OPSkins/Marketplace/etc SCAM

The Setup:

In short, the scammer will as usual, begin by making an offer that seems too good to be true. They will then proceed to attempt to convince you that your item is not marketable on a certain automated site, and will ask you to "prove" that the item is marketable by listing it on the site.

The Scam: scammer will have an alt account impersonate the site bot and send a trade offer for your items. If you are not careful, you will end up sending the items to what seems like the site but is actually the scammer.

Steam Admin Scam (item verification)[/b]

The Setup:
Scammer will begin by making an offer that seems too good to be true. (this is a recurring theme with scammers) They will then ask that your item be "verified" by a steam admin or some sort of reputable individual by sending it to them.

The Scam: This is obvious enough, the "steam admin" is the scammer's alt. You're not getting those items back.

Steam Admin Scam (middleman)

The Setup:
Scammer will begin by blah blah blah...offering amazing trade blah blah blah you get the point. Always be suspicious of trades that are too good to be true. Not saying people who overpay are neccessarily scammers, as this is a common practice in trading, but all scammers will offer some sort of good trade (obviously!). Same as before, but instead of verifying the item they ask for the said "steam admin" to be a middleman.

The Scam: Same as before.

Not many people fall for these scams anymore, theyre pretty obvious.




Just some scams that seem new and i have seen many people fall for.

Festive weapons Scam

The Setup: most scammers will offer you what seems like a festive medi gun or some other high value festive weapon asking you for its price seeming like an innocent new trader unsure of the item's value, hoping that you will try to "shark" him or in general buy it for whatever price.

The Scam: Its not a real festive weapon but one of those "festivised" ones that are practically worthless. You will see a "festivised" tag in the weapon description, as well as the item info lacking the "limited" tag e.g. "limited medi gun". Real festives do not have the "festivised" tags and DO have the item info with the "limited" attribute.



Hijacking scam[/b]

Ok this one is less of a scam and more of a category, as many types of scams end with the scammer getting control of your account by some way or another. (hijacking it).

Gambling site scam (hijacking)[/b]

The Setup:
Scammer will claim he needs to withdraw items from a gambling site, and will ask you to help him to withdraw them in exchange for some sort of payment.

The Scam:
This can go a few ways.
1. The site asks for a deposit, where it takes your deposit and does not give you the item.
2. The steam login is fake, sending your login details to the scammer. (hijack)

Chain message hijack[/b]

The Setup:
Scammer will send people a message that they have won something, asking them for their username to "transfer steam funds" (which is not currently possible).

The Scam:
Somewhere along the line they will ask for your steam guard code to "verify" the payment or whatever. They use it to change your password and hijack the account.

They might also link you to a site with a fake steam login which steals your steam login details.


The "OH NO I AM SO SORRY" scam[/b]

The Setup:
Ok this one just relies on the victim panicking, by the scammer adding you randomly and saying something along the lines of:
"I am so sorry I made a mistake I accidentally reported you to (insert reputable figure here e.g. steam admin) and he is about to ban you if you dont verify your account!"

The Scam:
This one can go almost any of the ways previously described, so watch out. They might ask for your steam guard code, ask you to login on some sketchy site or just ask for items outright similar to the method of the "Item verification scam"



Some extra stuff:
- Always be suspicious of random adds with high profile levels if you do not have listings on any trading sites. Private inventory = scammer.
- Never share steam guard code or username
- Steam admins wont ask your for anything.
- Free stuff is most likely a scam.

Ok, RIP, you have somehow fallen for some hijacking technique and now you have been locked out of your account. But its actually still easily recoverable. Lets check some quick things that might allow you to instantly recover it.

[h1Some things to remember[/h1]

When the hijacker logs in from his device on your account for the first time, he will get a 7 day trade ban. This gives you some time to recover it without risk of losing your items. (unless he deletes them)




This one is something that hijackers might overlook and I have recovered quite a few accounts this way. Basically, just use the email or mobile authenticator to reset the password to lock the hacker out and regain access to the account. This can be done fairly easily and has a higher chance of success the earlier you try it, since the hijacker has less time to go through all the settings and change these things.


Ok, thats it, your items and account are lost forever

Preventing Damage to the account

As the recovery process will take varying amounts of time, we need to first prevent any damage to the account e.g. items/friendslist/funds.

Ok, so go to your email and find any emails from steam regarding the password change. When your password is changed, Steam emails you regarding the change and there is no way he can change the email address without changing the password to get into the account in the first place (unless you tell him both your password and steam guard code) so chances are an email was sent to you regarding this.

Found it? Now scroll to the bottom where it tells you that if this change was not made by you, you can lockdown the account. Click the link and follow through the steps and lock down the account. If you made it this far, your account is fairly safe as he is very restricted and cant edit anything (or chat with anyone I think).


Recovering the account

Now, go to this link https://steamhost.cn/help_steampowered_com/en/wizard/HelpWithLogin
and select the options for "Stolen account" and scroll down and then "change my password"
and enter your username.

Now, you should be brought to a screen that has a form for you to fill up, so fill it up.
From past experiences, steam support is fairly reliable at recovering it quickly within a day as long as you provide one steam gift card code that you have used in the past (or game key / any steam codes that you redeemed).

Now wait for an email from steam support and pray for the best. (dont worry too much though, they so far have been fairly reliable as I said before).


You recovered the account. Good job. Now we need to Secure it.

Change your password (of course)
Change back the email address and mobile authenticator to your own.
Scan your PC for malware.

DONE!

Thats all for now, feel free to ask me any questions.

Guide updated 7:20pm 13th December 2018