• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

It's Been One Week Since My Steam Account Got Hacked, And Valve Has Done Nothing

Ovek

7Member7
I am just now learning that the Steam CS is absolute crap. I can't believe that such a huge business with so much capital can be so lax with its customers.

I also can't believe that I'm seeing a lot of posts with "actually EA is better than Valve in this regard".

It because they have no competition in the market place, Gabe after all being a former Microsoft employee knows just how to fuck people over with in a zero competition market place.

I've said this before and I will say it again EA origin is a better client than the slow, old and half the time borderline confusing interface of the shit heap this is Steam.
 

R1CHO

Member
Yeah, Steam CS is pretty slow now. Sometimes I wonder if they even bother comprehending the ticket.

Zy63lUV.png


Imagine how annoying it is to buy a game that disappears from my inventory, then waiting for a week just to get instructions on how to check if a game is in my inventory.

They used to be much faster. I asked them if using a certain mod can get me VAC banned and I got a reply the next day. It was Christmas eve.

As for OP though... did you not suspect anything? Does your friend always link screenshots using Google drive? For my case it's always either through Steam or Imgur.

What a joke of a company, Valve sucks so much sometimes :(
 

NewGame

Banned
Steam support us a nightmare to deal with and people with valuable items on their account will no doubt be phished at some point.

Dota2 items, TF2 items and CS items are all hot lights for the swarms of bug eyed scumbags that want them.

Beware even your friends list. If the compromise a friends account they will send you a link with something like "please check this for me" or "check out my kda!"

I remember my account was compromised because I had some sort of TF2 hat that you only get if you played L4D. My account was hacked and it took weeks to regain control, all my digital items were taken and Valve doesn't care. I think I still have an email from them telling me "it's your fault for lack of due diligence"

Never defend Valve's customer service.
 

Bastardo

Member
While I agree that the person coding said virus is a scumback, Op or a mod should really edit the top post to reflect the fact that it was the execution of the .scr file, which infected the PC.

The first line of the top post should be:
"TL;DR: Do not ever doubleclick .scr files, they can contain viruses."

In my opinion this will be sorted by Steam support. The bad thing about Steam support is that they have really long answering times. The other account will be banned for sure and you might get your items back.
 

Marow

Member
I was once hacked a few years ago and didn't have any problem retrieving my account, which I still find strange. Has Steam Support gotten much worse lately or was I just incredibly lucky? Not defending that - Steam are awful at communicating - but merely curious.

Perhaps it helped that I could prove it was my account via a photo of the CD-key I used when first registering on Steam? :/
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
I was once hacked a few years ago and didn't have any problem retrieving my account, which I still find strange. Has Steam Support gotten much worse lately or was I just incredibly lucky? Not defending that - Steam are awful at communicating - but merely curious.

Perhaps it helped that I could prove it was my account via a photo of the CD-key I used when first registering on Steam? :/
You just lost your chance of ever winning the lottery
 

BY2K

Membero Americo
Steam has a huge scamming problem as a whole.

It's insane the number of invites from scam accounts I get per day. All accounts with nonsensical names with no games on their profile and Level 0.
 
Steam support us a nightmare to deal with and people with valuable items on their account will no doubt be phished at some point.

Dota2 items, TF2 items and CS items are all hot lights for the swarms of bug eyed scumbags that want them.

Beware even your friends list. If the compromise a friends account they will send you a link with something like "please check this for me" or "check out my kda!"

I remember my account was compromised because I had some sort of TF2 hat that you only get if you played L4D. My account was hacked and it took weeks to regain control, all my digital items were taken and Valve doesn't care. I think I still have an email from them telling me "it's your fault for lack of due diligence"

Never defend Valve's customer service.

Goddamn. Valve's CS really is indefensible. It's a shame that such a successful company is so amateurish when it comes to basic support. There's no defense, even EA put them to shame.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Steam has a huge scamming problem as a whole.

It's insane the number of invites from scam accounts I get per day. All accounts with nonsensical names with no games on their profile and Level 0.
I get 0

I don't feel special T_T
 

JaseC

gave away the keys to the kingdom.
I was once hacked a few years ago and didn't have any problem retrieving my account, which I still find strange. Has Steam Support gotten much worse lately or was I just incredibly lucky? Not defending that - Steam are awful at communicating - but merely curious.

Perhaps it helped that I could prove it was my account via a photo of the CD-key I used when first registering on Steam? :/

Regaining access to your account is painless (if you don't mind waiting), but Valve is generally very particular when it comes to the matter of having lost items returned to your inventory.
 

