How to write a Steam Support ticket [OUTDATED]

THIS GUIDE IS NOW OUTDATED! Apparently Steam removed the ticketing system and I do not see any option to submit one. Disregard this guide for now.
Has your account been hijacked and valuable items stolen or just a curious onlooker searching for information?
This guide will help you write a comprehensive ticket to Steam Support so you can recover your precious items.

Introduction

So, your account has been hijacked (accessed) by a stranger with malicious intents. He then stole (traded away) all your valuable items, and steam wallet money, that you've worked hard to get.

The situation is grim, you've tried to contact the hijacker and demand your items back however he refused or did not reply at all. Now you're getting desperate, you cannot reason with the hijacker, therefore you have to resort to the last method available of ever getting your precious items back, submitting a Steam Support ticket.

This guide will focus on how to write a ticket concerning stolen items from a Team Fortress 2 inventory.

What is a Steam Support ticket

A Steam Support ticket is a written complaint or question addressed to Steam Support regarding a lost/hijacked account, game related issues or other topics. Multiple files can also be attached to the ticket.

Where to submit a Steam Support ticket

To submit a Steam Support ticket you need to access the following page: https://support.steampowered.com/

Once there, you have to create a new account if you haven't submitted a ticket before, or log in if you have, as shown below.



The account creation process is straightforward and can be completed in several minutes. A VERY important aspect to keep in mind is that the Steam Support account is independent of your Steam account, for security reasons, therefore do NOT use your Steam account name or password to create your Steam Support account.



After creating and logging into your Steam Support account, click "Contact Steam Support".



On step 1, fill in as shown in the below figure, alternatively you can choose the "Account Question" in the first bar and "Hijacked or stolen account" in the second bar. Do not fill anything on step 2, it is for demonstration purposes only. A chapter dedicated to writing the actual ticket will explain that later on.

How to react after getting hijacked

The grand master Yoda once said: "Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." The same principle can be applied to writing a Steam Support ticket which determines whether or not you will get the missing items back.

Consider the following scenario: John was walking down the street while writing a Facebook status on his smartphone, when suddenly, a random passer-by shoved him then grabbed his phone while he was imbalanced and sprinted away before John could react. In just a few seconds, an important item has just been stolen from John and he couldn't do anything to prevent it. He was now in a state of shock, still trying to figure out what just happened. Shortly, that shock turned into frustration, and then into anger.

What could he do to get his phone back? "I'll go to the police!", John said. Once he arrived at the police station, still in an angry mood, he approached the first policeman he saw and started complaining to him in an incoherent manner about his stolen phone. The policeman could not comprehend John's ramblings and told him to calm down and follow the standard procedure for item theft. Such rash approach did not help John or the police in solving the problem at hand.

This analogy can be reflected in our case. It is not uncommon for hijacked players to be shocked after noticing their valuables had vanished from their inventory. This shock may cause an emotional outburst, such as uncontrolled anger, crying or both, which can have a negative psychological impact on the player. This in turn may cause temporary irrationality that determines the player to write Steam Support an incomplete, and often incomprehensible, ticket about their unfortunate experience.

Such tickets usually do not contain enough data to point out the culprit or prove that they have indeed lost the specific items, as well as containing ambiguity, misspellings and other grammar mistakes.

An example of such ticket can be seen below.



The first thing you should NOT do, after your account has been hijacked, is panic. Mild outbursts can sometimes be considered acceptable if you are unable to contain your frustration, also if other people are not around to hear or see them.

After the initial shock you should calm down, for instance sit on your couch, or on a chair, away from the monitor and take a deep breath. If needed, have a glass of cold water or other beverage you enjoy to ease the tension. Try to not think of what happened while you are still stressed as there are chances for your anger to build up again.

After you feel relaxed and have regained your rationality, the next step is writing the ticket.

Writing the ticket

This guide assumes that you already have or created a Steam Support account as presented in the "Where to submit a Steam Support ticket" chapter.

To help you write a coherent ticket that maximizes your chances of getting your items back, I've compiled a series of aspects, split into chapters, which should be taken into consideration.

1) Addressing

When writing a letter to someone, the first thing you do is formulate a salutation. The same procedure applies in our case as well. Considering the fact that you are essentially addressing a stranger that wants to help you solve an issue, formulations may vary.

In a formal manner, "Dear" is the most common and safest salutation to use; "Good day", "Good afternoon" can be good alternatives. Using an informal approach, you can use "Hello", "Hi", "Hey" or other greeting as long as it is respectable. After typing the salutation form, you can optionally add a recipient. Such examples can be "Steam", "Steam Support" or none at all, except for the form "Dear" which requires a name, otherwise will sound out of place.

