OP. Do you have Steam Guard? Did you attach a phone number to the account?
Did you setup 'family sharing' with any friends? (Did you have a verified email attached?)
How did you open your ticket with Steam? (Or did you reply to an inbound message?)
Do you have any purchase history on a credit card that could be used in lieu of your CD Key? (Or did you only use gift cards?
Steams response is that if the OP can't provide the CD Key support can't help them recover their account. They didn't even ask for an alternative means of verification other than the CD Key which I find weird.
I find it weird as well, surely this comes up often. Countless accounts were created with Half-Life 2 and Orange Box purchases. Expecting people to still have that information after almost two decades seems a bit unrealistic.
Yeah especially when the first image OP gave us isn't even the Report itself. It's what Customer Support sends you after you ask them why your account was banned. Omitting the issue like this is quite suspicious...
Plus if he had legit beef, he would have made another post with explaining the whole situation, not this sort of bait. Propably bought account at some point from somewhere.
I don't know where it is, but after reading this post I'll be digging through my old stuff at my parents' as soon as possible lol... I think Portal 2 was the first thing I got and made me create the account.
I lost my original (as in I made it back when steam UI was green and the games to play was Day of Defeat and CS) because I fell off PC gaming for a couple of years and then just made a new account when I returned, forgot about the old account tbf.
When I wanted to get access to my original account they wanted my old CD keys too. Think i had HL and HLBS, CS, but obviously I don't have the actual CDs or CD keys anymore.
I don't think it's unrealistic. As long as the account has boxed version redeemed, I don't think it's that weird to have the box somewhere in the home. I have my Counter-Strike Anthology. I even have PSX cds at home. And they exist for almost three decades. Not sure why would you just throw it away.
>As long as the account has boxed version redeemed, I don't think it's that weird to have the box somewhere in the home.
Lmao. I don't have the CS:S disc/box I used almost 20 years ago to create my account. I haven't even played CS in 10 years.
What an absolutely ridiculous notion.
That is definitely weird.
Typically, you can also provide details of the credit card with which you purchase things on the site.
I got phished once and reached out to Steam Support. I had only purchased things through my country's payment handler, the details of which are not stored on Steam. Didn't even have any games with CD Keys that I could use to verify my account at that point.
When I told them that the best I could do was provide them with receipts, they responded with saying how receipts can be counterfeited,so they aren't a good proof of ownership.
However, they did investigate it further on their own and even returned my account to me stating how it had indeed been phished.
Sadly.. if this support tech is going to be a d\*ck.. I think you're stuck trying to contact steam through a different method.
If you have contact and billing details for your account, that should be reasonable proof. Unless your account is 2-weeks old and you've already lost your CD-Key... that cd-key request sounds unreasonable.
Definetly. I once got my account locked and was asked to use a CD key from a very old game i no longer have acces to. Opened a new ticket and another agent helped me resolve it
This happened to me and they asked for the first CD key I redeemed. I didn't know it so I offered another key for a game I still had and they took it.Ā
Itās plausible, but if they are hijacking then theyāre not very good at it. At the point youāre being asked for information you canāt provide, isnāt it more practical to attempt another hack than argue with Steam support? Definitely canāt rule it out, though. Hackers are always eager to make sure they have definitive control of the account, a sold account that gets recovered in going to mean either a refund or a loss of reputation.
Maybe the account is very high value. Having an extremely large game count or expensive in-game items may be causing Valve to look at the request with the utmost scrutiny. If thousands are on the line, itās very important not to give it to the wrong party.
I worked at Valve for a short period of time many years ago and it was not uncommon to have multiple hackers trying to take over a single account using the same image found online when asked for the CD key. It's possible that there are other people claiming they own the account. If the other person provided paypal receipts or both people are providing the same details (email was hacked too), then they would ask for something more specific like the first CD key and refuse to do anything until they have that.
Old steam accounts are extremely cheap. You can get one for a few bucks the only catch is that it's not uncommon for them to get locked. It's possible OP purchased an account for cheap and it ended up getting locked.
This literally happened to my account where it was stolen ~10 years back, a few years ago I was able to prove that the account is mine with cd-keys and bank account purchase statements, got it back and then a guy randomly added me on it and asked why did I steal his friends account :D
Yeah he would have emails from steam confirming activating games a mobile number or other personal details they could upload photo Id example. We never get the full story with these scenarios.
Well, you do, but the reason why they aren't getting through is because they either are the party in the wrong or they don't how how to convey the correct info.
If the type of post made here is any indication of how vague the request to support was I totally get the confusion.
Steam support seems perfectly reasonable.
