get access to my steam account. I had a 16 character password, varying capitals and numbers. It was not phished, though 1) there's no way for me to prove that to you if you're intent on skepticism and 2) that really doesn't matter here.

I'm just looking for advice, that's all. Is there literally any avenue for this at all? Is there any where for me to talk to someone from steam instead of going through their automated support system that seemed to ignore my attached note?

[ErickaUnlimited]

Originally posted by KaptinSkorge:

I'm just looking for advice, that's all. Is there literally any avenue for this at all? Is there any where for me to talk to someone from steam instead of going through their automated support system that seemed to ignore my attached note?

In a very blunt fashion, no. There is nobody you can talk to outside of the ticket submission system they have in place.