hijacked steam account being sold on ebay

waynio

waynio

waynio

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seen this on ebay when i was looking to buy left 4 dead on the cheap, it looked too good to be true, after searching google for steam accounts being sold i came accross a racing forum with people saying their accounts have been getting hijacked, ebay should have been onto this by now, it is bad, ebay has a habit of deleting mess ups like this so i print screened it and saved as a pic, they have often only contacted me after i have paid for goods telling me not to pay the seller, tut tut tut

i'll post the pic if it is allowed, i'll wait for confirmation so i don't cause any legal bs

£15 on auction or £20 paynow the seller has 0 feedback and joined a couple of weeks ago, i have to admit it was quite tempting but i'm just glad i googled steam accounts for sale.

in the add it tells what games are included

Counter-Strike: Source
Day of Defeat: Source
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
Left 4 Dead
Team Fortress 2

VAC Status: Clean

and a the bottom of the add it says this
for more accounts (5 Digit & 7 Digit with COD 4) and details contact me on MSN/Windows Live Messenger: a hotmail email
 
I'd also point it out to one of the moderators on the Steam forums personally (via PM). Sale of accounts is against the terms of service, but besides that it's never nice to see people selling stolen goods.
 
Ebay are useless on the fraud stuff - its just not in their interest to pursue it. We had some issues at work, and whilst they talk a good game they dont follow up with action.
 
Is their any way to protect yourself against having your account stolen or used for other purposes at all. I would hate to find out one day that all of my steam stuff have gone.
 
^ Ditto. I've gone out of my way reporting copies of games on Ebay and they do nothing about it.

Ebay can when their image is being tarnished, Live 8 tickets for example, actually do something. But for most day-to-day selling they appear to give the impression they would rather have the fees. Until the bubble bursts, or legal challenges start eating into their profits too much I think they willl continue to sweet FA.
 
warnea1984 said:
Is their any way to protect yourself against having your account stolen or used for other purposes at all. I would hate to find out one day that all of my steam stuff have gone.
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Use a secure password, never give your login details to anyone (nobody from Valve will ever ask for them), and keep your system free of trojans/keyloggers. That's all you need to do.

BTW to the OP, a couple of reasons you should not buy other users' accounts:
  1. VAC bans are delayed. Players can cheat, but won't get banned until a few months down the line (this is to make it harder for cheat/hack coders to react with new versions of their applications, as they won't know which version(s) were detectable). It may say VAC status in good standing for now, but don't count on it staying that way later on.
  2. The original owner can easily reclaim an account if they have a retail copy of any game on the account. For example, say they bought L4D at retail and activated it on Steam using the included key. Later on, if they lose access to their account (be it hijacked or whatever), all they need to do is provide a photo of the game's box/cd key to Steam support, and they get their account back. That leaves you out of money and out of luck, nothing you can do about it.
Bottom line: don't buy another user's account. Create your own and get your own copies of the titles you want, or risk getting screwed over down the line.
 
PhillyDee said:
Yes. This happens. Is it your account?

Just notify eBay.
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not my account, just searched for left 4 dead on pc and it came up, i was looking at price comparisons for where i could get it cheapest, i'll probably get it from play.com now

like hohum said "Use a secure password, never give your login details to anyone (nobody from Valve will ever ask for them), and keep your system free of trojans/keyloggers. That's all you need to do."

when i was searching google i came accross a forum for people who play a racing game on steam, 1 of them said they got messaged while playing from a stranger to join another game and he went along with it and put his details on a phishing site and not long after could not log into steam, the person i was reading about also had virus in steam so definately keep you pc upto date with protection and never give your details to anyone and hopefully you should be fine.

as soon as i seen the ebay add and dug a bit deeper i thought its best if i let people know if they did not know already.
 
hohum said:
I'd also point it out to one of the moderators on the Steam forums personally (via PM). Sale of accounts is against the terms of service, but besides that it's never nice to see people selling stolen goods.
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i don't have any steam games on my pc yet, i have kept a picture of the add thou for when i do get onto steam

it sure is bad of ebay thou not being on top of this kind of thing.
 
I had my steam account stolen a few months ago and sold to someone. Hadn't logged into it in ages and only noticed some other guy had it when he started begging people to gift him games at a forum I read!

The Valve guys were pretty great though, sent them a PayPal receipt number and had my account back in less than 24 hours. Got really lucky though, probably wouldn't have noticed my account was missing for months if that guy hadn't posted!
 
Monkeynut said:
It'd be really embarrassing to get your account stolen, buy a replacement, then realize it's yours.
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A similar thing happened to my mate, he split up with his fiancee of 15 years, but they still lived in the same house although didnt speak to each other, he joined match and sent a few emails out, of the women he emailed he got no response to, but came home from work one day and found his pc logged in with the members name, he had accidently tried to date his ex that he still lived with.

Sort of the same. :p
 
hohum said:
[*]The original owner can easily reclaim an account if they have a retail copy of any game on the account. For example, say they bought L4D at retail and activated it on Steam using the included key. Later on, if they lose access to their account (be it hijacked or whatever), all they need to do is provide a photo of the game's box/cd key to Steam support, and they get their account back. That leaves you out of money and out of luck, nothing you can do about it.
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I'm so glad I kept my original Half Life: Generations and Half Life 2 boxes then, just in case (all other games have been bought through Steam). Out of Interest, if you have a receipt still for a game on email inbox, can you use that?

^^LOL :D
 
contact steam support if u have any receipt or something cd key from first game that u bought steam support will sort u out in a week.

ps: don't give your passwords to no one and don't go to dodgy sites.that pretend to be steam or valve
 
How can you tell this is a stolen account?
I only ask because I'm happy to report this item.
I'm taking part in some "trust" thing with EBay.
My reports are read and acted on quicker I think (plus they keep on sending me rewards through the post for helping, LOL).

Anyway, before I report this can you tell me why it shouldn't be there?

Sorry - personally I've never used Steam so know nothing about it all.
 
Mattf121 said:
I'm so glad I kept my original Half Life: Generations and Half Life 2 boxes then, just in case (all other games have been bought through Steam). Out of Interest, if you have a receipt still for a game on email inbox, can you use that?

^^LOL :D
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I don't know if a Steam e-mail receipt is enough proof (might be, haven't checked), but your boxed copy of HL2 certainly is... provided you still have the key within it too, of course. This is why I've kept my retail boxed copy of HL2:EP1 safe - should anything happen to my account (albeit very unlikely), I can easily get my account back using that as proof of ownership.

stoofa said:
How can you tell this is a stolen account?
I only ask because I'm happy to report this item.
I'm taking part in some "trust" thing with EBay.
My reports are read and acted on quicker I think (plus they keep on sending me rewards through the post for helping, LOL).

Anyway, before I report this can you tell me why it shouldn't be there?

Sorry - personally I've never used Steam so know nothing about it all.
Click to expand...

Unless it explicitly says the account is stolen or hijacked, you won't know (guess you'll have to get the link from waynio to find out). The sale of Steam accounts is against Valve's terms of service though, plus (as has been discussed above) the original owner can quite easily provide proof of ownership to reclaim the account back from whoever stole it from them/whoever they sold it to.
 
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