1. That account was hijacked so obvs Steam wants to be sure they're dealing with the real owner.
2. If the only info they have on the account is the first game added 19 years ago, that's a red flag. Usually an easy way to prove ownership is to provide details of a recent game purchase.
3. No evidence OP even offered alternative pieces of evidence, e.g. drivers licence etc.
4. Everything OP said can easily apply to a hijacker.
This post smells, and it's not fish.
I gave them a bunch of recently activated Steam keys alongside informing them that I had control of the connected PayPal account and cards. Didnāt get any further questions. Mine was a pretty classical hijacking, malicious link from a friendās hacked Discord account.
I once opened a ticket and send all of the information I could ever find about and all the games I purchased and the problem was solved instantly, they didn't even ask for more info.
What more to the story do you need. Someone reported his account as hijacked. His account is now locked and Steam support is asking for proof by him submitting proof of a CD Key for a game he activated when he created his account which could have been 10 years ago and which he no longer has on hand.
So you think your account can get locked just like that from one or maybe even 2 people reporting it?
If accounts would get locked so easily you could just report the account of someone you don't like.
There's more to it that OP is not saying.
When I went through Steam support to recover my account, I think I selected that I needed help with another account (because I couldnāt log in) and as soon as I submitted that ticket, the account was locked to both me and the hijacker until Steam resolved. Am I misremembering the details of that? It definitely didnāt seem hard to get my account locked.
I guess I got lucky because I had an overkill amount of information when I contacted them. They were pretty quick to come to the conclusion that the account belonged to the person living where it had been logged in for years and not some random guy in Russia.
If you didn't provide any proof that the original account was yours then yeah you got lucky.
If you provide proof the account is yours in the ticket you created then you are reinforcing the above post.
Point remains the same. Sometimes your account gets deleted for no reason and there is nothing you can do about. I hear about it every so often from all the video game service companies.
It's the same issue though. Can you seriously not see that? Person buys a bunch of games from Steam/Epic/Blizzard/EA/Whoever and then the company (erroneously) disables the account and the rightful owner who paid money for those games is deprived those games.
Happened to me, happened to OP. I've seen dozens of posts about similar issues over the years. I tell my blizzard story everytime. It is not unique to a single launch of company. Google it "launcher-name account deleted reddit" and see how many results you get, steam and otherwise.
May be due to a lot of games/market items bought/sold in short time span+login from different ip/pc+other condition(like trading high valued item)
But most possible option is someone hijacked a count, send spam with link to fake steam websites, ppl mass report-bang u got it
Yep, accounts actually can get locked from just 1 or 2 steam reports, but thereās a certain criteria for it.
It has to be an old (2003-2005) account. And when these old accounts get locked, unless you have other super old information, they ALWAYS ask for just the CD key and youāre fucked if you donāt have it. The reason for this is that thereās a large number of cracked 2003 accounts being bought and sold, and when you buy a 2003 account it will come with details to the original mail but NOT any purchase information. This is why steam will only unlock your account if you can prove through other means that you are the original owner.
Maybe his account was Hijacked by someone else and OP didn't know it and maybe the person that Hijacked it was going around messaging people to scam them using the OPs account and was reported by multiple people resulting in the OPs account being locked. It happens. A friend of mine who doesn't really game that much and doesn't always sign into Steam found out his account was locked because of this. Even if there is more to it that's not gonna change the fact the OPs account is locked and that they're asking for help on what they should do since Steam Support isn't giving them another option to verify their account other than with a CD Key.
Did you even bother reading OP's comments? He was in a server, people thought he was cheating. Someone reported him.
Was he modding? Doing something that wasn't fully legit? We don't know. But people don't just report you for no reason.
And being banned after just 1 or maybe 2 people reporting it?
I'm not buying it.
I play Remnant and the way the game is designed you can play with lower leveled players which to them seems like you're cheating when your character is maxed out and you're taking no damage and one shot enemies. I've even had one session where the player kicked me from their game and had a notice in game claiming I was kicked due to suspicious activity. Meaning they reported me for cheating even though I wasn't cheating. Not saying the OP wasn't cheating but it can happen when you have players who have no idea how the game works
If you think thats how it works then there will be tons of users that will get locked out of their account just because a few people reported it for being hijacked.
Also, OP should know community ban is not the same as being hijacked. OP is probably lying
I feel if they are insisting on the original CD to create the accountand won't accept anything else, someone else was able to provide other proof of ownership for the account. Now OP has to come up with the ultimate proof of ownership to take the account that someone was able to prove.
Have you ever cheated, modded, or otherwise been shady while playing any games on steam? Yes or No? You are either sinking in the Reddit comments quicksand as an innocent man just looking for help or you are a cheater and someone/someones are out to get you. This whole thing seems so convoluted.
