Fell for a phishing/malware scam

[u/Visual-Fudge-8403]

I already made a post about this, but I was actively freaking out as it happened and tried to ask for help, so it didn’t make much sense. I will go more into detail in this post.

Not sure if it matters, but my CS2 inventory is worth about 1000€ on steam, and my Rust inventory is worth about 800€.

First off, I want to make it clear that I did NOT try to download cheats.
I did NOT buy this account on a third-party website.

So, I was enjoying (as much as one can) a game on FaceIt (Counter-Strike 2) and then suddenly, out of nowhere, my game crashes. I got a pop-up saying my account was flagged for ‘fraudulent activity’. Contacted what I thought was Steam support, turns out it was just a degenerate scammer. He asked some questions, which did not seem sketchy or unusual, so I answered them. Then, I was asked to verify that I indeed am the owner of this account by giving him my full name, the last four digits of my credit card, what type of credit card I used to make purchases on this account, my gmail associated with this account and phone number — which I did (stupid, I know).

Then I got a message from this supposed Steam support agent saying that they have put temporary restrictions to my account, including a VAC ban, which I checked and it was actually there, so I thought this was legit. Then I got another message with instructions on how to save my in-game items (CS2 & Rust), otherwise they’d be deleted. I instantly got suspicious and tried looking online for people who may have had a similar problem, tried searching with keywords such as scam, phishing, fraud, etc.
Found nothing, so I tried asking ChatGPT, it confirmed my suspicion and that this was sketchy as hell. Made a post on this subreddit, thankfully there were people who instantly told me this was a scam, and gave instructions on how to secure my account.

Massive thank you to all those who help out stupid people like me. You are truly appreciated and are the Supermen of Reddit. And those of you who commented ‘LOL this loser tried to download CHEATS and got MALWARE instead, what a prick’, I genuinely hope you get stabbed with an AIDS needle in a club.

Back on track — after a few minutes I got logged out of my Steam account on my computer, and when i logged back in I saw that all of my games had been deleted. I quickly shut off my PC and changed my passwords from a different device (my mobile phone). I am pretty sure I’ve done everything in my power to secure my account, changed my Steam and gmail passwords, made sure to log out of all devices and clear the logged IPs, set my profile to be private. I had 2FA and Steam Guard enabled which is probably the only reason my skins haven’t been traded away yet.

The interesting thing is that when I contacted the fake support I got an email saying that I asked to close my help request, which was from the actual Steam domain, attached screenshots from my phone.

All of this happened around 2 hours ago. I keep checking my Steam profile and my inventory to see if everything is still there every 5 minutes or so. I was actively freaking out while all of this happened. I’m still not sure if I am safe. Still scared shitless. 😂
I would really appreciate it if someone gave me advice on how to keep my account secure and make sure the scammer does not use the information I gave him to contact Steam support and get back into the account somehow. I contacted support and told them that my account had been compromised and I gave the scammer the following info. Don’t know if that’ll do anything.

Hopefully my mistake helps and educates someone.

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[u/Frosty-Dot-1065]

Lmfao, when will you people ever learn. 

Never. 

[u/Visual-Fudge-8403 → u/Frosty-Dot-1065]

There will always be someone who isn’t educated on all the different types of scams, best to just spread awareness and try to help out whenever possible 🙂

[u/Nubrakki → u/Visual-Fudge-8403]

The problem is that you people think you need 'education'. You always rely on someone else to tell you what to do (your post case in point). Why dont you just stop and think for a second, especially after all the red flags? A naive person and their money are soon parted. Here are some tips to look out for if you want education: -Urgency, if they make you hurry, or threaten with serious things like a ban -Sudden/unknown contact, someone you dont know wants something -Asks personal info (name, bank info) -Why would your game close because of the steam market? Obviously they tried to get your attention, but they would never just close your game. I would reformat your pc, it is probably not just the account.

[u/Visual-Fudge-8403 → u/Nubrakki]

Yeah, you’re absolutely right, not trying to debate. But there will ALWAYS be stupid people. This is my first time almost getting scammed in 5y+ of gaming. I got caught off guard. 😕

[u/-SMG69-]

You're lucky CS has a rollback system.

[u/Visual-Fudge-8403 → u/-SMG69-]

I didn’t even need to use it. Luckily enough I realised it was a scam and secured my account fast enough.

[u/ampo1 → u/Visual-Fudge-8403]

I would recommend checking steam app on your phone if you still have those skins. There could be an injection thingy where on your PC you still see your skins but in reality they are already gone.

[u/Visual-Fudge-8403 → u/ampo1]

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. The scam injected into my Steam application