Fake accounts aka Scam Bots

[Diddily Doo]

Dear Valve,

I'm tired of having to block & report a minimum of 6 accounts per day, it is fustrating and annoying.
These so called scambots (usually private profiles or not set up profiles or in rare cases, actual profiles with hours in game...) add me every day.. and not just 1 of them, but nearly 7-8 a day and send me one of those "my friend can't add you add them on *SCAMLINK* blah blah"...

In the past it was about 1-5 a month at max now it just started uprising like hell..
I still remember the good ol' days where steam was just your average everyday DRM..

Suggestions: put a certain requirement for people to use the community functions (i.e steam level 1 or to confirm email AND set up their profile to be able to add people)
Another thing that would be nice is to be set in privacy settings, a feature that would allow me to stop people who have not set up their profiles (or set them to private) from adding me.

But above all, do revise your account creation system... and its effect on the community.

BEAR IN MIND, these are just ideas that we as a community feel you should consider testing to improve ours and your expirience.

Kind Regards,
Just another steam user.

TL;DR
revise account creation system to prevent spambots floating the community
add requirements for adding community members on a new or not set-up account (i.e steam level 1, set up profile)
add a feature that allows me to auto decline "private profiles or not set profiles" from adding me.
or maybe just add a feature that allows me to hide my steam ID number so the ♥♥♥♥bots cant add me.

EDIT: @The Great Cthulhu: Things that seem legit to me are having a level 1 steam account (which can be accomplished by just setting up your profile this way "[unassigned]" bots can't add you, or even better the daily invite limit for a new account (less than a year old, 6 months old, 1 month old, something like that) would be optimal.
say valve develops a system that just counts friend invites per day on new/lowleved acc (emphesis on new accounts), say I make a new acc, I have 1000 friends IRL, 50 of which may be gamers on steam now say i add them all in 1 day, nothing left to add right?
now if this system monitors this kind of crap and sees that somebody at level 1 acc (brand new) added 2000 people in just 2 weeks, that'd auto ban them and -hopefully- ip ban the account creator aka the scam computer or program manager or w/e

[UFO]

yeah

[Benji, limited edition shitlord]

I had two bots add me today so far, both private, both lvl 0.
Why cant we add an option to auto-ignore private, lvl 0 accounts for good start?

[TGC> The Games Collector]

I wonder how account creation could be 'improved' on this matter without making things too troublesome for actual new users...

Although I agree the phishing seems to be in a weird place right now.

[HERETiC]

A few of my friends seem to be having this issue, but I am not.[knock on wood] My profile is even public. But, I make excellent use of the ignore, block & ignore options when scary strangers send me any sort of request.

The first thing everyone must realize (including some on the inside) is this isn't facebook nor myspace nor even xbox live & PSN for that matter. Unless you are actively seeking the company of strangers, don't accept any friend requests. Don't click links, don't do a lot of stuff. Add games to your library, click install, then click play. This is yet another reason why a "lite Steam client" would prove to be a great BENEFIT.

[Diddily Doo]

CrimsonTriton の投稿を引用：

...

you for example have 3 friends on steam which i'm guessing are people you know, nobody needs to add more than 100 people a day at level 1, that is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and you know it.
and you don't play games like dota or csgo that have item trade system to feel the annoyance of being invite rap*d by bots

­­Βenji, the sleepy tigerthing の投稿を引用：

I had two bots add me today so far, both private, both lvl 0.
Why cant we add an option to auto-ignore private, lvl 0 accounts for good start?

what makes it even more hillarious is that I get added by bots named [unassigned]... the guy couldn't even take the time to assign the bot a name hahaha level 0 and not even setup...

♫TGC> The Great Cthulhu の投稿を引用：

I wonder how account creation could be 'improved' on this matter without making things too troublesome for actual new users...

Although I agree the phishing seems to be in a weird place right now.

I added some edit to address you :)

[Diddily Doo]

FALSEPOSiTiVE の投稿を引用：

A few of my friends seem to be having this issue, but I am not.[knock on wood] My profile is even public. But, I make excellent use of the ignore, block & ignore options when scary strangers send me any sort of request.

The first thing everyone must realize (including some on the inside) is this isn't facebook nor myspace nor even xbox live & PSN for that matter. Unless you are actively seeking the company of strangers, don't accept any friend requests. Don't click links, don't do a lot of stuff. Add games to your library, click install, then click play. This is yet another reason why a "lite Steam client" would prove to be a great BENEFIT.

also a great idea, while the steam drm client is cool and all, there should be an incognito set of options where you get to hide yourself or disable friend invites or as you say a mini client that is only for games / community-less, but the latter seems a bit absured

[se7en]

I always received a 6+ spamming invites every single fuc king day! I'm getting tired of the same sh|t of block this user and block that user and block this and block that. Block block BO LLOCKS!

I hope Valve would resolve my current situation. I trust Valve because they saved me from my mispurchase before. However, reporting a scammer DOES NOT have any tickets. Only a report this person but no tickets or whatsoever.

The question is, how will I know of there would be a progress? Help? Anyone?

