Steam: anyone ever been banned

Ursus Horribilis

This is going to sound like a "yeah yeah, pull the other one" story I know. I'm looking for advice/thoughts really.

A few years ago I installed Steam and bought a couple of games. I played them for a short while, then life got in the way and I forgot about them. Laptop died and when I replaced it, I didn't bother putting Steam onto the new one. Then the other day I was at a loose end, remembered the games, reinstalled and this popped up :eek:

WTF?? I genuinely have no idea what happened here. The only thing I am 100% certain of is that I had nothing to do with this. Was my account hacked because it was dormant? Any other ideas? I am baffled to tell the truth.

I've logged a call with Steam's customer support but I can't help but think that I'm piddling into the wind really. What I'm asking really is has anyone here ever had something like this happen to them? Are Steam's helpdesk people helpful at all? As things stand my account's locked and pretty much useless.

degrassinoel

jaysis, that's a scary message to get

Get in touch with steam anyway, they'll have ip logs for the account - so you should be able to prove it wasnt you and they should restore the account to what it was when you last logged in from your correct ip, just eh.. use a decent password and setup some additional security like steamguard etc..

Never had to deal with them like that before but afaik they do get back to ye fairly promptly

Vicxas

Odus fell down wrote: »

This is going to sound like a "yeah yeah, pull the other one" story I know. I'm looking for advice/thoughts really.

A few years ago I installed Steam and bought a couple of games. I played them for a short while, then life got in the way and I forgot about them. Laptop died and when I replaced it, I didn't bother putting Steam onto the new one. Then the other day I was at a loose end, remembered the games, reinstalled and this popped up :eek:

WTF?? I genuinely have no idea what happened here. The only thing I am 100% certain of is that I had nothing to do with this. Was my account hacked because it was dormant? Any other ideas? I am baffled to tell the truth.

I've logged a call with Steam's customer support but I can't help but think that I'm piddling into the wind really. What I'm asking really is has anyone here ever had something like this happen to them? Are Steam's helpdesk people helpful at all? As things stand my account's locked and pretty much useless.

Unfortunately Steams customer support is notorious for being gick. The average response time to a ticket is 4-6 weeks according to Reddit.

If you're 100% sure you did no wrong its a high chance that your account was compromised.

I guess all you can do is wait and see.

degrassinoel

4 to 6 weeks? holy crap!

Dave_The_Sheep

There are some horror stories out there regarding Steam support. I've never had reason to contact them myself, but I'm dreading the case where I do.

degrassinoel

the only time i ever did was getting a refund on a game and that was done in 20 minutes

Cravez

I've never had to use Steam Support bar the refund of a game, but I've heard the horror stories associated with them. Origin on the other hand, I've had to contact their customer service a few times and they have been really really good. They even honored a digital key of a physical disk I had even though they didn't have to.

cadete

Would it just not be easier to open a new account? If it was a couple of games just rebuy and be done with it?

dreamers75

Kids account was hacked and within 24 hours he had it back.

Yeah I was in touch with them once, they were quite responsive. This story doesn't reflect well on me.

Three years ago, after being a counter-strike veteran of 15 years, without putting much thought into it I decide to take a foray into hacking. I was promptly banned, stupidly on my main account. You can see the VAC ban at the right of that page. I'm not really sure what I was thinking. I was curious to see if it easy to do. Since I am addicted to CS, I created a new account and bought the game again. I had removed all traces of the hacks (deleted and shredded) and never used them again. They banned this 2nd account. I was fairly unhappy about this but their communication was frequent and stern. They must have banned me again on IP address alone. They will never reveal the exact reason for the ban and wouldn't refund me in any way. It was almost theft as far as I was concerned.

Well the moral of this story is that I'm a filthy cheater.

Ursus Horribilis

cadete wrote:

Would it just not be easier to open a new account? If it was a couple of games just rebuy and be done with it?

The thought has crossed my mind. I've moved house and changed credit cards since then. I'd just be a bit concerned that they might have some way of knowing that it was still me.

Zillah

Deleted User wrote: »

Yeah I was in touch with them once, they were quite responsive. This story doesn't reflect well on me.

