Is it a Scam ? :: Help and Tips

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Canigou Aug 9, 2022 @ 5:10pm

Is it a Scam ?

Someone send me a private message in discord and said that he reported me accidentaly for buying a game illegaly, and that now i have to contact someone named Augusta Butlin an "official" steam manager. i didnt recieve any mail and it seem reealy weird and suspect but i want to be sure

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Originally posted by Teksura:

Let's make a quick list of just how absurd this scam is.

The first claim they make is that a false report can get you automatically banned even if you're innocent of all wrong doing. Just think about that for a second. Supposedly, even if your trade history shows that you never traded with someone, they can just press the report button and have your entire account shut down? How would that work? It wouldn't. In truth, Valve has access to all information on your account, and would be able to review your trade and message history and see you never interacted with someone, much less traded with them.

The next claim they make is that support staff will personally speak with with people about a pending investigation. Why? Why would they need to talk to anyone? Once again, Valve has access to everything that happened. All of your trade history, all of your chats, everything. There is no question they could possibly ask which would give them more information than what they already have. Talking to people is time consuming, especially when dealing with people who have a tendency to lie. In truth, Valve will only communicate through the ticket system and doesn’t conduct interviews or speak with anyone before they take action on a report.

The next claim they make is that instead of using that ticket system, you need to either reach out to someone via the steam friends list chat, or using a third party app Valve has no control over such as Discord. This is such blatant garbage I'm not sure how to explain it without being condescending. They're basically telling you to take on good faith that this random account literally anyone could make- which isn't even associated with Steam in any way -is more legit than the official Support Ticket system. In truth, once again, the only way to reach out to support is through the ticket system.

The next claim they make is that they need to "check" your items or something similar. They will claim that on a system Valve created, owns, and operates, that a Valve employee whose job is to look into these things has no tools to do so without you first sending them a trade offer gifting them your items. Let's go over this claim again. The claim is that Valve- a major tech company -is incapable if creating a system to view items in your inventory without your assistance. What a load of garbage. If such a system were to exist, your cooperation would not be required. They would just up and do it without any need for you to send any trade offer. In truth, once you send them the trade offer, they accept, block you, and then laugh at you having successfully gotten you to gift them your items.

No part of this scam is legit, or logical. I'm honestly flabbergasted that it continues to work.

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 look into it. 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 thousands and thousands of thousands of 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 only 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.

Support communicates to you through your profile description

A common thing I see people say is they think the scam is legit because they see something in a user-editable profile description. Support again, only talks to you through the ticket system. They aren’t going to be needing to resort to editing your user profile description to send you a message. This is something that anyone you give access to your account can do, and when you compromise your account, that’s something they can edit. Usually the description is changed to say that your account will be deleted in 1 hour or something similar. This is absurd. Notice how it keeps saying 1 hour no matter how much time goes past? Huh, you’re always 1 hour away from this supposed time of banning. With no actual indication of when the actual time is supposed to be. It’s a sloppy scare tactic that doesn’t make any sense. Your account is supposedly perpetually 1 hour away from whatever they claim no matter when you happen to get on and find that you’ve been hijacked? Sure.

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