Is there any way to report an obvious scam account if you haven't interacted with them to let them try?

[Lux0rd1]

I got a friend request from an obvious scam account that has clearly just done the bare minimum to look legitimate. They only own free games and one of their highest play times is in banana clicker (about 17 hours) yet they still don't have the only achievement that game offers ("Click") which only requires a single click to get. If this was a real person it would be impossible to play that game for that long without getting that achievement (literally a cookie clicker without clicking even once?) and their only achievement is in counterstrike which just requires you to basically open the game. Their "bio" is "I'm not a scammer. I promise I won't scam you"

Everything about this screams scam but when trying to report the account it requires for them to have spoken to me and tried to hack me which I really don't want to risk.

[rawWwRrr]

Reporting an account does not require you to have interacted with them. Not sure how you're getting that.

Otherwise, you just report them via their profile page and let Steam figure it out if there is actually anything there to figure out. If they are just asking to be a friend, that's not necessarily a scam attempt. You don't have to accept any friend requests from people you don't know.

[Lux0rd1]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Reporting an account does not require you to have interacted with them. Not sure how you're getting that.

Otherwise, you just report them via their profile page and let Steam figure it out if there is actually anything there to figure out. If they are just asking to be a friend, that's not necessarily a scam attempt. You don't have to accept any friend requests from people you don't know.

The options are literally:

"They are impersonating me or someone I know"

-Not relevant.

" They are engaged in item theft or scamming"

-Can't prove this without putting myself at risk of the obvious scammer by interacting with them and giving them the chance.

"They are trying to steal my account or information"

-Also can't prove this without putting myself at risk of the obvious scammer.

"Their account seems to have been compromised"

-All signs show this is an account made to scam people rather than being a compromised one.

"They are sending suspicious links"

-Again, can't prove this without interacting with them to give them the chance despite having a giant red banner on their forehead screaming scammer.

----
While I know I can just block them I'm also aware others may not and may fall victim to them which is why I'm trying to help stop them

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Lux0rd1:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Reporting an account does not require you to have interacted with them. Not sure how you're getting that.

Otherwise, you just report them via their profile page and let Steam figure it out if there is actually anything there to figure out. If they are just asking to be a friend, that's not necessarily a scam attempt. You don't have to accept any friend requests from people you don't know.

The options are literally:

"They are impersonating me or someone I know"

-Not relevant.

" They are engaged in item theft or scamming"

-Can't prove this without putting myself at risk of the obvious scammer by interacting with them and giving them the chance.

"They are trying to steal my account or information"

-Also can't prove this without putting myself at risk of the obvious scammer.

"Their account seems to have been compromised"

-All signs show this is an account made to scam people rather than being a compromised one.

"They are sending suspicious links"

-Again, can't prove this without interacting with them to give them the chance despite having a giant red banner on their forehead screaming scammer.

----
While I know I can just block them I'm also aware others may not and may fall victim to them which is why I'm trying to help stop them

And none of those options require you to actually interact with the user. You will end up with a text box at some point to write out in more detail why you are reporting the user for whatever you choose.

[miamew3]

Just because they might look like a scammer doesn't mean they could be, for all you know it's some idiot who left their game open in the menu screen for 17hrs while they went off to sleep/eat/watch tv ect.. You just dont know

Of course it does all sound a little odd and very sus. But without any proof there is not much you can do. Just decline the friend request, block them and move on.

[Maria]

Originally posted by Lux0rd1:

...
I cant prove this without putting myself at risk of the obvious scammer by interacting with them and giving them the chance.

...

Proving they're a scammer is not your job. Your job is to report to the authority (steam mods in this case) to take a look at their account and see if they find anything sussy. You won't get a warning or anything even if it was proven to be a false alarm.

By the way, interacting with scammers literally has zero risk. I click phishing links sometimes to see their latest modus operandi, or because I'm just bored lol. Feel free to make them busy, the time they waste on you means less time they have to scam people (:

[eeeh]

I got sent a handful of scam links lately. All from people that I already had added on steam.
I reported all of them, both when they only started their scam conversation and when they really send the scam link.

Never got an answer / notification from steam about the reports so far.

[Maria]

Originally posted by Mancsoulja:

Incredibly stupid & zero click attacks

Can't argue with that. I should've got a better hobby I guess

CMIIW, but I think zero clicks refers to 'exploiting known software vulnerabilities'. So it doesn't rely on social engineering, unlike most scams that happen around here. Tbh, if that were to be the case the fault would be on Valve and not the user.

As the names imply, this ransomware attack can take hold of a smartphone/device without the intervention of its owner/operator. Zero-click attacks completely avoid this by taking advantage of currently available operating security flaws, in contrary to other attack patterns, such as phishing or spamming, which depend on social manipulation to deceive individuals into following the intructions mentioned in the malicious content or starting phony downloads.

https://www.wallarm.com/what/zero-click-attack