Three years ago, after being a counter-strike veteran of 15 years, without putting much thought into it I decide to take a foray into hacking. I was promptly banned, stupidly on my main account. You can see the VAC ban at the right of that page. I'm not really sure what I was thinking. I was curious to see if it easy to do. Since I am addicted to CS, I created a new account and bought the game again. I had removed all traces of the hacks (deleted and shredded) and never used them again. They banned this 2nd account. I was fairly unhappy about this but their communication was frequent and stern. They must have banned me again on IP address alone. They will never reveal the exact reason for the ban and wouldn't refund me in any way. It was almost theft as far as I was concerned.

Well the moral of this story is that I'm a filthy cheater.

Did they tell you after the first ban to not make a new account or they would ban that one too?

CeltS_Kavo

Odus fell down wrote: »

The thought has crossed my mind. I've moved house and changed credit cards since then. I'd just be a bit concerned that they might have some way of knowing that it was still me.

It's just that account that is locked make up a new account there should be no problems, if you don't mind that the few games Are gone then go for it.. I would strongly suggest using PalPal and not give any card details when buying games.

Zillah

Zillah wrote: »

Did they tell you after the first ban to not make a new account or they would ban that one too?

Nope. They wouldn't discuss any details. They just kept parroting something along the lines of, "You have majorly disrupted the online experience and broken our rules". I'll try find the emails. I made another account right after and they never banned it.

Patser

I was banned briefly a few years ago after a game I installed had a steam key in use on another account - basically accused of piracy.

Luckily I had bought the game legitimately, and when asked by steam to show proof of purchase I was able to send a picture of box, disc, cd key on manual and receipt from shop. Everything cleared away and account reactivated.

I've always figured some bright spark had returned the game for a refund after installation and wondered how they dealt with him.

Ursus Horribilis

CeltS_Kavo wrote:

It's just that account that is locked make up a new account there should be no problems, if you don't mind that the few games Are gone then go for it.. I would strongly suggest using PalPal and not give any card details when buying games.

I can't check just now but I'm pretty sure I used PayPal at the time. I tend to use that rather than give my card details. I was curious to know if anyone else had encountered my problem and if I'd any hope of a favourable outcome. In an ideal world I should because I'm 100% certain I did nothing wrong. I'm around long enough to know that I might not even get a response from them, let alone anything helpful.

CeltS_Kavo

Odus fell down wrote: »

I can't check just now but I'm pretty sure I used PayPal at the time. I tend to use that rather than give my card details. I was curious to know if anyone else had encountered my problem and if I'd any hope of a favourable outcome. In an ideal world I should because I'm 100% certain I did nothing wrong. I'm around long enough to know that I might not even get a response from them, let alone anything helpful.

Cool..yes it's a pain man I personally would make up a new account so I wouldn't have to deal with them.. I think you said you did make one so for future reference keep the emails saved for your dealings with them so you have proof of your buys and account details and so on.

ScumLord

I had a bad experience with Steam support. I installed steam the first time when HL2 came out and installing steam was mandatory. It was a real pain for me at the time because I was on dial up. I played half life and then boycotted steam for years afterwards. I had lost access to my old email and contacted steam, it took them ages to get back to me, they made me send them pictures of the half life 2 box and the codes on it and then never replied to me again.

I eventually opened a new account.

Skerries

ScumLord wrote: »

I had a bad experience with Steam support. I installed steam the first time when HL2 came out and installing steam was mandatory. It was a real pain for me at the time because I was on dial up. I played half life and then boycotted steam for years afterwards. I had lost access to my old email and contacted steam, it took them ages to get back to me, they made me send them pictures of the half life 2 box and the codes on it and then never replied to me again.

I eventually opened a new account.

did you ever buy any of the other boxed Valve games because if you put the key in now it will give you all the older games

ScumLord

Skerries wrote: »

did you ever buy any of the other boxed Valve games because if you put the key in now it will give you all the older games

No after that fiasco I really did avoid anything with valve on it for years.

