Item Tracking For Returning Scammed Items

[SMPR | iZiRapidzz$]

Three days ago, my steam account was hacked, i didn't click on any link and i didnt give away any of my info. The hacker bypassed my steam guard somehow and traded away over $780 worth of skins, including a knife, which i named after her since my girlfriend was the reason i got it in the first place. i contacted steam and they are doing nothing, they wont return my stuff, they wont replace it and they wont offer any compensation for me to be able to get it back by other means, whether it be my lost items value in keys for cases, they wont offer fund to buy them back and they wont be voiding the items that the hacker traded away.

I got the hackers inventory account deactivated, but that also means the thousands and thousands of dollars worth of skins that were in the inventory are gone too. This obviously means that many more people were hacked and lost their hundreds of dollars too. Steam won't be offering any compensation at all for them either.

The way their system works is in such shambles, so much so that it means that i can get my hands on some phishing software that i can scam anyone with and use 15 minute email accounts to make new steam accounts to trade the items to, then trade them to my own. who gets punished?? a email that will deactivate in 15 minutes anyway. I of course wouldn't do this because unlike the hackers, i'm not a heartless jerk.

But in the end, the losers, are the victims.

See the big problem here??

The support blamed me for lack of security practice. i had all the security on offer. How should i know i would be hacked while playing CSGO as i normally would do??

They wont duplicate in case it ruins the skins economy values because it is dropped in rarity and as for returning the items, they wont do or at least, they didn't tell me they could when i asked about it.

I have come up with a solution to avoid this from happening again, and that's by associating the skins with an ID so that they can be tracked, they would then be able to bring up the trades and easily return the skins to the real owner. Each skin is then made safe and is backed up by the trade history, this can make it so that they can tell if it is a legitimate case and not a fake support attempt.

If anyone has anything else to offer, ideas or just a share to get some people to read this and spread the fault steam has with the system, they are much appreciated. it's far too late for me to get anything now, but hopefully we can add this idea to the Steam application.

Thank you~

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

Nice story and all but what if I unknowingly buy a skin that was scammed?

[SMPR | iZiRapidzz$]

Originally posted by Narcoleptic Marshmallow:

Nice story and all but what if I unknowingly buy a skin that was scammed?

the scam surly would have been reported before the item was relisted

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

Maybe. Maybe not. Reported doesn't mean he would be caught, trialed, and punished on the spot. It's in the scammer's best interest to turn the stolen items into profit as soon as possible after all. How do you prevent this from happening without inconveniencing legit traders?

[SMPR | iZiRapidzz$]

Originally posted by Narcoleptic Marshmallow:

Maybe. Maybe not. Reported doesn't mean he would be caught, trialed, and punished on the spot. It's in the scammer's best interest to turn the stolen items into profit as soon as possible after all. How do you prevent this from happening without inconveniencing legit traders?

yes, but if you file for scammed items and you report the trade like you can do now, they can prove legitimacy, they would be able to tell the difference in fake and real since i dont know many hackers who would trade items away to get something back of similar value

[SMPR | iZiRapidzz$]

as for legitimate trading, they wouldn't be inconvenienced if the trade is fair like how they normally would be

[Snapjak]

If users would only trade within the window, scamming would almost cease to exist.

So until that happens, items will not be returned.

[Narcoleptic Marshmallow]

You're missing the point, so I'll be more direct.

It's perfectly possible that someone would buy something from a scammer without knowing the item they just got was scammed, before any kind of action is taken against the scammer.

Your idea would involve undoing multiple trades and/or market transactions for each and every item scammed. It's not happening. A much better solution is to be smarter about account security so this kind of stuff can't happen.

[76561198001062896]

sorry but accounts dont get hijacked out of blue, they just dont

if despite someone bypassed the safety nets you had, chances are that there is a keylogger on your pc or you got RAT-d

[ecznos]

They can't just "hack" your account from nothing.

[76561198001062896]

Originally posted by scorpion:

They can't just "hack" your account from nothing.

pretty much this

they can hijack accounts however, albeit its two completely different things

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by Danimal Doonbal:

I have come up with a solution to avoid this from happening again, and that's by associating the skins with an ID so that they can be tracked, they would then be able to bring up the trades and easily return the skins to the real owner. Each skin is then made safe and is backed up by the trade history, this can make it so that they can tell if it is a legitimate case and not a fake support attempt.

Thank you~

Every item in the database will already have an uniqueID assigned to it, visible or not, it will have one, every item CAN be tracked through the entire database if required.....

... but there's no way to know if users 'fake' a hijack to duplicate hundreds of pounds worth of items and profit like crazy off it, selling items left right and centre. I just make several fake accounts with a VPN and 'hijack' myself and i have items on account 1 and replicated ones on account 2. I sell the items on account 1 and some time in the future trade them back!

You also can't delete them from user x and return them. The item could have been sold on the market into funds which have then been spent on games, other items, or the item traded and then traded with other items for other things and then sold on the market, etc. You can't backtrack 10 users worth of trades every time it happens, it would be horrific not only for the staff who would have to do it, but the users that have had trades that suddenly vanish! Who then make their OWN tickets saying their items have vanished!

[Satoru]

Scams can only be done with your permissions

You trade outside the trading system that is YOUR fault

Steam has never restored items lost in scams because they require your approval. There is no need to change this policy. Your greed is not Steams problem

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by Danimal Doonbal:

Originally posted by Narcoleptic Marshmallow:

Nice story and all but what if I unknowingly buy a skin that was scammed?

the scam surly would have been reported before the item was relisted

Not true. Someone who could actually get past SteamGuard to steal someones inventory is probably going to have the tallent to automate a way to trade off all his stolen goods to shell accounts who will then dump them on the market for the highest listing offer price so that they sell instantly.

However, the only real way to get past SteamGuard is to gain control of the device the Authenticator is installed on. The only real way to do that (outside of your phone getting stolen) is if you are running the Authenticator on your PC and someone hacks your computer and gains remote access to it so they can operate it as if they were sitting there themselves.

This is exactly why Steam wanted to force people to put the Authenticator on a different device. That way if their computer got hacked, the Authenticator would not be accessable. This is also why Steam disables the Authenticator if you move it to a different device without using the recovery code. That's so someone can't hijack your phone number to put the Authenticator on a device they control, it's tied to the hardware and not the phone number. In 2016 some YouTubers got hacked because Googles Authenticator is tied to the phone number and the hacker got the persons number switched to a different phone.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Narcoleptic Marshmallow:

Your idea would involve undoing multiple trades and/or market transactions for each and every item scammed.

Correct.
Now imagine being a user whose CSGO skin or game suddenly vanishes because one item that was part of a trade that contained one item that was used to trade for an item that was used to trade for something else that was used to trade for your skin/game happened to come from a phished account which is 'recovering' it back.

Would you be happy about it?