It is common courtesy to add a comma after writing the complete salutation such as "Dear Steam Support," or "Hello," depending on the style of addressing you feel comfortable of using.

You can also add a closing to your ticket. One example formulation is "Sincerely," followed in a new line by your name or nickname (e.g. "Jane Doe", "Jane", "Maggotcruncher" etc.). Others can be "All the best", "Best regards" and many more.
If that formality doesn't suit you, using a simple ending such as "Thanks.", "Thank you.", "Thank you for reading." can also suffice.

2) Body layout

Whenever you are explaining something, you are primarily answering the related fundamental questions: "Who?", "What?", "Why?", "Which?" or "When?". To put it into context in our case, if you are asking Steam Support for assistance you have to answer all or most of these questions:
Who am I?
Why did I contact Steam Support?
What happened?
When did it happen?
What did I lose?
How did I lose it/them?
How many and which items did I lose?
Who might have been the hijacker?

To create a coherent response, you need to structure the answers properly. The following are tips to assist you in that undertaking.

You can start with an introduction which briefly clarifies the circumstances surrounding the hijacking such as time when the hijacking took place, from what game inventory were the items stolen, if Steam wallet money were deducted through unwanted purchases, actions taken to regain control of your account and so on.

With the scene set, now you have to provide arguments regarding your situation. First of all, you should gather all the bits and pieces in one place (i.e. key words and phrases in a draft text document). After that, you have to present the assembled data in an orderly fashion, and the easiest and clear way to do it is in the form of paragraphs.

A paragraph is basically a collection of sentences which all relate to one central topic. A sentence within the respective paragraph must clearly define the topic either at the beginning or at any point. If a piece of information is not related to the main idea, use it in another paragraph. Leave a blank line between each paragraph to clearly differentiate each topic.

The first paragraph should contain a detailed timeline of notable events that might have lead to the hijack (e.g. talked to the hacker, clicked a suspicious link). Try to add absolute or relative time periods along each significant action you have taken (e.g. "30th of June at 10 o'clock in the evening", "24/03/2014 at 18:45", "moments later", "20 minutes later") as such clues will help Steam Support track down the hijacker.

The next paragraph(s) may contain information that varies depending on the player's situation. For instance, in a separate paragraph you can include how many and which items were stolen (e.g. 3 hats: 1x Unusual Tyrant's Helm with Burning Flames effect, 1x Killer's Kabuto, 1x Team Captain) and be sure to declare all of them. If many different items were stolen, you should clarify by grouping them into categories or a list as per example:

Cosmetics: 1x Vintage Sergeant's Drill Hat, 1x All-Father
Tools: 5x Mann Co. Supply Crate Key, 2x Black Paint
Weapons: 1x Australium Rocket Launcher, 1x Strange Original

or

- 4x Earbuds
- 1x Unusual Defiant Spartan with Sunbeams effect
- 3x Backpack Expander

Be sure to add relevant evidence, pointed out in the "Evidence sources" section mentioned later in the guide, into each corresponding paragraph.

After exhibiting all the material at your disposal, you should add a concluding statement in a new line which reaffirms the purpose of writing the ticket and why, as it implies the severity of your cause (e.g. "I would like the items back because I've been playing a long time to obtain them").

Valuable tips for creating coherent and informative paragraphs.
How to write a paragraph: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Paragraph

3) Grammar and spelling

Going back to the analogy of John and his stolen phone, since John could not resolve his issue by straight-out yelling at a police officer, he has no choice but to complete an item theft form. Still in an enraged state, John quickly completes the form, in a careless manner, without providing many details about the thief, then handing it to the receptionist. The report is forwarded to a police officer in charge, and he starts reading it. The officer is dazzled by the lack of consistency and proper grammar in the report, barely figuring out what exactly was stolen. Having little to no information about the robber and his whereabouts, the police will have to put more effort into acquiring relevant input which will lead to the apprehension of the criminal and retrieval of John's phone.

As told in this short story, lousy spelling and articulation do not yield any benefit, therefore careful thought on orthography is valuable. For instance, capitalization should be used only at the beginning of a sentence, with the exception of certain pronouns (the "I" in I'm or I'll), nouns (brands, trademarks etc.), places (Great Pyramids), geographic terms (Mount Everest), titles (The Great Gatsby), acronyms (TF2) and special cases. Identify and use appropriate words in the context of a sentence (e.g. it's vs its, your vs you're, there vs they're vs their, then vs than).

Typographical errors (typos for short) are unavoidable, either by mistake or lack of knowledge; being able to deal with them is your only viable option. When unsure on spelling a certain word, simply searching as it is in the Google search engine will generally display it's correct form. In case that did not offer an explicit result, search the word on websites about literature, look for synonyms or just ask an Internet forum.