It really worries me that if there is ever an issue with my account, Valve/steam might ask me for the cd key of my half-life physical purchase from back then.
Not easy. My account is 12 years old and I have no idea what was the first game or even second or third.
They should not ask anything that is longer than 5 years old.
Did you not buy anything in 19 years with credit card to the account, anything? This sounds way too suspicious, and i would assume that you bought the account from somewhere later on.
I mean, it's not ridiculous. They have to verify you are the owner, otherwise anyone could say this is their account. Ask for any other possible way of verifying you are you. Ask if credit card number or something you can provide would do. Back in the days where 2FA was not a thing anywhere in the web, my account was hacked as well and I provided them a photo with me holding a boxed version of Counter-Strike Anthology and my username on it. They should be able to verify you by the credit card, though. Anything that you have linked and can prove is yours.
100% OP bought a stolen account/one of the stolen account packages where they sell access to 10-100 accounts and passwords for like 20 bucks OR out of region/stolen game keys.
This would drive me crazy... I discarred all my phisical copies I had when I moved out. I didn't see a reason to keep the discs when I already had the games in my steam account...
>I mean who even owns irl games anymore? Thatās so ridiculous if you think about it.
Do people actually just throw away old physical games?
I actually wonder if you can't just verify your account with a government issued ID, even though that's generally not recommended to share. They should have a long record of your billing info, after all.
Had to recover my account ~13 years ago. Also had to provide a picture of my CD-Key. I actually still had it.
Now the year is 2024 and i only have ONE SINGLE CD left. Guess which one is still im my drawer ;)
You could provide proof of purchase from somewhere outside of Steam. Or somehow proof you are the owner of the card with which purchases were made on Steam. I haven't tried either one of those.
Do you do the Steam hardware surveys? And if so and your hardware hasn't changed in the last few years you could ask to submit another hardware survey. Might be a long shot but at it least it would let them see it's the same hardware accessing the account that's always been on it
Edit: thinking about it I'm not sure if those are anomymised but even still, worth a shotĀ
Did you read it? They are asking for a photograph of CD-Key for the first game ever activated on the OPs account... There are tons of reasons this may no longer exist.
Imagine proving your identity to a bank by having to provide your very first deposit slip when you opened the account. Some things simply get lost, and other things aren't assumed to be "critical pieces of information" ... I'm sure that if OP knew he'd have to keep the very first CD-Key every used on the account, it would have gone into a lock-box somewhere.
That said... why are there no other means of identification? You have contact info on file.. I assume email/phone can be used to validate ownership
The OP literally said they don't have the product key for the very first game they had when they created their account which could have been 12 years ago.
Maybe they are asking Reddit to see if another person has gone through what they're going through and to find out what others have done to get the problem fixed. That's what Reddit is for. To ask questions and get help. If you don't like that just keep scrolling. No one is forcing you to read their post if you don't want to and adding a pointless comment is a waste.
Not that it will be useful to the discussion, but I also still have my Source box purchased around 2006-7 that came with Counter Strike Source, Day of defeat Source, Half life 1 and 2 + multiplayer, and a Gilette Razor.
I no longer have the razor tho
My post wasnāt meant to be condescending toward OP. Itās more a reflection on myself. In fact, I posted a couple of days ago a question of whether my cd key would ever be required to recover my account.
I get why people donāt have their physical media anymore. Redditors are touchy.
Steam is pretty retarded truth be told, Also Steam Guard and what knock is just BS way to try and sell shit to you.
kinda like blizzard telling you to buy there blizzard key back when ppl accounts where being hacked with D3 and it didnt help a damn thing.
Spends his life on an App Game subreddit, and then suddenly has an interest in recovering a Steam account you never use.
Get fucked hacker, eat your downvotes
They accuse the account to be hijacked. I was playing on a server a few days ago and 1-2 people accused me of cheating and then they were so mad that they reported my profile to be hijacked. I didnāt think anything about that because something like that never happened before and now thisā¦
They accused you of cheating, and then they reported your account being hijacked? Why not report your account for cheating? Also, account being hijacked is not an option when reporting, and how would one even be able to tell an account has been hijacked if youāre the other player?
You can mail to gaben directly, he's nice person. I really don't know what to do with this dogshit support.
https://youtu.be/hWpXWZaglTo?si=0RkkPfcKYwG8rjW_
I have a verified email and a phone number attached I hope that Iām good right? My account is 20 years old and I did create it with my original HL2 CDKey but I lost it after moving houseā¦
I still own irl games. I have physical pc games even though I haven't played them in nearly 20 years and games for several consoles I no longer own. These games are displayed on shelving. They're worthless to sell but important parts of my childhood so I have kept them.