Stevey

Member
I hope you get it sorted, but why the hell did you click a link from someone you don't know?
That's like common knowledge not to do that.
 
My Origin account got hacked and I had it back in my control within hours.

As much as I hate EA and I barely use Origin, this. I had someone put bogus charges on my account from origin and had the money on the process of being refunded in 30 minutes (now having to wait a week for the money to actually be returned to my bank sucked... but at least the matter was 'resolved' quick).
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
While I agree that the person coding said virus is a scumback, Op or a mod should really edit the top post to reflect the fact that it was the execution of the .scr file, which infected the PC.

The first line of the top post should be:
"TL;DR: Do not ever doubleclick .scr files, they can contain viruses."

In my opinion this will be sorted by Steam support. The bad thing about Steam support is that they have really long answering times. The other account will be banned for sure and you might get your items back.

would an .scr file come up with a UAC warning before running? If not, is there a way to put something in place to block them? Just in case you aren't paying attention and click on it.
 
Valves customer service is acceptable for a 2005-6 era Valve.

It is shockingly poor for a company this big today. Its insane that no one in the journalism industry every brings it up to them in an interview either.

Imagine if MS/Sony/Nintendo were offering this level of support.
 

EVIL

Member
Not quite ...

rGrGkHu.png


7wXyCK0.png


bqSfSOi.png


... and so on.

bwhahaha yikes, how do people fall for this. Its a shitty thing for people to do, but man, this is very very obvious. I imagine OP typing his post in a 320 x 280 pixel browser window, the rest of the space taken over by toolbars and banners

But yeah, I echo valves customer service, its shitty as hell.
 

Principate

Saint Titanfall
I am just now learning that the Steam CS is absolute crap. I can't believe that such a huge business with so much capital can be so lax with its customers.

I also can't believe that I'm seeing a lot of posts with "actually EA is better than Valve in this regard".

That's because Origin CS is actually good not just better than crap, but genuinely good a lot better than some CS I've encountered..
 

Bastardo

Member
would an .scr file come up with a UAC warning before running? If not, is there a way to put something in place to block them? Just in case you aren't paying attention and click on it.

UAC block comes only, when it requires admin priviledges. Steam runs with user priv. and therefore to use (and hack) Steam you also only need user priv, so no UAC prompt is required.

However most browser warn you that something will be executed, when clicking an exectuable.
 

TheFatMan

Member
A buddy of mine had his account hacked and Steam's response was to ban his account.

When he called them to work it out they basically told him that he was out of luck. Now granted he was a pretty light Steam user but he lost about 6 games. Needless to say he no longer games much on his PC.

Steam is terrible. They know it, and they don't care.
 

Apathy

Member
While steam support is terrible and they rarely do things right by their customers, when it comes to hacking most of the blame lies in the user. I'm sorry but this is not the early days if the internet where we didn't know better. People need to be held accountable for their own ignorance. You don't just "get hacked". Don't open files/links you don't know or look fishy (like the one op showed, who would click that), have an up to date virus scanner, check extensions and if you don't recognize one Google it. Not really that hard to stay safe.
 
I get 0

I don't feel special T_T

the scammers find people by marketplace searches. i had 0 friend invites for years and years, this past week i listed hundreds of auctions to dump all my badges and crap I never did anything with and now every day I get a few random friend requests.

Just to confirm though, this malware only attacks if you click and launch the SCR file? i never open anything people send me, but the OP made it sound like just viewing a picture would hijack your computer. Thats always one of my worries, there have been malware incidents in the past where just an image can execute code and screw you, really hard to defend against that.
 

nded

Member
The unfortunate reality of having a user base as large as Steam with a staff size as small as Valve. At this point they're going to have to establish a larger CS division completely separate from the fabled Valve company structure or things are just going to get worse.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I wouldn't mind taking control of Valve Customer Service.

Just give me all the perks for working at Valve with a decent salary and I'll do wonders.
 

Grief.exe

Member
I was once hacked a few years ago and didn't have any problem retrieving my account, which I still find strange. Has Steam Support gotten much worse lately or was I just incredibly lucky? Not defending that - Steam are awful at communicating - but merely curious.

Perhaps it helped that I could prove it was my account via a photo of the CD-key I used when first registering on Steam? :/

Steam has absolutely exploded in the last year. Going from 50 million active users per month, to over 100 million.

