Killuminati Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I've seen many people in our division ending up being victims of scammers/phishing. I'm making this post only to provide some tips on how to avoid this from happening to you. Most common one I see is a random person adding you on steam, messaging you with a link and promises of free in game items and other things like steam trading cards or even free games. DO NOT even click on those links. Simply clicking on the link can have consequences like virus / malware infections. Personally, I report it to steam, screenshot and links included and then block them from my account. I would recommend you do the same when you come across a scammer. If you must click on that link for any reason make sure to follow these tips. Whats really happening is their attempt at social engineering/Phishing by getting people to go to a link that may look like a legit Steam website, but there is always a dead giveaway that people miss. Steam will NEVER ask for your log in info via chat messages, nor would they ask you to follow a random link and sign in. Official steam reps will NEVER contact someone using steam chat.They can also try intimidating someone by saying they are official Valve employees asking you to sign into a link to confirm your account and keep it active. DOnt fall for this, remember Valve will never contact you via steam messages for this. Scammers try clever ways to mask links and make them look legit. For instance, we know some of steam's official links have steampowered.com in there like, store.steampowered.com, which is the actual link to Steams store. Make sure to check the link as they cleverly try to hide the fact that their steam link actually says STEARNPOWERED instead of STEAMPOWERED. When its lowercase its hard to distinguish between the two when quickly glancing at them, specially with certain fonts. e.g. (steampowered, stearnpowered). If someone is trying to add you on steam to trade, and for some reason they cant. It is because you blocked that steam account at one point and it's why they can't add you. If you're like me you block mostly scammers, so it might be a scammer you encountered previously that is now using a new name/avatar info but same steam ID/account. So be careful of who you unblock to trade with if you really must. Another scam someone might try are false promises. Do NOT give someone an item without getting anything in return. Scammers love to give false promises. Most common one is where they are asking you to give them your item first, and they will trade you their item at a later time for any reason. Scammers might say they have the item in another account, or a friend is holding it/using it temporarily, they might even link you to a friends inventory or any other random person's inventory to make you believe they have the item. Never accept a trade where you get nothing in return, unless of course its an actual gift you're giving someone. I've seen this type of scam too many times. They will take your item, block you, and you will never hear from them again. Which leads me to trust. You can not trust anybody online. I don't care how long you've been playing with someone online. If you don't actually know them irl, they can and will scam you. Money changes everyone, and when it comes to rare valuable items, they dont care about online friendships. I've seen it happen more than once, and unfortunately, it will keep happening. Now speaking about money. You get a lot of scammers promising you real life $$ for one or all your items using Paypal. You accept, All is going well, you see the money in paypal and think everything is ok. Trade is complete. WRONG. Scammers will go through the process of sending money but once they have your items in their hands, they simply call up their credit card /bank/ and/or paypal and request a chargeback stating they never recieved the goods. Paypal will hold the money and return it back to the scammer. Leaving you without any money nor items. I can 't stress enough on how much you should avoid PayPal trades like this. I'm hoping these tips will save someone from falling victim to this. Feel free to post any other tips that you can provide to your fellow CS:GO buddies. TL;DR Don't believe false promises Don't follow random links you get via steam messages Steam/Valve employees will never contact you via steam messages, they're all fakes. Don't sign into sites using your steam login expecting to get free items/games Don't accept trades where they expect you to send item first, and promises that you'll get their item later Don't trade via Paypal, expecting real money payment for items. You will end up with no money and no items 13 Quote Link to comment
Joey7 Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 also if you do get your items phished, make sure your steam guard IS enabled. Because i was hacked the steam guard got disabled and he had access to my account completely Quote Link to comment
DeathShot Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Easier version: Don't be an idiot. 9 Quote Link to comment
Killuminati Posted February 23, 2014 Author Share Posted February 23, 2014 Easier version: Don't be an idiot. I don't think that is it. There are a lot of people who simply game on PC and are not that tech savvy. They don't know how to distinguish between real and fake sites the way someone that has years of experience using a computer can. These tips might seem like obvious things to look out for, or even "dumb" to fall victim to to somebody with pc experience, but to someone that doesn't know much about these things, it can be very helpful. 1 Quote Link to comment
youthedog Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 I found a better guide. https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003 7 Quote Link to comment
hgdallas Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Great guide, common sense also helps. 1 Quote Link to comment
Magic Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 Just give me your knives and everything will be alright. 2 Quote Link to comment
RageQuit Posted February 23, 2014 Share Posted February 23, 2014 (edited) I don't think that is it. There are a lot of people who simply game on PC and are not that tech savvy. They don't know how to distinguish between real and fake sites the way someone that has years of experience using a computer can. These tips might seem like obvious things to look out for, or even "dumb" to fall victim to to somebody with pc experience, but to someone that doesn't know much about these things, it can be very helpful. Well, I think it's really a "phish me once, shame on you, phish me twice, shame on me" sort of thing. If you get phished once, from then on you should be wary of pretty much anything that is hyperlinked. If you just hover over the hyperlink, it's obvious that something like "stearn" and "steam" aren't the same thing. Plus, if you do happen to click the link anyway, you'll still have to enter your information most of the time (unless the page itself infects you, which isn't the case most of the time). Look at the URL address. Also, for the common sense department, people who just happen to be giving away a ton of free stuff, offering a lottery, raffle, early access to some coveted beta, etc. are rarely legitimate. Edited February 23, 2014 by RageQuit Quote Link to comment
joKer Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 EASY WAY TO STOP PHISHING ill hold on to all your stuff for you. Without your stuff theres nothing to phish! 1 Quote Link to comment
DarkMonotone Posted February 24, 2014 Share Posted February 24, 2014 Wait, people are actually retarded enough to give away their account information on the internet? Quote Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.