Important Common scams and how to avoid and report them

This is supposed to be a list of the most common scams/electronic fraud at the moment. I tried to include measures to counter them and example pictures where possible.

For my guide to checking out traders' reputations and reporting tools visit this page

Account phishing/hijacking:

There are quite a few methods with which scammers try to steal your account data and/or items. Deathsaw and Naz0Xtreme who were long term regulars at LZ trade recently made a good steam guide with example pictures of the most common approaches at this point.

If your account was hijacked contact steam support to get your account back. There is a chance that they restore the items you lost once if you can provide screenshots of your inventory history and there is proof you were actually hijacked.

Fake steam wallet scam:

Scammers will offer ridiculous amounts of money in Steam trade offers for your items. Of course it is not possible to transfer Steam wallet funds using trade offers so you would just trade them your items for free.

If someone sends you such an offer make sure to take an uncropped screenshot of that trade offer, report them in our scammer section and also report them to Valve. Either include your screenshot or link them to your report in our forums.

A typical trade offer would look like this:


Quick-switch scam:

While this scam used to be far more common before different colours for different qualities were introduced it still exists. Scammer puts up an unusual hat for example and usually asks for a large number of items on your side. While you are busy putting all your items up they would exchange the unusual hat for a unique hat of the same type or generally an item of much lower value. Always check what you are actually trading for before you accept a trade!

Getting decent proof of this technique is quite hard as you would have to take a lot of screenshots in the process. Still report incidents like that on our forums so we can further investigate that person's activities.

Impersonation of trusted traders/middlemen/admins with intent to defraud:

Some scammers try to get your trust by impersonating traders or middlemen with a good reputation. They would typically change their name to match said person and link you to the steamrep profile of said person. Always double/triple/quadruplecheck if the person you are talking to really is the person he claims to be.
If you find an impersonator take screenshots of his profile and name history and report them.

Fake middleman/“trusted friend“ scam:

Typically used for higher value items a person would add you and either tell you they want your item but have to buy keys first or they want to check if your item is duped and ask you to trade the item to a "trusted friend“ of yours so you "won't run away“ with the item. They would then open up a group chat and invite your trusted friend to that while impersonating you – thus making your friend trade the item "back“ to „you“.

Once again double-check if the person you are talking to really is your friend. If not take screenshots of everything and report them at our forums.

Example picture showing a scammer impersonating me. Take note of the added "." after the name.



PayPal scams:

While some scammers promise paypal payment and never pay at all after you traded them the item/s there are others who charge the money back after some time. There is no real way to be totally safe there, but having them add something like „This payment is for virtual items in Team Fortress 2 which I have already received“ should help your cause when reporting the issue to PayPal support.

Take screenshots of your inventory history and your paypal balance and report them to our forums. Contact PayPal support to try and get your money back.

Game key scams:

Dealing with game activation keys is risky business, I'd advise you to only trade for steam gifts of games unless the seller has some proper reputation and is/seems to be in the "business" for a long time.

Why is that? Well, game keys have no history, so if the game key is already used or totally invalid you will never know if the person who sold you the key actually is a scammer or was scammed himself. Game key scams are a hell to investigate and investigations often lead to nothing. If you totally have to buy game activation keys at least be aware of the high risk you take.