I want to enter the game awards Steam Deck giveaway, but I have a game account ban due to hacker from 2 years ago

[RyzenPhoenix99]

So I built my first PC back in 2020, around June or July. I was very new to PC gaming and I had no idea Steam 2FA was a thing. As a result, even though I had a complicated password, my account wasn't as secured as I thought and some guy from Russia hacked my Steam account in August that year. He used it to buy the game Rust and cheated in it which resulted in my Steam account getting a ban in that game.

I contacted Steam at the time and they verified my account had been compromised and issued a refund for the game. They also told me about 2FA and so I enabled that immediately. However, the ban in Rust was still on my account. Now I don't play Rust and I never have, I had no idea what the game even was, so I didn't bother to deal with trying to unban my account since I figured I wasn't ever going to play that game anyway.

Fast forward to today when Steam announced they'd be doing a Steam Deck giveaway during the game awards, and after reviewing the rules of the giveaway I noticed a part saying your account can't have any active bans. So obviously I'm trying to figure out how to resolve this issue, because as it stands I might not be able to win a Steam Deck simply because I was inexperienced with account security, and some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ from Russia took advantage of that. I'm might be punished for something I had nothing to do with.

I've contacted Facepunch studios the developers of Rust, Easy Anti Cheat, and Steam, hoping that one of them can do something about this. I don't even care about the ban, I don't intend on playing Rust since it's not my kind of game, so I wouldn't care if they left me banned but didn't disqualify me. But I don't want this ban to disqualify me from the Steam Deck giveaway, so I'm really trying to get this resolved.

I just wanted to know if anyone has any helpful suggestions. As mentioned, I contacted all the parties involved, and I'm sure I can get any evidence or information needed to prove I wasn't a part of it. But I still want to make sure I do everything possible to resolve this, so does anyone know of anything else I can do to help this situation?

[ReBoot]

It's "hijacked", not "hacked". Your account wasn't broken into, you gave it to the hijacker through a mistake of yours.

And that's the key takeaway here, this was a mistake of yours so all consequences are yours to deal with. As of now, you're out of option. The deadline for active accounts was in November. You can not participate in the giveaway anymore. Take a "no" for an answer and don't ♥♥♥♥ up in future.

[RyzenPhoenix99]

Początkowo opublikowane przez ReBoot:

It's "hijacked", not "hacked". Your account wasn't broken into, you gave it to the hijacker through a mistake of yours.

And that's the key takeaway here, this was a mistake of yours so all consequences are yours to deal with. As of now, you're out of option. The deadline for active accounts was in November. You can not participate in the giveaway anymore. Take a "no" for an answer and don't ♥♥♥♥ up in future.

Okay, like I get that I should have secured my account more back then. But there's a difference between negligence and inexperience. It's not like I KNEW my account wasn't secure enough and just chose not to do anything about it. Again, I had been on PC for barely a month or two and had no experience with this sort of thing, and had no idea 2FA existed. So it's not like i didn't care, i don't see why you have to sound so irritated about it. I get that I could have done better, but I don't think i did anything to deserve the dismissive and irritated sounding attitude, can we at least try to sound a little friendlier? Have a fantastic day my friend, and happy TGA :)

[ReBoot]

First and foremost, you need to start understanding this thing RIGHT NOW! Your text heavily implies that you're thinking of 2FA as a thing that will keep your account from getting hijacked.

This isn't true. 2FA is a lock. It's a good lock, everyone agrees on that but it's still a lock. The best lock in this world won't protect you from giving your key to some random stranger. Which is what you did back then, your account wasn't hacked, it wasn't broken into, it was a case of you giving your account away on a phishing site. You have to learn from your mistake, not worship 2FA as the silver bullet which it is not.

In another analogy, 2FA (just like everything else, really) is a tool, not an insurance. It's not a case of "sign up and not think about it ever again", you have to use tools properly. This analogy may break down in future when there's tools with a "read my mind and do whatever I want" button but we're not quite there yet...

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

The "account in good standing" helps prevent sold/hijacked accounts with bans from entering.

There are tens of thousands of theses accounts.

[Cathulhu]

You still were negligent. That it was due to you being careless, reckless and/or naive doesn't matter.
You made a mistake, now you have to deal with the consequences of your actions.

[OdstSpartan534]

did you played online games with others? if so this is why i dont play online games due to hackers.

[Ducks on Fire]

Początkowo opublikowane przez OdstSpartan534:

did you played online games with others? if so this is why i dont play online games due to hackers.

Playing online games has nothing to do with getting your account compromised. Clicking bad links, following the instructions of scammers pretending to be someone they are not, downloading things infected with malware; those are ways you can get in trouble. You aren't going to get "hacked" simply by playing online games. And thinking you are safe because you don't is just going to give you a false sense of security.