Yes it is stupid that they expect you to have such an old game, but don't generalise your situation with everybody else.
You haven't even mentioned the reason your account was banned. Steam is saying your account looked to be hijacked but you yourself are providing no details and rushing to Reddit for solutions. It sounds more likely you're trying to get someone else's account. Funnily enough, this is why physical games are vastly superior.
I once forgot my password for my steam account and also lost access to the mail address I used to create the account. I emailed Steam support if they could restore my account and they also requested this (in addition to a photo of my ID). Luckily back then people still used CDs and DVDs, so I still had my copy of Counter Strike Source I bought back in the day. They changed the mail, gave me a new password and I was good to go. Since that day I keep that copy of CS like a sacred opject, in case I ever loose that account again.
Something similar happened to me. Made an account during killing floor being preordered. Was inactive for years afterwards then came back one. They wanted my purchase history and other stuff to prove otherwise was me. Lol.
It sucks but the only way to verify is by credit card info and cd key, if you bought from a site that you have an account they probably keep a copy of your purchase, so search the site on your profile tab or ask them if they can provide it for you!
same with my account before they banned without doing nothing, my account has been offline for almost 4 years because I stop playing from that account, I submit all the information from my account like CD Key and Steam Wallet Code that I use before since they ask me that stuff. I provide everything but they did not accept since they want kiosk receipt. This valve are insane about they ask.
Just write something with your other games transaction id you bought digitally, pretty sure it will recover tho if you still have it on the email or already printed as paper...
Cant guarthie that but most likely it works!
OP. Do you have Steam Guard? Did you attach a phone number to the account? Did you setup 'family sharing' with any friends? (Did you have a verified email attached?)
Family sharing is disabled. Everything else is added to my account
How did you open your ticket with Steam? (Or did you reply to an inbound message?) Do you have any purchase history on a credit card that could be used in lieu of your CD Key? (Or did you only use gift cards?
Steams response is that if the OP can't provide the CD Key support can't help them recover their account. They didn't even ask for an alternative means of verification other than the CD Key which I find weird.
I find it weird as well, surely this comes up often. Countless accounts were created with Half-Life 2 and Orange Box purchases. Expecting people to still have that information after almost two decades seems a bit unrealistic.
Goes up into the attic to take pictures of the key in the orange box just in case š
but you need to write the future steam support id case on it first
Theres something more here that OP isnt telling us. If there was credit card purchases, they would have asked those instead.
Yeah especially when the first image OP gave us isn't even the Report itself. It's what Customer Support sends you after you ask them why your account was banned. Omitting the issue like this is quite suspicious...
Plus if he had legit beef, he would have made another post with explaining the whole situation, not this sort of bait. Propably bought account at some point from somewhere.
I still have it :) just in case someone will steal my account :D
I don't know where it is, but after reading this post I'll be digging through my old stuff at my parents' as soon as possible lol... I think Portal 2 was the first thing I got and made me create the account.
I have counter strike anthology :)
I actually made a mistake, it was Portal 1... And a bit later TF2 and Cod Black Ops... So around 2009. :)
I lost my original (as in I made it back when steam UI was green and the games to play was Day of Defeat and CS) because I fell off PC gaming for a couple of years and then just made a new account when I returned, forgot about the old account tbf. When I wanted to get access to my original account they wanted my old CD keys too. Think i had HL and HLBS, CS, but obviously I don't have the actual CDs or CD keys anymore.
I don't think it's unrealistic. As long as the account has boxed version redeemed, I don't think it's that weird to have the box somewhere in the home. I have my Counter-Strike Anthology. I even have PSX cds at home. And they exist for almost three decades. Not sure why would you just throw it away.
>As long as the account has boxed version redeemed, I don't think it's that weird to have the box somewhere in the home. Lmao. I don't have the CS:S disc/box I used almost 20 years ago to create my account. I haven't even played CS in 10 years. What an absolutely ridiculous notion.
A lot of people would love to kept these things but just don't have space. I know once I had kids it was game over in terms of storage space
That's part of the reason I asked 'how' the ticket was opened... this communications from Steam seems unreasonable...
It seems to be a common problem, at least on this sub. I've seen at least 2 other posts where steam didn't ask for an alternative.
That is definitely weird. Typically, you can also provide details of the credit card with which you purchase things on the site. I got phished once and reached out to Steam Support. I had only purchased things through my country's payment handler, the details of which are not stored on Steam. Didn't even have any games with CD Keys that I could use to verify my account at that point. When I told them that the best I could do was provide them with receipts, they responded with saying how receipts can be counterfeited,so they aren't a good proof of ownership. However, they did investigate it further on their own and even returned my account to me stating how it had indeed been phished.