[HERETiC]

Have those of you experiencing this problem considered maybe creating an alt account for yourselves? One to do all of your trading and social activities on? Only have "TRUSTED" friends in your main account?

I do this.. I came here to post under my main account only to be taken serious in my thread, but normally I don't do much in this account unless it is with long time friends or what I believe to be safe trusted groups I subscribe to. For absolutely everything else I use an ALT account that I setup to post want ads for cards. Which is what I should be using to post this message. So if this post is deleted that's because I came to my better senses.

Oddly enough, my alt account doesn't get spammed with invites from bots either. Perhaps there's a common trend amongst you all? Group? Trade/trash-bots? A particular friend? A gaming website like playfire or raptr? Retail site? I have no clue, but not everyone is suffering the same onslaught of phishers as some of you. Worth checking out.

[se7en]

FALSEPOSiTiVE の投稿を引用：

Have those of you experiencing this problem considered maybe creating an alt account for yourselves? One to do all of your trading and social activities on? Only have "TRUSTED" friends in your main account?

I do this.. I came here to post under my main account only to be taken serious in my thread, but normally I don't do much in this account unless it is with long time friends or what I believe to be safe trusted groups I subscribe to. For absolutely everything else I use an ALT account that I setup to post want ads for cards. Which is what I should be using to post this message. So if this post is deleted that's because I came to my better senses.

Oddly enough, my alt account doesn't get spammed with invites from bots either. Perhaps there's a common trend amongst you all? Group? Trade/trash-bots? A particular friend? A gaming website like playfire or raptr? Retail site? I have no clue, but not everyone is suffering the same onslaught of phishers as some of you. Worth checking out.

Not sure how I get this mysterious spam invites. Oddly enough, this mystery user just recently sent me an invite to accept him as a friend. Also, that person can send me a message WITHOUT even letting me to accept the invite first. So its kinda weird and creepy. I mean, how can that person send me a message without me accepting him as a friend? Also, that person sent me a message of "give me 2-3 cases" following with a trade invite.

I didn't accept the trade invite because I know that person would actually scam me or hijack my account. I reported him to Valve by using the report button.

I'm kinda bothered that I still don't know how a progress would be made. There are no support tickets or whatsoever. Only a big report button and *tada* reporting sent!

[Diddily Doo]

@FALSEPOSiTiVE
nah this is my alt i have 0 items on it and i still get invites, and on both accs I only have people who I know irl.
bots work based on steam ID number and in rare cases inventory goodies so both ways it's a random chance somewhat.
@Fine Trader, idk happened to me once to, and I remember I could send a message like that once too (to once of my friends pending ofc not stranger), must be a loophole somewhere.
it's sad though that we don't get to know if there's any action being taken or not.
so far this post hasn't even had a single mod commenting on it eventhough I believe it's the most legit of the ones currently inside this same forum (people posting stupid things about their game's report system and crap that is just nonrelevant.. yet they neglect important matters like this.

[Benji, limited edition shitlord]

†his is a †rick の投稿を引用：

also a great idea, while the steam drm client is cool and all, there should be an incognito set of options where you get to hide yourself or disable friend invites or as you say a mini client that is only for games / community-less, but the latter seems a bit absured

This whole idea is absurd. If you only want to play games, you can actually GO OFFLINE and have nobody trouble you. You would still recieve invites, but you wouldnt know about it (since youre offline, duh). You can even switch off auto-sign in to friends [change profile name > friends > untick 'automatically sign me in to friends blah blah']

[HERETiC]

Used to be able to send messages to non-friends as long as they were in one of the same groups. This leads me to believe they are targeting certain groups. Maybe it goes a little deeper? I don't want to put on the tinfoil hat this early in the conversation.

[HERETiC]

­­Βenji, the sleepy tigerthing の投稿を引用：

†his is a †rick の投稿を引用：

also a great idea, while the steam drm client is cool and all, there should be an incognito set of options where you get to hide yourself or disable friend invites or as you say a mini client that is only for games / community-less, but the latter seems a bit absured

This whole idea is absurd. If you only want to play games, you can actually GO OFFLINE and have nobody trouble you. You would still recieve invites, but you wouldnt know about it (since youre offline, duh). You can even switch off auto-sign in to friends [change profile name > friends > untick 'automatically sign me in to friends blah blah']

I sense a bit of trolling in your post, but I'm going to answer as if it is completely troll-free.

OFFLINE mode disables major features if not complete games. It's not a viable option. Signing in or out of friends list is 100% pointless in this matter. It is essentially like turning off your lights in your home and hoping no one knocks on the door.

[se7en]

FALSEPOSiTiVE の投稿を引用：

Used to be able to send messages to non-friends as long as they were in one of the same groups. This leads me to believe they are targeting certain groups. Maybe it goes a little deeper? I don't want to put on the tinfoil hat this early in the conversation.

We know and I know. However, my current situation is different. Sorry if I don't mentioned this earlier. But the person who tries to adding me was NOT on any group at all! As in nothing, no affiliations or anything! Its like a stranger who just walked upon a door and keeps on knocking to say "I'll steal ya' goods!".

[Diddily Doo]

@benji, the sleeping tigerthing
not the point, you can still be added genius, and that's what this is all about.