Valve's largest department by far is customer service, but they really need to contract out To another company. Valve's flat structure and their hiring system has really outgrown Steam in many ways. Some of these monotonous, yet necessary, tasks need to be handled separately from Valve.
 
I'm convinced that the way Valve's support system works is that when a new ticket lands on the desk of someone they issue a predetermined response based on the issue type selected and certain key words; it's not until the ticket is bumped by the user that it's actually read in full. I remember Stump once saying that he submitted a ticket asking for his received gift history, categorically stating that he wasn't interested in sent gift history, the latter of which you can get to from your inventory page. Can you guess which of the two the first response pertained to? ;)

Sounds believable. I think my ticket triggered a "Where is my inventory?" response.
 

SOLDIER

Member
Finally got a response.

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.

We apologize for the delay.

As a one-time customer service gesture, we have reversed the trades that were committed while your account was compromised. Any Community Market listings that you had listed were also removed and returned to your inventory. We will not restore stolen items again.

It may take several days for items to reappear within the game. If you don't see your items after 48 hours please let us know.

Your computer is likely infected with malware. To prevent further damage to your account, we suggest immediately scanning your computer with a free anti-malware program such as Malwarebytes or Microsoft Security Essentials.

Additionally, please closely review our Account Security Recommendations:

I'd like to think the link to this thread maybe scared them to speed things up.
 

Persona7

Banned
Steam has a huge scamming problem as a whole.

It's insane the number of invites from scam accounts I get per day. All accounts with nonsensical names with no games on their profile and Level 0.

I used to get this but I think it was because they could see my inventory or something like that? I have no idea how that function works as I've never used it but I turned it off.

They need to implement a feature that blocks links in chat.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Finally got a response.



I'd like to think the link to this thread maybe scared them to speed things up.

It is HUGELY shitty of them to say they won't restore stolen items a second time if you happen to be really unlucky.

Very crappy customer service.
 

PAULINK

I microwave steaks.
It is HUGELY shitty of them to say they won't restore stolen items a second time if you happen to be really unlucky.

Very crappy customer service.

The op kind of walked into a trap, very easy to prevent. I agree that it's real shitty that there are people that take advantage of others but people should be held responsible for their accounts security.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
The op kind of walked into a trap, very easy to prevent. I agree that it's real shitty that there are people that take advantage of others but people should be held responsible for their accounts security.
OP made a huge mistake, but what if it was something that isn't as easy to prevent and a person gets hacked twice? How would they not have some kind of protection against a full fucking inventory being transferred. That's a super red flag.
 

SOLDIER

Member
So you remember how I had all my shit traded away to some asshole a bit back, and how Steam responded that they would restore all my stuff as a "one time courtesy"?

That was on December 19th. They said if the items don't show up in my inventory within 48 hours, I need to write them back.

I wrote them back on the 22nd. They responded again today (27th):

Our records indicate that these items were successfully restored to your account.

We have a strict item restoration policy and in this case no further items will be restored.

Thank you for contacting Steam Support.


As of this writing, only two cards have been restored to my inventory, one from Tomb Raider and one from Spelunky. I haven't played either of those games in a while.

Does this mean my inventory is slowly coming back? Should I start to panic here? I've been pretty patient with Valve but if this is all I'm getting back, well....
 

bootski

Member
wow dude. that really sucks. especially since it was all traded away to the same person. does the guy who scammed you still have his account active too?
 

xemumanic

Member
I've been getting a lot of random invites on Steam as of late. Usually level 0 or some such. I instantly block them every time.
 

bomblord1

Banned
I am just now learning that the Steam CS is absolute crap. I can't believe that such a huge business with so much capital can be so lax with its customers.

I also can't believe that I'm seeing a lot of posts with "actually EA is better than Valve in this regard".

If something is true it's true.
 

Pelydr

mediocrity at its best
So you remember how I had all my shit traded away to some asshole a bit back, and how Steam responded that they would restore all my stuff as a "one time courtesy"?

That was on December 19th. They said if the items don't show up in my inventory within 48 hours, I need to write them back.

I wrote them back on the 22nd. They responded again today (27th):




As of this writing, only two cards have been restored to my inventory, one from Tomb Raider and one from Spelunky. I haven't played either of those games in a while.

Does this mean my inventory is slowly coming back? Should I start to panic here? I've been pretty patient with Valve but if this is all I'm getting back, well....


Hopefully it's coming back! But yeah, this sucks and steam/valve is notorious for horrible support. Gabe don't care.
 
Top Bottom