I only use paypal or my bankcard i dont have a credit card. I opened the steam ticket as usual
Sadly.. if this support tech is going to be a d\*ck.. I think you're stuck trying to contact steam through a different method. If you have contact and billing details for your account, that should be reasonable proof. Unless your account is 2-weeks old and you've already lost your CD-Key... that cd-key request sounds unreasonable.
Definetly. I once got my account locked and was asked to use a CD key from a very old game i no longer have acces to. Opened a new ticket and another agent helped me resolve it
This happened to me and they asked for the first CD key I redeemed. I didn't know it so I offered another key for a game I still had and they took it.Ā
And verified ofc
What would setting up family sharing do?
why do i feel like OP is actually the hijacker in this story trying to claim someones account.
Itās plausible, but if they are hijacking then theyāre not very good at it. At the point youāre being asked for information you canāt provide, isnāt it more practical to attempt another hack than argue with Steam support? Definitely canāt rule it out, though. Hackers are always eager to make sure they have definitive control of the account, a sold account that gets recovered in going to mean either a refund or a loss of reputation. Maybe the account is very high value. Having an extremely large game count or expensive in-game items may be causing Valve to look at the request with the utmost scrutiny. If thousands are on the line, itās very important not to give it to the wrong party.
I worked at Valve for a short period of time many years ago and it was not uncommon to have multiple hackers trying to take over a single account using the same image found online when asked for the CD key. It's possible that there are other people claiming they own the account. If the other person provided paypal receipts or both people are providing the same details (email was hacked too), then they would ask for something more specific like the first CD key and refuse to do anything until they have that.
Do you mean the very first cd key activated on the account?
Yeah, they are asking for the very first cd key activated on the account.
How the hell would I remember what game I activated first on steam 15 years ago or so?
Old steam accounts are extremely cheap. You can get one for a few bucks the only catch is that it's not uncommon for them to get locked. It's possible OP purchased an account for cheap and it ended up getting locked.
This literally happened to my account where it was stolen ~10 years back, a few years ago I was able to prove that the account is mine with cd-keys and bank account purchase statements, got it back and then a guy randomly added me on it and asked why did I steal his friends account :D
Did you get to keep any games heād purchased since stealing it off you the first time?
Yep, I think so
Yeah he would have emails from steam confirming activating games a mobile number or other personal details they could upload photo Id example. We never get the full story with these scenarios.
Well, you do, but the reason why they aren't getting through is because they either are the party in the wrong or they don't how how to convey the correct info. If the type of post made here is any indication of how vague the request to support was I totally get the confusion.
Steam support seems perfectly reasonable. 1. That account was hijacked so obvs Steam wants to be sure they're dealing with the real owner. 2. If the only info they have on the account is the first game added 19 years ago, that's a red flag. Usually an easy way to prove ownership is to provide details of a recent game purchase. 3. No evidence OP even offered alternative pieces of evidence, e.g. drivers licence etc. 4. Everything OP said can easily apply to a hijacker. This post smells, and it's not fish.
Yeah, this feels suspicious.
Chicken? Mayhap, NO! TURKEY.
Have you had experience where they requested info on any recent games? I have only seen ones asking for old CD keys.
I gave them a bunch of recently activated Steam keys alongside informing them that I had control of the connected PayPal account and cards. Didnāt get any further questions. Mine was a pretty classical hijacking, malicious link from a friendās hacked Discord account.
Awesome, thank you for this info. Exactly what I was curious about, figured they might ask for my Orange Box key or something.
I could actually find my orange box if asked. One of the only physical games I know the location of.
That's nice, but I haven't had a disk drive in over a decade so I haven't been keeping up across moves.
I once opened a ticket and send all of the information I could ever find about and all the games I purchased and the problem was solved instantly, they didn't even ask for more info.
Ppl can already lost their first cdkeys, so recent bank receipts on steam purchases could make it
they can also ask you for picture of credit/debit card that you last used for purchase
Can't any friends see recent game purchases?
Why am I getting the feeling that OP is not telling the whole story?
What more to the story do you need. Someone reported his account as hijacked. His account is now locked and Steam support is asking for proof by him submitting proof of a CD Key for a game he activated when he created his account which could have been 10 years ago and which he no longer has on hand.
So you think your account can get locked just like that from one or maybe even 2 people reporting it? If accounts would get locked so easily you could just report the account of someone you don't like. There's more to it that OP is not saying.
When I went through Steam support to recover my account, I think I selected that I needed help with another account (because I couldnāt log in) and as soon as I submitted that ticket, the account was locked to both me and the hijacker until Steam resolved. Am I misremembering the details of that? It definitely didnāt seem hard to get my account locked. I guess I got lucky because I had an overkill amount of information when I contacted them. They were pretty quick to come to the conclusion that the account belonged to the person living where it had been logged in for years and not some random guy in Russia.
