I think my account got deleted by a fake Valve employee?

[HowUMakeName]

So i got messaged by a user on Discord saying they had accidentally reported me for "illegal purchases" and said I would get suspended. They gave me contact info for an admin called greuben. I messaged geuben about the situation and seemed pretty legit at first. They told me to prove myself that I was the owner of the account by showing puurchase history and contact info. He then told me to log out of my steam account so he could verify me, I have no idea how this process works so I did as he told. He then said he would change all my steam credentials, which I thought was weird since he didnt have my password, he then said my account was banned. later he wanted me to send bank history and stuff to see if there were any illegal transactions and offered me to send 50$ to unlock my account because "if we can't get the transaction id the account will be deleted". And now I can't log in and steam support required me to have my email and password, but neither works to find my account. This is my second account by the way. Please help

[Snapjak]

Accounts are not easily deleted, ever. It's still there but with different details.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126288560

[HowUMakeName]

Originally posted by Nightenhelser:

A Valve employee will never ask you for your username and password.

Did you message this "greuben" on Discord or Steam?

I messaged greuben on Discord because I didnt know how to contact them via Steam

[HowUMakeName]

Originally posted by Snapjak:

Accounts are not easily deleted, ever. It's still there but with different details.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126288560

Thank you!

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by HowUMakeName:

Originally posted by Nightenhelser:

A Valve employee will never ask you for your username and password.

Did you message this "greuben" on Discord or Steam?

I messaged greuben on Discord because I didnt know how to contact them via Steam

If you dont know something, do not let a random stranger lead you the way. Especially if he pushes you.

You can always ask somewhere first. Only scammers do not recommend that.

[EzSchmils]

He asked me the same but I knew it was a scam just don't do anything when someone reports u for something u didn't do u don't have to fix it cause nothing will happwn

[Teksura]

Let's break down the sheer volume of terrible lies here.

Lie 1: An accidental report will lead to you losing your account

Where do I even begin on this one? This is just so much nonsense. The idea this is based on leads to the logical conclusion that anyone can cause anyone to lose their account for no reason by just making a single fake report. It's lunacy! Reports don't lead to automatic action taken against an account, they lead to investigations. Support will receive a report and [/i]look into it[/i]. If they determine that someone has violated the SSA based on things they can see (history, chat logs, ect), they will take action.

I honestly can't even figure out where to start on explaining why a single baseless report will not lead your account to getting banned.

Lie 2: You can resolve this by speaking with a Steam Admin

There is no such thing as a "Steam Admin". It's another lie. The closest thing is Steam Support, which can be reached through the ticket system at https://help.steampowered.com/

Support will never speak with you through any other system.

Also, here are the stats for support: https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support

Within the past 24 hours, Support has had 188,435 support tickets submitted. Think about how much time it takes to have a full conversation and chat with every single person who has an issue? You're never going to be in a chat with Support because they don't have the time to personally talk about every issue. All they have time for is to look at the issue, determine what needs done, and select the canned response.

Lie 3: You need to talk to them through Discord

I already said above that you obnly talk with Support through the ticket system at https://help.steampowered.com/ but let's go into this specific lie a little deeper.

Valve develops software. Valve made the Steam Client. Valve has their own website for Steam. Why the flipping flying heck would they ever need to depend on a third party gaming chat client for any of their services? Steam has exactly ZERO integration with Discord. You can't even tell Steam what your Discord profile is. Valve has no access to Discord logs, that is why the scammers want you to use a third party chat client. This scam used to commonly take place through the Steam Friends Chat, but the problem the scammers had was Support could actually read those chats and take action based on what they saw.

Lie 4: You are required to "Prove yourself" by providing sensitive info before anyone can help you

This one is actually half true. If you have lost access to your account (and only if you have lost access to your account), Support will require proof of account ownership before they reset the password and restore access to the account. You can read more about that here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5421-QTFB-3090

However, this is the only time Support will ask for this information. If you already have access to the account, they don't need it. Furthermore, they will never require anything such as your login information. Why should they care what your password is? Why would they even need it? If you are contacting them through the proper channels, you are either already logged in, or you are recovering your account.

Lie 5: "Pay me money and you can have your account back"

This is complete crap and, if Valve were to try this, it would be illegal. If Support issues a ban, nothing you do will get it reversed. The sole exception to this is chargeback issues, if you issue a chargeback you can get the issue resolved by contacting your bank and reversing the chargeback. The claim here is that you broke some rule (not by what you did, but because someone accidentally reported you and somehow that's your fault) and the only way to get it back is to pay money. The claim is that Support will hold your account hostage and demand cash if you violate the SSA. This is garbage and false and would be illegal if they tried.

Lie 6: Your account will be deleted

Doesn't happen. There is one and only one process to delete an account, and you can read about it here: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4650-SDKC-0716

Your account will never be deleted unless you request it. Period.

[Smilya]

this happened to me rn aswell. I knew it was something fishy about this - so I took a google reseach with the first thing he sent... and got the answer: yes its scam. I did block this user afterwards.

[buerkle]

My son was scammed by "greuben" earlier today and was scammed out of his steam account and hundreds of dollars. Does steam support ever respond? So far all he has received is an email with a code to use when talking to Steam support. But how does he talk to steam support?

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by buerkle:

But how does he talk to steam support?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1126288560

[Kesac]

Also, if he put in a ticket, he WILL receive a response. Right now, response times average from 15 minutes to 16 hours for account security and recovery.

https://store.steampowered.com/stats/support

[Ronin_Soplica]

THANK YOU ALL OF YOU!! This ♥♥♥♥♥♥ almost scammed me but i decided to double check and came across this. My wallet and my heart are unmeasurably thankfull!

[bapple]

Originally posted by Harlaus'Simp:

THANK YOU ALL OF YOU!! This ♥♥♥♥♥♥ almost scammed me but i decided to double check and came across this. My wallet and my heart are unmeasurably thankfull!

same

[damon]

Originally posted by Aesthetic:

A Valve employee will never ask you for your username and password.

Did you message this "greuben" on Discord or Steam?

I had this problem and it was both but the discord user was fake

[[Grogu] R.I.PHuntΞr]

They tried on me but my dad helpt me see through it.

[legal]

Got the same scam just now. I was hesitant at first but when the scammer started threatening to ban my account if i didn't send him info i immediately called bs