So today a nice person messaged me on Discord and told me she got scammed on a Steam trade, and she thought it was me and reported me.
A friend of mine got scammed the same way, so I knew it was a scam right away.
Please stick around till the end because I had a little talk with him about their operation.
Conversation with scammer #1
Scammer #1: HI
Scammer #1: Hello there, can i ask something to you?
Me: hmmm, go ahead (I already knew at that point that they were trying to scam me and that’s why I reacted the way I did.)
Scammer #1: Sorry for the inconvenience. I just want to know if you have purchased anything on the Steam Market recently.
Me: Yeah, i bought EZ4ENCE for CSGO. (Yes, I really did send this GIF.)
Scammer #1: Sorry for the inconvenience. I just want to know if you have purchased anything on the Steam Market recently. (Yes, he sent the same message twice.)
Me: Yeah, I did.
Scammer #1: Okay, I’ve put something on the Steam market. And within a few days, someone with the same profile as you bought it (probably pretending to be you). My purchase was marked as sold and I waited a few minutes to get the credit I received no amount and my items disappeared from the market listing. When I tried to find a buyer, it went to your account and I immediately reported it to you. Then I realized that your buyers and qualifications are not the same. That’s when I realized I had mistakenly reported someone else’s photo.
Me: How can I get rid of the report?
Me: My account is worth over $5000, and I don’t want to lose it.
Scammer #1: Steam support said that your account was banned and your IP address will be banned on Steam because they incorrectly reported your account for making illegal purchases/scams instead of someone else. I tried to cancel, but this was the message from Steam Support.
Me: What’s the message?
Scammer #1:
Scammer #1: That’s why I called you straight away since it states you have a good probability of losing your account if you can’t file an appeal or prove to yourself that you have nothing to do with this problem.
Scammer #1: ..
Scammer #1: I didn’t mean to report your steam account, it was a honest mistake.
Me: So how do we solve this issue?
Scammer #1: Can you please help me contact the moderator Scammer2#8584 to explain what happened and prove that you are innocent and not liable for the report? (Scammer2#8584 is of course not their Discord tag.)
Me: Sure, thank you!
Scammer #1: tell me if you already addded himm
Me: i did
Scammer #1: Can you see or read the steam ticket report that I sent? If so, please read it and follow their instructions to add the moderator and explain the problem in order to assist us, and let me know if the moderator responds.
Scammer #1: thank you tell me, if you already talk with him
Me: He isn’t accepting my friend request.
Scammer #1: wait for a while
Me: Okay.
Scammer #1: the moderator might be busy right now
Scammer #1: Just wait for him to respond
Me: Alright.
Me: So when is he gonna respond?
Scammer #1: just be patient
Conversation with scammer #2
I saved the chat messages after he started deleting them, but I still got most of them.
Scammer #2: (Says something like he’s from Valve and I need to cooperate.)
Me: Hi, sure, I will cooperate.
Scammer #2: (Says I should show him a screenshot of my purchase history.)
Me: Sure, give me a minute.
Me: Sorry for the delay, I always bought steam games using keys, so there are is no history. Screenshot: (Link to the IP grabber.) (I didn’t want to give him a real screenshot as this can be used to restore a Steam account and my old account only contained games bought via keys.)
Scammer #2: (Says he needs a screenshot and not a link because “conversations are recorded by Valve”).
Me: Here’s the Screenshot: (Link to the IP grabber.). I uploaded it to the cloud because it’s difficult to upload a screenshot from macOS to discord. (I had to come up with an excuse.)
Scammer #2: (Insists on getting a direct screenshot.)
Me: Here you go. No history, as I said, because of keys. (I quickly used inspect element to change the name shown above. I also swapped a and e to see if he would notice.)
Scammer #2: (Insists on getting a screenshot with purchases.)
Me: As I said, there is no Steam purchase history, because I only buy games with keys on third party sites.
Me: Can I provide a purchase from third party site?
Scammer #2: (Yes.)
Me: Here’s a screenshot from eneba.com. (I sent him a half-blurred screenshot.)
Scammer #2: (thanks me and tells me to log out of my “Steam desktop and app”.)
Me: Desktop and mobile app?
Scammer #2: (Yes.)
Scammer #2: Tell me if you done.
Scammer #2: By the way Steam User, may I ask how long you have been using Steam?
Me: Around 4 years, I guess.
Scammer #2: So you are not under 18 years old, Am i right user?