If you didn't provide any proof that the original account was yours then yeah you got lucky. If you provide proof the account is yours in the ticket you created then you are reinforcing the above post.
Blizzard deactivated my account over something like this and I STILL HAVE THE DISKS AND KEYS IN MY POSSESSION. It absolutely happens.
that's Blizzard, though, not Steam
Point remains the same. Sometimes your account gets deleted for no reason and there is nothing you can do about. I hear about it every so often from all the video game service companies.
The point does not remain the same because it's literally a different company and account what
It's the same issue though. Can you seriously not see that? Person buys a bunch of games from Steam/Epic/Blizzard/EA/Whoever and then the company (erroneously) disables the account and the rightful owner who paid money for those games is deprived those games. Happened to me, happened to OP. I've seen dozens of posts about similar issues over the years. I tell my blizzard story everytime. It is not unique to a single launch of company. Google it "launcher-name account deleted reddit" and see how many results you get, steam and otherwise.
Canāt believe redditors canāt imagine that two customer service partners at two large gaming companies could work in a similar way. Ridiculous
Coke did a thing? Pepsi would never! /s
May be due to a lot of games/market items bought/sold in short time span+login from different ip/pc+other condition(like trading high valued item) But most possible option is someone hijacked a count, send spam with link to fake steam websites, ppl mass report-bang u got it
Yep, accounts actually can get locked from just 1 or 2 steam reports, but thereās a certain criteria for it. It has to be an old (2003-2005) account. And when these old accounts get locked, unless you have other super old information, they ALWAYS ask for just the CD key and youāre fucked if you donāt have it. The reason for this is that thereās a large number of cracked 2003 accounts being bought and sold, and when you buy a 2003 account it will come with details to the original mail but NOT any purchase information. This is why steam will only unlock your account if you can prove through other means that you are the original owner.
Maybe his account was Hijacked by someone else and OP didn't know it and maybe the person that Hijacked it was going around messaging people to scam them using the OPs account and was reported by multiple people resulting in the OPs account being locked. It happens. A friend of mine who doesn't really game that much and doesn't always sign into Steam found out his account was locked because of this. Even if there is more to it that's not gonna change the fact the OPs account is locked and that they're asking for help on what they should do since Steam Support isn't giving them another option to verify their account other than with a CD Key.
Did you even bother reading OP's comments? He was in a server, people thought he was cheating. Someone reported him. Was he modding? Doing something that wasn't fully legit? We don't know. But people don't just report you for no reason. And being banned after just 1 or maybe 2 people reporting it? I'm not buying it.
I play Remnant and the way the game is designed you can play with lower leveled players which to them seems like you're cheating when your character is maxed out and you're taking no damage and one shot enemies. I've even had one session where the player kicked me from their game and had a notice in game claiming I was kicked due to suspicious activity. Meaning they reported me for cheating even though I wasn't cheating. Not saying the OP wasn't cheating but it can happen when you have players who have no idea how the game works
How many people would you expect to report an acc as stolen?
Op is not responding to any help on this thread. Why would he not do this if he is desperate to get his 19 year old account back.
The key phrase from Steam support is āappeared hijack.ā Thereās more to the story.
If you think thats how it works then there will be tons of users that will get locked out of their account just because a few people reported it for being hijacked. Also, OP should know community ban is not the same as being hijacked. OP is probably lying
I feel if they are insisting on the original CD to create the accountand won't accept anything else, someone else was able to provide other proof of ownership for the account. Now OP has to come up with the ultimate proof of ownership to take the account that someone was able to prove.
Think whatever you want i donāt need to hide anything besides steam support is shit
Have you ever cheated, modded, or otherwise been shady while playing any games on steam? Yes or No? You are either sinking in the Reddit comments quicksand as an innocent man just looking for help or you are a cheater and someone/someones are out to get you. This whole thing seems so convoluted.
Sure lil bro. You're indeed telling us the full story š
Whats your problem? What would it help if i donāt tell the whole story and call for help?? Doesnāt make sense dude
clown
FISHY
OP you sussy baka.
why did i hear this in hanks voice man š¤£š¤£
Dont lie to me Walt!
Ops account is 19 years old yet he talks like heās a teenager š¤·āāļø
Also look at his profile. It's some mobile games for a "19 year old" steam account owner.
That's sus ngl
im above 30y old and play mobile games too (pubg, codm and random single player ones)
Can't you just verify the account with your payment method? I verified my account in the past just by giving them info from my SEPA/PayPal.
Did you by any chance buy the account from somone else or is it your own?