Ursus Horribilis

I thought I'd come back and update ye. I opened a ticket on Monday and got a reply on Wednesday looking for a bit more information to verify the software and my ownership of the account. I ended up going back to 2010 in my PayPal account to retrieve invoice numbers - that being the last time I bought anything off Steam and played the games :eek:

That seems to have been enough for them. The ticket was updated today, saying my account appears to have been compromised. I also received an email to say my password had been reset. So I'm almost back in business it would appear. I'm pleasantly surprised I have to say

moonboy52

Good news OP. Make sure to use the Steam Guard (2FA) feature, which essentially rules out it ever happening again. Use 2FA if you are using Gmail as well

AlmightyCushion

ScumLord wrote: »

I had a bad experience with Steam support. I installed steam the first time when HL2 came out and installing steam was mandatory. It was a real pain for me at the time because I was on dial up. I played half life and then boycotted steam for years afterwards. I had lost access to my old email and contacted steam, it took them ages to get back to me, they made me send them pictures of the half life 2 box and the codes on it and then never replied to me again.

I eventually opened a new account.

The exact same happened to me on my first account. Bought Half Life 2 and had to bring the family PC to my brother's house to install it as we had no internet. A few years later I built my own PC and decided I'd install it and play it again on a more capable computer. I had no idea what my account detail were as I had only used it the once a few years ago. Same as yourself, multiple emails including having to send a picture of the box and the cd key and in the end it went nowhere. Swore I'd never touch Steam again and just pirated a copy of it.

I eventually got a free copy of it from some kind soul on here a good few years later (I think they owned HL2 then bought the orange box so had a spare copy) and that led to the creation of my current Steam account.

AlmightyCushion

moonboy52 wrote: »

Good news OP. Make sure to use the Steam Guard (2FA) feature, which essentially rules out it ever happening again. Use 2FA if you are using Gmail as well

Why are you especially singling out Gmail here? Genuine question as I use Gmail.

Dacelonid

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Why are you especially singling out Gmail here? Genuine question as I use Gmail.

I guess he just meant any mail account, seeing as someone with access to your mail account will have access to password reset emails etc

Personally I use two factor authentication anywhere that supports it, Gmail, Github, Steam, Dropbox accounts etc, and any time a service that I use introduces it, I promptly add it.

2Mad2BeMad

my 2 smurf accounts got banned.
1 from overwatch, I was wrecking silver players haha its funny :P
2nd was vac banned, only a bhop script, I miss the old bhopping in css

other then that never banned before
I think a vac ban on a main account where all your games are is horrible, just makes your account look dirty or something.

salamanca22

It happened me a few years ago when you could have more than one steam account associated with the same email address.

For some reason they allowed you to do this but if you did it they would ban those accounts under suspicion of fraud or some other similar excuse. This was easily ten years ago if not more.

I used to trade steam accounts, made a little pocket change and made the mistake of using the same email twice. I would get low numbered steamID accounts and trade them for cash or games. At the time it was not against the terms of service to trade accounts. I believe it is now.

It took about 6 months and threats (from a 15-16 year old ) to get my lawyer involved before they released my main account I had since steam first opened. I then, like the idiot I am continued on to use a game hack (hands up, I was dumb) in counter strike and had the account vac banned anyway. I have since moved on from that account and now have almost 900 steam games and no bans on my current account. I could not imagine the feelings I would have if that account ended up banned, even a vac ban would totally sully the account for me. Good thing I am an adult now

moonboy52

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Why are you especially singling out Gmail here? Genuine question as I use Gmail.

I replied on my phone so it was a short message.

Outlook / Gmail have 2FA using your phone for Authentication.

Why i mentioned Gmail is that they have support for Yubikeys (By Yubico)

Whilst using ones phone gives a very high level of certainty that ones account will not be compromised, using a Yubikey / U2F with Gmail / Google account is pretty much bulletproof.

There are more expensive versions available for use with Lastpass etc but the £13 version will do for a basic Google account

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yubico-Y-123-FIDO-U2F-Security/dp/B00NLKA0D8/ref=pd_bxgy_147_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1BFG1QASK1CNEKR30JGJ

ED E

Its worth noting that SMS based 2F or even using gAuth is 99% as secure but a lot less hassle IMO.

Overheal

2FA is why I haven't played the Overwatch Beta, or even been the least bit enthused about Legacy of the Void. I know my authenticator is somewhere in the house, but where may as well be a matter of what is the meaning of life because if I go looking for that and not cleaning up all of my messes around the house I'm going to feel like a real piece of sh!t.