Me: no, I am 22. (This is a lie, because there are security questions for restoring the account.)
Scammer #2: Are you done logging out your steam account?
Me: One moment, i am currently looking for my phone so i can logout there xD
Scammer #2: Okay user.
Me: done.
Scammer #2: Okay then could you please verify that this account was yours by providing the payment method that you have used to add funds on Steam which is Visa/Steam Wallet/Paypal/WeChat/Alipay/Etc?
Scammer #2: To clarify, I don’t need your card/payment method details because it is your own privacy. I just wanted to know if do you own that payment method?
Me: I used PayPal, as far as I remember. (This is a lie, because there are security questions for restoring the account.)
Scammer #2: Okay and in this process, I will be going to start the recovery program. I will be sending you a recovery email, after you receive it, just please click that recovery button at the center and you will proceed to the Steam Recovery Page. It will state that it is a different IP Address because of this process. Just copy the link at the top and send it here for confirmation, thank you!
Me: Okay.
Scammer #2: (I think the scammer screwed up here. This is not the email associated with my Steam account.)
Scammer #2: (A GIF showing how to copy the link.)
Scammer #2: This is how you get the verification code that was sent to your email from our official email address.
Scammer #2: Please follow the guidelines carefully so we can fix it quick with no errors.
Scammer #2: Please don’t delayed it because it only takes 5 mins if you can’t provide it they will automatically cancel or will be expired.
Me: I didn’t receive a E-Mail yet.
Scammer #2: The email was sent here.
Me: That doesn’t look like my email.
Scammer #2: Are you sure steam user?
Me: yes, I have a proton email address (@pm.me) (This is a lie, because there are security questions for restoring the account.)
Scammer #2: Okay, do you have your number in your Steam account?
Me: yes.
Scammer #2: Can you provide a screenshot of it and drop it here.
Scammer #2: Because I will be sending you a verification code to start the process.
Me:
Scammer #2: Can you provide the whole number start with (+).
Me: sure, +41 69 420 23 94 (Well, I guess he didn’t realize that my phone number had 69420 in it).
Scammer #2: It doesn’t work in our Database.
Me: it’s the right number. (This is a lie.)
Scammer #2: Okay while checking your database, please login into your Steam Account and proceed in the account settings.
Me: done.
Scammer #2: What we are going to do here is we need to reset your Steam Account so that the errors and reports will removed automatically. To do that we will going to change your email temporarily to confirm this process. Do you understand it?
Me: yes
Scammer #2: Okay so please login in your Steam Account now and proceed in your account settings. Proceed in changing your email and change your email into : steamvalve*******@gmail.com
Scammer #2: Please tell me if you need the code so that I can check it and give it.
Me: It says that the email is already in use.
Scammer #2: No, you can still use the same email for multiple accounts, I think you’re trolling me here.
Me: Well, you are right, but you weren’t honest either. It’s a common scam. Not sure, how you messed up the step with my email, lol. Get a life.
I was then blocked. So I went back and confronted the first scammer.
Confronting scammer #1
Me: Y’all so bad
Me: no way you didn’t notice that
Me: But fr, how you messed up the step with my email?
Scammer #1: IDK CAUSE IM NOT ADMIN (I didn’t actually expect him to answer, but we got talking.)
Me: so it’s a whole organization?
Scammer #1: NOPE
Me: multiple individuals?
Scammer #1: yes
Me: mind if I ask how many?
Scammer #1: I don’t know, don’t worry I’ve experienced the same thing
Scammer #1: Nvm that situation, I’m out bye
Me: do you get paid for this? and what do they do with the accounts?
Scammer #1: Yes 200$
Me: a month?
Scammer #1: nope
Me: per account?
Scammer #1: yes
Scammer #1: so do you want to pay me? AHAHAHAHAH
Scammer #1: joke
Scammer #1: btw im out have good day brother
Me: wow, $200 is quite impressive. What do they do with the accounts?
After that, I did not receive a reply.
Conclusion
Companies like Microsoft, Steam, Ubisoft and Origin NEVER offer support via Discord.
It’s actually quite hard to get in touch with a real Steam employee. When my friend lost his account, we spent over an hour looking for a support form.
In the end we found this: https://help.steampowered.com/en/wizard/HelpWhyCantITrade
My friend explained the whole situation and eventually got her account back after showing the Steam employee screenshots of her bank transfer.