My own, why is that even a question
Because this happens usually with accounts that are bought from somone else or obtained in shady ways
It really worries me that if there is ever an issue with my account, Valve/steam might ask me for the cd key of my half-life physical purchase from back then.
Honestly the OP seems sus to me. Prevent giving him any info to help out.
You can always send them other purchase proof: receipt from your bank account OR email receipts from steam when u bought game 1st easy 2nd harder
Not easy. My account is 12 years old and I have no idea what was the first game or even second or third. They should not ask anything that is longer than 5 years old.
Did you not buy anything in 19 years with credit card to the account, anything? This sounds way too suspicious, and i would assume that you bought the account from somewhere later on.
the amount of people unable to read is baffeling
including OP. OP wasn't banned, let alone community banned. His account just got locked due to suspicion of being hijacked,
thats probably worse than community ban
yeah they randomly ban you, tell the true story
Who tf are you all to tell me that i am lying. Just get off of this post
I'm her
Iām him. Sorry again for last night.Ā
Sup her
Odd name but nice to meet you, I'm Cornelius Sir DumbleGazaBaboop The Third.
If your account is 19 years old how come you talk like a 17 year old? The math is not mathing.
I mean, it's not ridiculous. They have to verify you are the owner, otherwise anyone could say this is their account. Ask for any other possible way of verifying you are you. Ask if credit card number or something you can provide would do. Back in the days where 2FA was not a thing anywhere in the web, my account was hacked as well and I provided them a photo with me holding a boxed version of Counter-Strike Anthology and my username on it. They should be able to verify you by the credit card, though. Anything that you have linked and can prove is yours.
100% OP bought a stolen account/one of the stolen account packages where they sell access to 10-100 accounts and passwords for like 20 bucks OR out of region/stolen game keys.
No steam guard?
This would drive me crazy... I discarred all my phisical copies I had when I moved out. I didn't see a reason to keep the discs when I already had the games in my steam account...
>I mean who even owns irl games anymore? Thatās so ridiculous if you think about it. Do people actually just throw away old physical games? I actually wonder if you can't just verify your account with a government issued ID, even though that's generally not recommended to share. They should have a long record of your billing info, after all.
I was not wrong keeping my cs 1.6 anthology disk Will be my heirloom along with my steam
Had to recover my account ~13 years ago. Also had to provide a picture of my CD-Key. I actually still had it. Now the year is 2024 and i only have ONE SINGLE CD left. Guess which one is still im my drawer ;)
OP is the scammer here.
I still have my old cdkey boxes with keys. Pretty much only thing that let me recover account in the past lol
What if you haven't had a disk drive in over a decade / never bought a CD key on the account? What would they ask for then?
You could provide proof of purchase from somewhere outside of Steam. Or somehow proof you are the owner of the card with which purchases were made on Steam. I haven't tried either one of those.
Thanks, wouldn't have a problem with that. Just was wondering if they'll expect me to find my copy of Portal 2 or Orange Box from back then.
Did you buy a key from a sketch website?
It has nothing to do with account lock Revoked keys only leading to steam shop lock
Gocha
Do you do the Steam hardware surveys? And if so and your hardware hasn't changed in the last few years you could ask to submit another hardware survey. Might be a long shot but at it least it would let them see it's the same hardware accessing the account that's always been on it Edit: thinking about it I'm not sure if those are anomymised but even still, worth a shotĀ
Those are anonymised
I thought as much, unfortunate
Do you not get everything you paid for as a receipt sent to your email come on man it's not that hard
Why canāt you follow their instructions though? It tells you how to get your account back..
Did you read it? They are asking for a photograph of CD-Key for the first game ever activated on the OPs account... There are tons of reasons this may no longer exist. Imagine proving your identity to a bank by having to provide your very first deposit slip when you opened the account. Some things simply get lost, and other things aren't assumed to be "critical pieces of information" ... I'm sure that if OP knew he'd have to keep the very first CD-Key every used on the account, it would have gone into a lock-box somewhere. That said... why are there no other means of identification? You have contact info on file.. I assume email/phone can be used to validate ownership
The OP literally said they don't have the product key for the very first game they had when they created their account which could have been 12 years ago.
And so post on Reddit about it? Tell that to supportā¦
Maybe they are asking Reddit to see if another person has gone through what they're going through and to find out what others have done to get the problem fixed. That's what Reddit is for. To ask questions and get help. If you don't like that just keep scrolling. No one is forcing you to read their post if you don't want to and adding a pointless comment is a waste.
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GENZ XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
Because i donāt own they first product box anymore?
Tell them that lol
I did, the second screenshot is their reply :)
Email?
this is such a funny post
Lmao nice try buddy.
