Got scammed using my friend's account and lost all my tradable items

[L0n3St4r |*]

So yesterday I received a message from my friend, he shared a screenshot of a message which said that my account is getting banned coz of too many reports. Since the message came from my friend and I got instantly panicked I didn't check the profile of my friend. Also friend's name was appearing as the nickname which I had put for him.

He sent me a link of a profile to add and chat saying it is steam support. In that panicked state I didn't check much. He told me there's another profile with the same name as mine which got reported for trade scammed and since I share the same name with that profile my profile is also on the ban. He told me to transfer all my items to my friend's account. He told me that I need to transfer my items as to clean all the scam reports from my profile he need to lock my profile and in that process all my tradable items will be deleted.
I tried to do that, selected my friend from steam's friend list and selected all the items and created the trade offer. Got the notification on steam app too. But I couldn't confirm it, but somehow my items still got transferred. But not to my friend but to some another profile with same name and same image. When I asked that guy why my items are showing in his inventory he said that's a steam bot and all my items are hold in his inventory.

He then said he is raising a ticket which will return back my items after 7 days.

Today I released that the friend's who sent me the message was a fake one when I checked his profile.
I don't know if I will ever get my items back, those are very rare ones and I have been collecting them over years now. :'(
Now my questions regarding this scam are
1. How scammer got to know the nickname which I kept for my friend? I have multiple anti-malware and anti-virus active. So malware can't be the issue.
2. How a fake profile with my friend's name is in my friend's list and the original one got removed when I didn't add accept any new friend request in months?
3. I created a trade offer to my friend's profile then how it got transferred to a random profile with the same name?
Is there any loophole that scammers found with steam???
4. How to contact steam support to get my items back?? Since items are on 7 days trade cooldown, there must be something they can do to return it.

Someone please help me!

[ElvisDeadly]

Sorry but your items are gone,

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

Steam Support does not restore items that have left accounts for any reason, including trades, market transactions, deletions, or gifting.

[L0n3St4r |*]

Friend's fake profile:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/[removed]

Friend's original profile:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/[removed]

Id who told me to transfer all my items:
https://steamcommunity.com/id/[removed]

Friend's original id where I tried to transfer my items:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/[removed]

Friend's fake id where items got transferred:
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/[removed]

[Teksura]

Scan for malware https://www.malwarebytes.com/
Deauthorize all other devices https://store.steampowered.com/twofactor/manage
Change passwords from a clean computer
Generate new backup codes https://store.steampowered.com/twofactor/manage
Revoke the API key https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey
Stop using shady third party trade sites or clicking suspicious links.


Do each of the steps.



What happened is your account became compromised, most likely through a third party site. This well known scam then requires you to authorize the trade giving your items away after you allow them access to your account through either malware, or giving away your details through a phishing fake login page or other trick used by those shady third party sites.

The way it does this is after it gains access to your account, a bot waits until you send out a trade offer, and then using the access you gave to them, their bot cancels the trade, changes a bot account to match the name and profile picture of the person you wanted to trade with, and then sends a trade giving your stuff away for free.

The scam depends on you ignoring all the warnings, such as "this user is not on your friends list", "this user has a similar name to someone on your friends list", their items missing from the offer, the big "you will receive nothing" text, the fact that they have the wrong level, wrong "has been on Steam since" date (usually obviously too recent to make sense), and a few other obvious warnings. It only works if you're not even looking at what you're doing. Sadly, an awful lot of people don't care enough to verify the trade is what they are expecting, so this scam continues to work.

Valve will not return items you gifted away to the scammer as a result of ignoring all the warnings. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

[JPMcMillen]

No name and shame. Delete the links.

[ElvisDeadly]

Sounds like your acount is compromised,

Follow these steps to secure your account, don't skip any.

1. Scan for malware https://www.malwarebytes.com/
2. Deauthorize all other devices https://store.steampowered.com/twofactor/manage
3. Change passwords from a clean computer
4. Generate new backup codes for your Mobile App https://store.steampowered.com/twofactor/manage
5. Revoke the API key https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey (there should be nothing in the APIKEY)

[L0n3St4r |*]

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

Sorry but your items are gone,

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

Steam Support does not restore items that have left accounts for any reason, including trades, market transactions, deletions, or gifting.

I have checked that KB article. May be there's still something they can do?? May be revert the trade offers, since all the items are in 7 days trade cooldown period so items are present in that fake profile.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

Sorry but your items are gone,

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

Steam Support does not restore items that have left accounts for any reason, including trades, market transactions, deletions, or gifting.

I have checked that KB article. May be there's still something they can do?? May be revert the trade offers, since all the items are in 7 days trade cooldown period so items are present in that fake profile.

Not going to happen. If the items were confirmed with the mobile authenticator, they are final and will not be reversed.

[ElvisDeadly]

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

I have checked that KB article.

Then you already had your answer.

I know it isn't the one you want but your items will not be returned to you

[L0n3St4r |*]

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

I have checked that KB article.

Then you already had your answer.

I know it isn't the one you want but your items will not be returned to you

this is really very bad coz those were over 1200+ items which got transferred have market value of about 2-3k USD

also how a fake profile got added in my friend's list when i didn't accept any friend's request and also i didnt sign in into any third party site

[ElvisDeadly]

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

Originally posted by ElvisDeadly:

Then you already had your answer.

I know it isn't the one you want but your items will not be returned to you

this is really very bad coz those were over 1200+ items which got transferred have market value of about 2-3k USD

also how a fake profile got added in my friend's list when i didn't accept any friend's request and also i didnt sign in into any third party site

Read post #3, Teksura explained it in detail.

Even if you don't think you did, you did give away your details somehow via a fake login on some website or similar or via a third party trading site (even one you think is legit), thats how this scam works

[L0n3St4r |*]

I reported that fake profile for trade scam just in case, it was showing all my items in trade history.
Losing all hopes now :(

[J4MESOX4D]

Very old scam. Your account was hijacked along with the API key used to control aspects of trades. You then got baited into confirming a compromised trade.

No items lost this way are returned.

[L0n3St4r |*]

Feels very sad now, I tried to keep my account and items safe for years and got baited like an idiot and lost everything just like that :(

Gonna take me a good amount of money if I buy everything from steam market again :(

[Mikko]

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

Feels very sad now, I tried to keep my account and items safe for years and got baited like an idiot and lost everything just like that :(

Gonna take me a good amount of money if I buy everything from steam market again :(

Feelsbadman.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by L0n3Star |*:

Feels very sad now, I tried to keep my account and items safe for years and got baited like an idiot and lost everything just like that :(

Gonna take me a good amount of money if I buy everything from steam market again :(

Don't buy again. Play the game, play more and then some more. You'll get items sooner or later anyway.