Is it possible to create a fake steam account to make it look identical to someone else's?

[Mako]

Background story of events:
I was just scammed out of an expensive skin for H1Z1, and reported the scammer to various forums and users. I provided complete screenshots of all events and actions, including chat logs. The scammer in his defense says that i mustve created a fake account and chatted to with myself through fake account with the same name as the scammer.

Problem:
How easily can one fake an account? Ive tried changing my name to his name to see if it works and it seems that you can have same steam names while someone else has it. How can I prove that i gifted my item to an actual scammer?

In trade history it shows that i gifted him the skin, but it doesnt show his steam ID, just his name, which could be faked.

[76561198218426745]

Your best course of action is to report the scammer on Steam, and in future only trade for what fits in a single trade window.

[Mako]

Originally posted by habitualaction:

Your best course of action is to report the scammer on Steam, and in future only trade for what fits in a single trade window.

yea i reported, but as it says, they dont do anything about gifted items. I am more concerned now about having solid proof that i didnt fake chat logs.

[76561198218426745]

The short answer is, people who want to believe you will believe you, people who do not will not. Screenshots are super easy to fake, you are not ever going to get empirical proof they scammed you. I'm sorry.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Mako:

How can I prove that i gifted my item to an actual scammer?

Dont gift if its not meant to be a gift.

[Darren]

It is impossible to prove you were scammed with any evidence you can provide.
- There is nothing unique about a steam profile publically visible.
- Even if there were it is easy to tamper with screenshots, video or even a live stream so none of those are proof of anything.

Steam can know whether or not you were scammed from information they have. Nobody else can be sure (hence why no naming and shaming).

[Mako]

Originally posted by Darren:

It is impossible to prove you were scammed with any evidence you can provide.
- There is nothing unique about a steam profile publically visible.
- Even if there were it is easy to tamper with screenshots, video or even a live stream so none of those are proof of anything.

Steam can know whether or not you were scammed from information they have. Nobody else can be sure (hence why no naming and shaming).

i actually figured out --by reading other reports-- how you can prove that you traded an item to the accused scammer. But i wont disclose the info here, so it doesnt get compromised.

[Typo Hui]

At the end of the day, proving to someone on the internet your case is impossible except towards a few people: this being valve and anyone that can log into your account and see the history for themselves. Obviously I'm not saying let some random admin (or anyone) log into your account, but saying that basically you and valve are the only ones that can see the data and know it's true.

However, an example of a 3rd party system that 'tries' to inform people of scammers is a site called https://steamrep.com/
They have a few guidelines with how, they at least, take scam 'cases' and have an admin review the legitimacy of it. Usually scammers might get away with one or maybe even two cases, but once enough complaints come in with the same person, they usually end up marked as a 'possible' scammer or a legitimate scammer depending on the cases against them.

As for your problem: yes an account can be mimicked pretty well, but there will should always be discrepancies with their "Joined Steam" date (when their account was created) - their steam level, the groups they are in or the number of games they own. Some of these can be copied, but someone able to copy all of them is 'extremely' unlikely (even more so with the day they created the account which is viewable on steamrep website or a badge if the account is over 1 year old).

You can try to submit a report to steamrep if you feel you have enough evidence they want that will help the admins come to the conclusion, but the issue is h1z1 is 'starting' to have a kind of economy with rare/wanted items. It might take some time before the h1z1 community sees this site as a resource/tool. Steamrep, as from what I can see, does not explicitly take in tf2/dota2/csgo requests, the wording of the site says 'steam trades' which of course should include h1z1.

[Mako]

Originally posted by Typo Hui:

At the end of the day, proving to someone on the internet your case is impossible except towards a few people: this being valve and anyone that can log into your account and see the history for themselves. Obviously I'm not saying let some random admin (or anyone) log into your account, but saying that basically you and valve are the only ones that can see the data and know it's true.

However, an example of a 3rd party system that 'tries' to inform people of scammers is a site called https://steamrep.com/
They have a few guidelines with how, they at least, take scam 'cases' and have an admin review the legitimacy of it. Usually scammers might get away with one or maybe even two cases, but once enough complaints come in with the same person, they usually end up marked as a 'possible' scammer or a legitimate scammer depending on the cases against them.

As for your problem: yes an account can be mimicked pretty well, but there will should always be discrepancies with their "Joined Steam" date (when their account was created) - their steam level, the groups they are in or the number of games they own. Some of these can be copied, but someone able to copy all of them is 'extremely' unlikely (even more so with the day they created the account which is viewable on steamrep website or a badge if the account is over 1 year old).

You can try to submit a report to steamrep if you feel you have enough evidence they want that will help the admins come to the conclusion, but the issue is h1z1 is 'starting' to have a kind of economy with rare/wanted items. It might take some time before the h1z1 community sees this site as a resource/tool. Steamrep, as from what I can see, does not explicitly take in tf2/dota2/csgo requests, the wording of the site says 'steam trades' which of course should include h1z1.

its already at an investigation level on steamrep. thats why i said i wont disclose info in order to not jeopardize the investigaion

[Astraea Kisaragi]

It's called "impersonation". It can be simply achieved with having the same avatar and changing the displayed name.
However it doesn't works that. The trading window exactly shows since how long you have been friends, Steam level and the name changes of the user in the past

So if some level 1 Nekator comes and tell me that he is my best friend Nekator who happens to be level 125 and asks me for items, then I must be totally out of mind to do that.

[Mako]

Originally posted by Astraea Kisaragi:

It's called "impersonation". It can be simply achieved with having the same avatar and changing the displayed name.
However it doesn't works that. The trading window exactly shows since how long you have been friends, Steam level and the name changes of the user in the past

So if some level 1 Nekator comes and tell me that he is my best friend Nekator who happens to be level 125 and asks me for items, then I must be totally out of mind to do that.

thank you for the info, this helps my case too.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Mako:

i actually figured out --by reading other reports-- how you can prove that you traded an item to the accused scammer. But i wont disclose the info here, so it doesnt get compromised.

As if its rocket science to check the trade history.

But anyway, the problem is, you factually gifted an item. By accepting to trade your items away one sided. And later you realized you traded for words. And why steam asked you if you are sure its a gift.
You even used that word yourself in this topic.

That doesnt make the scammer not a scammer. But your items lost (gifted)

[Mako]

Ur missing the point and no, trade history alone doesn't prove anything, which is the point of the thread

[Muppet among Puppets]

Originally posted by Mako:

Ur missing the point and no, trade history alone doesn't prove anything, which is the point of the thread

It proves that you gifted an item to a specific account.

[Muppet among Puppets]

Click the name in the history.

[Mako]

It doesn't prove anything through screenshots, I already figured out other options but we'll see how steamrep mods go about it.