This account appears to have been used for fraudulent activity?!?!?!?

[Hemebru]

So, i'm just a steam user, whos used steam for the past 4 years. And now after having a sick CS:GO inv, a guy adds me wanting to buy my skins for steam funds. So then I proceed to hear him out and make sure he is not trying to scam me using middleman or anything fishy. So what he says is that he asks me to sell a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ worthless cs:go skin for the price of my AWP Hyperbeast and he told me to price the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ skin for 58$. He wants to "bet" the skins so he needs them without the 7 day trade restriction, and then so I said meh sounds ok and proceeded. It would be all fine if he pays and I get the funds and I trade then right? All good on my side, since hes technically going "first". So after we do this process for around 400$ of some of my cs:go skins. I successfully got 400$ of steam wallet funds and he got the skins he asked for. All was good, and so I tried to chat with him saying, "Good doing business with you man" when I noticed he instantly went offline. So then I started getting suspicious into thinking he blocked me. And then what do you know, I get this red bar on top of my steam window saying:

This account appears to have been used for fraudulent activity.

Steam Support has flagged your account as potentially having been used for fraudulent activities. Please contact Steam Support so that we can assist you.



This account will have restricted functionality until this issue is resolved.

Purchasing, gifting, trading, buying and selling items on the Community Market, and cd-key activation have been disabled.

More info on this topic is available here: Steam Terms of Service Agreement.


Welp gg, got scammed for 400$. I lost my skins, and steam removed the 400$ from my funds leaving me with my initial funds of around 1$. Why???? How????? what type of scam is this??? I trusted steam into knowing that if I get steam funds, I would be safe and the trades would be perfect and legit, but lol now I lost 400$ through steam itself. Can I get my funds back or my skins atleast? Like wow..... I'm speechless....

EDIT: Steam support helped out and unrestricted my account, sadly, funds/skins will not be returned. Funds first of all, wont be returned since they were fraudlently obtained so basically it would result in Steam's loss if they gave it back to me, and the skins wont come back either since I traded them outside the listing. EX: listed ♥♥♥♥♥♥ skin and sold for high price for buyer when he asked, then traded skin he asked for (since I wasen't a scammer :D) in a trade window.

[Hemebru]

I contacted steam support about this issue as well, lets hope they are of some help into restoring my funds...

BTW before anyone says that "trading items for real money isn't supported by steam" then I basically sold skins for a high price on steam market, why are my funds removed still? Their fault they bought it in that case? Even though I did trade items for that value.

[Tev]

Oh wow, it's another one of these:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/364041776199783648/

Sorry to say this: but it's an old trick which will make it look like you're helping someone launder money.

[Hemebru]

Originally posted by Teutep:

Oh wow, it's another one of these:
http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/1/364041776199783648/

Sorry to say this: but it's an old trick which will make it look like you're helping someone launder money.

Damn..... wow, did they get their funds back?

[Tev]

Rather, if you want to try to get that restriction off your account, I'd recommend contacting Steam Support and hoping for the best.

Hardly not the first time they've seen this, but at the same time I can't imagine it looking good on you having been able to sell a lowly priced item for a skyhigh price either.

While the Reddit thread's opening post is gone, here's some of the same situation like a year ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/3390qk/potential_steammarket_fraud_what_should_i_do/

[General Zod]

Even sadder, you will not get your items back:

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.

[Hemebru]

Originally posted by General Zod:

Even sadder, you will not get your items back:

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.

They wont even restore funds? Which, doesn't matter if 1$ skin, a skin sold for 100$ also? It is a market transaction, why is the funds from those transactions removed?

[General Zod]

He used the funds illegally, or did a chargeback, leaving you in the doghouse. You will get nothing back

[Tev]

Originally posted by Hemebru:

Originally posted by General Zod:

Even sadder, you will not get your items back:

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.

They wont even restore funds? Which, doesn't matter if 1$ skin, a skin sold for 100$ also? It is a market transaction, why is the funds from those transactions removed?

Because you were never to get the funds in the first place.

That was the point of the scam.

[Hemebru]

Originally posted by General Zod:

He used the funds illegally, or did a chargeback, leaving you in the doghouse

Dammit....... welp lesson learned, never going to trade again.

[Hemebru]

Originally posted by Teutep:

Originally posted by Hemebru:

They wont even restore funds? Which, doesn't matter if 1$ skin, a skin sold for 100$ also? It is a market transaction, why is the funds from those transactions removed?

Because you were never to get the funds in the first place.

That was the point of the scam.

But those were steam funds, so if I were to sell something from the market, and the buyer of that item then reports me or what every just happened to me, I will loose the skin and funds and get restricted? How does that work?

[Tev]

Originally posted by Teutep:

I knew this sounded déjà-vu.

April 21st, 2015.

It has come to my attention that scammers are going next gen. And that puts your account at risk.

A typical market scam would be as follows

This clown adds you

Clown: Hi, I trade item off you yes yes? - Makes up some nonsense excuse that his goldfish died, that's why he can't buy your expensive item off the market, then proceeds to ask you for a cheap item to be put in the market -

Clown: Put your cheap item on market for $500, I buy off you on alt


The Clown then logs into his alt and buy your cheap item for an insane price
You then trade the item that he wanted to him in the first place

He cards the thing from his alt
His alt gets banned
The money you received gets revoked
You get banned as well for CC fraud, because no moron would buy a $0.03 item for $500
He gets the expensive item you want

GGWP

Remember, if the trade is too good to be true, it probably is.

I remembered it from Traders' Guild.

Example: PayPal -> Steam Wallet -> Market -> Buys a cheap item from you.

Makes a chargeback on PayPal: Money "never" arrived on Steam Wallet, but you got an insane amount of funds due to an item that would normally NOT sell for that high price.

Makes it look like you're laundering money, or you're an accomplice at least. The alt gets banned, but out of the two, you're the only one actually supposedly gaining something from the attempt.

[Hemebru]

I also noticed he traded the skins away instantly, he doesn't even have them anymore... So do the skins get removed as well from him? Because if I suffer, then he better suffer as well.

[EldaBerry]

He probably sent the skins somewhere safe for him the moment he got them.

[EldaBerry]

Originally posted by Hemebru:

I also noticed he traded the skins away instantly, he doesn't even have them anymore... So do the skins get removed as well from him? Because if I suffer, then he better suffer as well.

His alt will go down but that's pretty much all. His main will have your skins and you and the alt go down with the ship.

[Hemebru]

Wow, it's unbelievable. Steam should protect their users from this, who would know that they can even "scam" you through actual transactions being made. For example, OPskins if you get a chargeback, the user doesn't get affected, OPskins takes the shot for them. Should have used OPskins for this aswell... But the trader wouldn't have agreed since he can't scam me through that. He has his money and my 400$+ of skins now. Life sucks.