Pay close attention to punctuation, as a single misplaced comma may entirely change the meaning of a sentence. (e.g. "Let's eat, Grandma" vs "Let's eat Grandma", YOU MONSTER!).

Composing grammatically correct sentences allows the intended reader to understand the idea you are trying to convey. When addressing Steam Support, you should organize your ideas as best as you can in order for them to recognize your needs, starting from the initial introduction until the last sentence.

Be ready to face the complexities and particularities of the English language when writing the ticket. If you are feeling too uncomfortable, try writing the ticket in your native language, however, remember that the fundamentals of transmitting a message are still the same.

A small guide on how to write a proper sentence.
How to write a correct sentence: http://www.trinitysem.edu/Student/LessonInstruction/Sentences.html

An excellent website for providing synonyms, antonyms and other practical grammar information.
http://thesaurus.com/

A great source for consolidating your English grammar and writing.
Guide to Grammar & Writing: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/index.htm

4) Evidence sources

This is a crucial aspect, since without proper evidence you cannot prove the stolen items were yours to begin with.

Trading websites such as tf2outpost.com, bazaar.tf, et cetera, are a good source of confirming the ownership of your items and identity of the hijacker. Specifically, these websites display an item's unique ID and ownership history as well as date when it was last seen. Using this information, you can demonstrate that a certain item has originally belonged to you and to whom it was traded unintentionally.


















To further validate the property of your items, you can provide Steam Support with a snapshot of your backpack's history using a backpack examiner such as tf2items.com. Be advised, this website will only record data of backpacks with a Public status.



If you have managed to discover the identity of the hijacker, namely his Steam ID, you can look him up on steamrep.com to check his reputation status. If you noticed that his account has a certain reputation status indicator, as shown below, this person has been involved in other shady activities and can be used as evidence.










Another source of evidence are snapshots of chats and past trades with the hijacker before the account was compromised. These can be even more valuable if a timestamp is present in the captures. You can either attach these files to the ticket or upload them to an image hosting website such as tinypic.com or imageshack.com then insert the links into the ticket body.

You can also take screenshots of the particular trade in which the hijacker had transferred your items into his inventory by accessing your Steam inventory history, see examples below, or receipts of purchases made by the hijacker using your Steam wallet funds.




The more proof you have, the faster the investigation will advance and your items refunded.

5) Ticket review and tips

So, you are confident you have added all the information regarding your incident, added all evidence to justify your plea and proofread your ticket. Now you simply have to press the submit button and let Steam Support do its job... but wait, you've noticed something peculiar in a sentence just before clicking. You say to yourself "I should fix this," however after adjusting the anomaly you notice more out of place expressions in the text, and even forgot to mention a hat in the list of stolen items. This calls for a complete overhaul.

The aforementioned scene is one mere example of many possible scenarios that could lead to an incomplete submission to Steam Support. Without properly revising your ticket after the initial composition, it will most likely result in overlooked grammar mistakes or worse (e.g. Steam Support will ask for more details or evidence therefore prolonging the investigation and potentially decreasing your chances of regaining your items).

By analyzing your work, you may discover possible adjustments you did not notice while writing, allowing you the opportunity to fine-tune your creation, also contributing to your overall knowledge of the English language. Keep in mind, before pressing that submit button, to reexamine your ticket at least once. Who knows, that extra bit of attention might save you time and effort in the future.

Below is a list of recommendations to take into account when elaborating the ticket:

DO:
• use polite and respectful wording when addressing Steam Support.
  
• use appropriate punctuation and spelling.
  
• be concise and only add information and snapshots that you deem important in your case.
  
• inspect your ticket for grammar mistakes or incomplete evidence.

DO NOT:
• use racist, discriminatory or insulting language towards the hijacker or any other person involved regardless of the gravity of your situation.
  
• use excessive pleading.
  
• add irrelevant or redundant information.
  
• include personal Steam account information such as password, PIN, et cetera; contact e-mail and username are OK for evidence purposes.
  
• overuse punctuation marks, especially the exclamation mark.

Below is an example of a ticket which respects, to a certain extent, the guidelines presented in each section.

