Revisit 'Steam Item Restoration Policy'

[DevzCSGO | WebDev For Hire]

I believe Steam Item Restoration Policy favours Scammers over innocent users when Scams occur

Might be a bit of a biased argument since I just got scammed. However I do believe this policy should be revisited. I believe this strict policy favours the gains of scammers over the losses of innocent community members who have been scammed.

"Steam Support does not restore lost items. Items often exchange hands multiple times before a restoration request and this means they cannot be restored without duplicating them or removing them from another innocent user’s inventory. Duplicating items has a negative impact on everyone who trades or uses the Market by lowering the value of items."

• I understand why Steam does not wish to duplicate items since they effect the market values for everyone else in the community.
  
• understand why Steam does not wish to revoke items as if they pass through an 'innocent' person's inventory then they are in loss.

The situation

I've been on Steam for over 10 years, unfortunately at the time of this I was up late, tired, tited from a few CSGO games, I fell for an API scam based of a fake CS2 site (silly I know). Immediately I knew I entered a fake site, I tried to send my trusted friend items to hold so atleast they would be held in his account for 7 days (I was on a call with him). The trade got intercepted and a new one was made to a fake account. Steam was also down for maintenance at the time so whilst I knew I entered a fake site, I was panicking especially whilst inventories and steam was not loading correctly at the time (even whilst I was trying to change my password it would timeout). Unlucky timing for sure.

The problem with this scenario

I lost my items out of my own mistake. Yes, that is admitted and it is not Steams fault. However the scammer was TRADE BANNED within the 7 day trade period . There is absolute no reason not to return the items. It does not cause any harm in anyway restoring items in this case. They will not be duplicated and it is not being revoked from an innocent user (in fact the opposite, its making sure the scammer doesn't keep it). Isn't this the reason the trade ban was introduced? Even if it takes longer than 7 days, why is it immediately rejected as a response from an 'auto reply' from Steam. Even when you get through to 'genuine staff' (I believe) they still won't restore it.

The problem with Steam's policy in this situation
In terms of getting scammed - I actually got the 'best case scenario' in terms of getting the scammer banned within 7 days. They can't sell their items and they gain nothing. Once scammed I have no chance of getting my items back even once proven it was taken from a scammer and they're banned.

Since scammers can pretty much easily always create accounts, their outcomes are either 'draw' (no one gets their items and back where they are started) or win (cash out the items / keep them). Scammed users (innocent Steam community members) have 1 outcome in this, which is 'loss' - never see your items back again no matter what. And the fact that no one gets the skins is a bit of a lie, it's still on the scammers account. He is only trade banned / item banned. Not VAC banned, they can still use the items in game as they wish.

With this 'harsh policy' Steam has introduced. It limits the work they have to do in terms of support tickets, however it comes at the high cost of punishing innocent scam victims and actually a fairly 'rewarding' outcome to scammers. The risk to reward ratio for scammers (in terms of punishment vs gains) is far superior to a user on steam who wishes to play with nice items in games and support the devs...



How Steam help the community

Ofcourse, return items in the scenario I mentioned above.
To prevent people getting scammed with this API situation. How about introducing a temporary trade ban for 'x minutes/hours' if users change their profile picture and steam name and then send trade offers to accounts... That might become a small inconvenience to a few users but it will stop bots automatically sending fake trade offers in this situation...

Let me know what you think about all of this. To me, I am still submitting Steam tickets daily. And guess what, they are replying to these tickets everytime. I don't think it takes them that much more work to see if an item is a 'replaceable condition' i.e whether it will have to be duped, or if it passed an innocent persons inventory.

[Start_Running]

Yeah They're not gonna change that because people were using it to get free items.
So yeah. You got scammed. In the fuiture take the guidelines to heart. They are there for a reason.

[eram]

the item policy was revisited. now you dont get any items back at all.

[Wolf Knight]

vac bans are for cheat detection. vac has nothing to do with scamming or trading.

scammers normally use stolen accounts. they are not scamming your items to use in a game, they are scamming them to try and convert them into real world money.

[Lily McFluffy Butt]

Any goodwill Valve had when it came to restoring items is long gone. Blame scammers for that.