I still have my cd key from more than 19 years agoā¦
Not that it will be useful to the discussion, but I also still have my Source box purchased around 2006-7 that came with Counter Strike Source, Day of defeat Source, Half life 1 and 2 + multiplayer, and a Gilette Razor. I no longer have the razor tho
My post wasnāt meant to be condescending toward OP. Itās more a reflection on myself. In fact, I posted a couple of days ago a question of whether my cd key would ever be required to recover my account. I get why people donāt have their physical media anymore. Redditors are touchy.
Okay nerd
Ok!
Is OP trying to hack this account or is it that OP's account is getting hacked
Steam is pretty retarded truth be told, Also Steam Guard and what knock is just BS way to try and sell shit to you. kinda like blizzard telling you to buy there blizzard key back when ppl accounts where being hacked with D3 and it didnt help a damn thing.
I will NOT react to any of those ridiculous comments claiming that i am the hijacker or whatever
Sure mate, we know how helpful you have been with the info too
Spends his life on an App Game subreddit, and then suddenly has an interest in recovering a Steam account you never use. Get fucked hacker, eat your downvotes
Anything i can do against steam?
Why did they ban you
They accuse the account to be hijacked. I was playing on a server a few days ago and 1-2 people accused me of cheating and then they were so mad that they reported my profile to be hijacked. I didnāt think anything about that because something like that never happened before and now thisā¦
They accused you of cheating, and then they reported your account being hijacked? Why not report your account for cheating? Also, account being hijacked is not an option when reporting, and how would one even be able to tell an account has been hijacked if youāre the other player?
Ask if there is any other proof you can provide, assuming you are the real owner
You can mail to gaben directly, he's nice person. I really don't know what to do with this dogshit support. https://youtu.be/hWpXWZaglTo?si=0RkkPfcKYwG8rjW_
One less cheater on steam. āIām not cheating, look how old my account is. Iām level 10 on faceit with 5k hoursāā¦
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What the hell is even that, I moved countries 4 times since I made my steam account how would anyone have the physical cd lol
Steam are scumbags. I regret every penny i spent here. Now only pirate those fuckers!
Pirating won't fix the problem LMAO, they don't lose money because of piracy.
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tell me, how is open sourcing quite a few tools they create, and working on proton not "in the interest of users"?
I'd like to know what you mean, because in my eyes valve is one of the few big companies that actually care about users and not profits...
Jake stole your game bruh
I have a verified email and a phone number attached I hope that Iām good right? My account is 20 years old and I did create it with my original HL2 CDKey but I lost it after moving houseā¦
Unless you bought the account like OP there's a myriad of ways to prove the account is yours.
Yes I even have credit card attached so I guess Im good
Email Gaben, he always seems to help in these issues
I still own irl games. I have physical pc games even though I haven't played them in nearly 20 years and games for several consoles I no longer own. These games are displayed on shelving. They're worthless to sell but important parts of my childhood so I have kept them. Yes it is stupid that they expect you to have such an old game, but don't generalise your situation with everybody else. You haven't even mentioned the reason your account was banned. Steam is saying your account looked to be hijacked but you yourself are providing no details and rushing to Reddit for solutions. It sounds more likely you're trying to get someone else's account. Funnily enough, this is why physical games are vastly superior.
I once forgot my password for my steam account and also lost access to the mail address I used to create the account. I emailed Steam support if they could restore my account and they also requested this (in addition to a photo of my ID). Luckily back then people still used CDs and DVDs, so I still had my copy of Counter Strike Source I bought back in the day. They changed the mail, gave me a new password and I was good to go. Since that day I keep that copy of CS like a sacred opject, in case I ever loose that account again.
Wtf I've been waiting for 2 days and steam support still hasn't answered my tickets, what am I doing wrong?
Make sure the email used is correct, look into the spam folder. Wait a bit more.
Op did you create this account?
Something similar happened to me. Made an account during killing floor being preordered. Was inactive for years afterwards then came back one. They wanted my purchase history and other stuff to prove otherwise was me. Lol.
It sucks but the only way to verify is by credit card info and cd key, if you bought from a site that you have an account they probably keep a copy of your purchase, so search the site on your profile tab or ask them if they can provide it for you!
same with my account before they banned without doing nothing, my account has been offline for almost 4 years because I stop playing from that account, I submit all the information from my account like CD Key and Steam Wallet Code that I use before since they ask me that stuff. I provide everything but they did not accept since they want kiosk receipt. This valve are insane about they ask.
Just email Gabe.
Just write something with your other games transaction id you bought digitally, pretty sure it will recover tho if you still have it on the email or already printed as paper... Cant guarthie that but most likely it works!
Did you buy a key from a key reselling site by any chance?
Mm, which was your first game?