Helpful links and advices

A series of account security practices recommended by Steam that you MUST read.
Account Security Recommendations: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=1266-OAFV-8478

Useful information regarding trading policy.
Steam Trading Policy: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

An extensive guide on avoiding a common scam amongst regular players, written by a member of the Steam community.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=213364159

Explanation on how Steam handles game and in-game refunds:
http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

It is not a good idea to add a credit card to your Steam account if the security is low (i.e. not activated Steam Guard), your inventory contains valuable items or your Steam wallet has a large ammount of money. It is generally safer to add your credit card only when you need to make important purchases, such as games or expensive items, and then remove it from your account. If you do need to keep your credit card for frequent purchases, consider upgrading your account security first and maintain constant awareness of new and potential scams, as mentioned in the article links posted throughout this guide.

Be cautious of random friend requests from level 0-5 Steam accounts. Their usual status will be Online (blue text) and might not respond immediately when you speak to them. When they do, it usually involves several, inhumanly fast written, separate messages in which the last one contains a suspicious link (phised steam community link or similar) or an underlined word that hides a phis link.

DON'T FORGET! The retrieval of the items associated with your Steam account ticket is a one-time complementary service offered by Steam Support. You will NOT get a second chance to recover your items for the same Steam account if they are stolen again.

Remember, Steam Support was made to help you, the player, overcome problems in your gaming experience, and get back your precious items.

More info to come.

More information from user feedback

Since the publication of this guide, many Steam users had contacted me directly for additional assistance or to inform me of their ticket submission outcome. Hereby, is information from some of those users that might prove useful for anyone looking for moral comfort or aditional insights.

The response time of Steam Support for a ticket submission regarding stolen items may vary from several days up to a month (without any updates during that interval, with the exception when they require additional information to solve the case). Regardless of the final result, they will definitely provide an answer. Users from different continents reported this.

It is possible to get refunded for Steam wallet money, in case the hijacker made Steam Marketplace or in-store purchases although procedures may vary depending on the country laws and regulations, especially when the transaction includes other parties such as PayPal (you have to contact them directly). A user from Europe reported this after he successfully recovered all of his stolen items and Steam wallet money.

If you want a potentially faster response than Steam Support, visit the official Valve website -> Company -> People and click one of the email icons, beside a name of an employee, to be redirected to an email submission page. From there you can still choose a person from the dropdown menu. A user who managed to retrieve his stolen items tried this approach, and also received an apology for the delay. That's Valve for you.

Apparently, Steam cannot move an item from one user inventory to another, although they can reverse a trade. A user reported this after contacting Steam Support.

Users reported that they cannot see their Steam username when creating a Steam Support account. This issue is on Steam's end. A user in this situation found a fix. You need to reload the form page several times for around 10 minutes before the fields required show up (to the right of where you type your issue).
In case that did not fix your issue, another user reported an alternative. When you want to ask a question, do not use the links automatically given. For example, if you need to change your phone number and click on "If you have further problems contact Steam Support", that link would send you to a page to ask the question but it is almost always bugged (doesn't show "Additional details" fields). The solution is to click the big button "Contact Steam Support" which will show all the proper fields to complete.

More info to come.

Conclusion

This guide has explained how to react when a Steam account is hijacked, the notion of a Steam Support ticket, where to submit it, advice on how to write it, evidence sources to support your claims as well as providing links to common practices regarding account security.

This guide was intended to help the player in writing a comprehensive ticket and is under no circumstance destined to be used as a template. Instead, use any information within as a reference to increase the odds of reclaiming your stolen items.

Thank you for reading this guide and I hope you have found it useful.

Please don't forget to rate this guide in order to make it more visible for users in a similar predicament.

Cheers! ;)

Killerboyo

[MC WC]

YO, STEAM, IF U R READING DIS - YOU ARE A F****** C**** for deleting this option. **** YOU.

[Alex 小狼]

@killerboyo thanks for the link :) ill see if i can do anything on my side :)

[Killerboyo]

Hi 小狼, the only relevant thing I could find is to self-solve your issues through their official website: https://help.steampowered.com/en/

[Alex 小狼]

I have difficulties sending a ticket , my bank contacted me Valve needs to fix my name for a workshop item transaction. However cannot find a way to open a ticket :(

[Killerboyo]

Hi, ☣PixTron™, I'm not sure what you are referring to. Ig you mean how the current ticket system works, please check it out yourself.

Thanks.

[Batlord]

What about in an updated website?

[Killerboyo]

Hi ¡Ryuk!, unfortunately I do not know. You should check on the Steam forums more information.

[Deez]

What's the chance of steam account being returned after it gets temporary blocked?

[Killerboyo]

Hi StampyNeko,

First of all I want to say that this guide will no longer be updated, too much headache to research the new Steam Support ticketing procedure.
Secondly, if you are referring to how long you have to wait for Steam Support to respond to a ticket, from my experiences and others it might take from several days up to a month but they should respond either way.

Best regards,
Killerboyo

[Killerboyo]

Might do it some day.