Confidence Scams on Steam – The Bane of PC Players that Never Goes Away

Confidence scams on Steam are among the most widespread in the gaming community, mainly because they work in too many cases. The weapon needed to fight this type of threat is user knowledge.

Confidence scams are not exclusive to the gaming industry, but they're making an impact because of the sheer number of people playing games. The scams are not exclusive to Steam either, but because the platform is a complex ecosystem with its own marketplace for users, it’s a much more attractive platform for scammers.

As the name of the scam implies, fraudsters try to gain the victim's confidence either by admitting to a mistake that somehow also involves regular users or by posing as someone in a position of authority, such as a Valve employee.

The goal is usually straightforward: trick people and take control of their accounts. Once they gain access to the account, they ask for a payment to relinquish control. Of course, there's no guarantee that they will follow through even when paid.

Here is a message that people could receive on Discord or even directly on Steam:

"I accidentally reported your account on Steam for illegal purchase coz someone same name as you tried to hijack my account and use it to buy games on Steam, then I realized it was not you, I told the admin that it's just a mistake but they won't believe and they told me that the report is accepted and your account will be deleted and banned after 1 hour if you cannot contact them and prove your innocents. they sent me ticket that's why I'm trying to contacted you."

The potential victim is redirected to a Discord conversation where someone pretends to be a Steam admin, asking for login credentials. Most players dismiss this type of message for the obvious reasons:

• Steam doesn't ask people for their credentials, and you should never offer user names and passwords online to anyone, no matter the platform.
• Steam employees won't try to redirect to another platform. In fact, Valve's conversations with customers happen exclusively through Steam Help.
• Any message that has any kind of urgency or ultimatum behind it should immediately make everyone suspicious.

This simple list of measures can help Steam gamers determine if a message they receive is part of a scam.

• Be suspicious of any message coming from friends or unknown persons, especially if the message seems urgent.
• Someone is asking for your credentials to prove your identity.
• Someone is asking for the authentication code sent by Steam via email, SMS, or mobile app.
• Someone pretends to represent Valve or another company.

Of course, if you suspect that your friend's account has been compromised, you can always report it to Valve. It's also a good idea to report any fraud attempts, no matter where they come from.

If you lose your account to a scammer, don't offer money to recover it. Contact Valve directly, as the company has a dedicated functionality built into the service that helps users recover stolen accounts.

You can stay in the know and take control of the digital you with Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection. Our dedicated identity protection solution continuously monitors the public web and the dark web on your behalf, reporting breaches that put your personal data and identity at risk in real-time.