As for sending support tickets every day, stop or they will ban you from sending tickets at all. I imagine the responses you're getting are "we will not restore your items, stop bothering us about this."

[A R E Z]

This should definitely be in place but only if the end user account was trade banned within 7 days. This would prevent possible real world transaction scams, where seller "charges back" the items he sent on steam.

Prventing trading for like 15 minutes after you change your profile picture AND name should definitely be there

[wuddih]

yes, it should be revisited.
everyone who writes a ticket and ask for stuff back, should receive a trade ban.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by DevZCSGO Buying Skins:

With this 'harsh policy' Steam has introduced. It limits the work they have to do in terms of support tickets, however it comes at the high cost of punishing innocent scam victims and actually a fairly 'rewarding' outcome to scammers.

They aren't punishing anybody. You admitted your culpability. It's not up to Steam to undo your error.

[Crazy Tiger]

Blame your fellow gamers for that, OP. They're the ones who abused the old policy and, even worse, didn't practise account security "because Valve duplicates stuff anyway".

This current policy should have been the one from the beginning and right now I think it should be harsher. Perhaps then people will learn their lessons and stop blaming the wrong parties for their mishaps (not you, but in general).

Also, just because you don't like why Valve doesn't return items does not make it "no reason".

[[?]legit]

Originally posted by A R E Z:

This should definitely be in place but only if the end user account was trade banned within 7 days. This would prevent possible real world transaction scams, where seller "charges back" the items he sent on steam.

Good point, and exactly one of the reasons why the item restoration policy is perfect as is.

Originally posted by A R E Z:

Prventing trading for like 15 minutes after you change your profile picture AND name should definitely be there

You already have the tools to easily identify that scam within 10 seconds. You check the profile before confirming to see who you are trading with.

[Nx Machina]

It was revisited when Valve originally restored items and Valve closed the loophole.

As for:

Originally posted by DevZCSGO Buying Skins:

With this 'harsh policy' Steam has introduced. It limits the work they have to do in terms of support tickets, however it comes at the high cost of punishing innocent scam victims and actually a fairly 'rewarding' outcome to scammers.

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement

C. Your Account (snipped)

You are responsible for the confidentiality of your login and password and for the security of your computer system.

Valve is not responsible for the use of your password and Account or for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your login name and password by you, or by any person to whom you may have intentionally or by negligence disclosed your login and/or password in violation of this confidentiality provision.

Unless it results from Valve’s negligence or fault, Valve is not responsible for the use of your Account by a person who fraudulently used your login and password without your permission.

[Mad Scientist]

The most common form of defense of ones account is not to enter account information for a service, anywhere else on the internet. The best way to look at it is "if you have to give it a login to something you're already logged into, then it's fake" because that emphasizes that there's no active session recognized from the site, and unless Valve has a stickied thread on the forums telling you that logging into a particular site is ok, then presume it's a fake site by default.

User error often happens from the desires such sites prey on so they make mistakes. If anything, the trading system should be axed entirely as should the use of API Keys.

Some of the groups you're in also displays you've likely given your login out to such shady sites before. The best way to not lose anything, is to never login to anywhere else with your steam login.

[Sleepy Yoshi]

If Valve is able to directly recover the items from the scammers account without any additional trading of hands then I don't see an issue with returning them from said scammers account so no duplication takes place.

I would imagine this is a rare occurrence though. Investigation takes some amount of time and you'd think the scammer would want to offload items as quickly as possible.

[Ducks on Fire]

Originally posted by Sleepy Yoshi:

If Valve is able to directly recover the items from the scammers account without any additional trading of hands then I don't see an issue with returning them from said scammers account so no duplication takes place.

I would imagine this is a rare occurrence though. Investigation takes some amount of time and you'd think the scammer would want to offload items as quickly as possible.

Yeah, I imagine it's the investigation that is the issue. If people could recover their items then not only would people who got scammed be submitting tickets, but also people looking to cheat the system and every one of those would need to be investigated which means Valve would have to pay people to do that and that would probably add up. Companies absolutely do not like paying for more employees and will try to get by on as little as they can.

[Leonardo Da Pinchi]

"Steam should reimburse me because I was lax with my security."

Then, how will people learn to keep their accounts secure?