A gamer reports on reddit that Steam has suspended his 18-year-old account with thousands of hours of play and skins worth 13,000 euros and refuses to release it unless he meets a specific condition.
The cover image is a symbolic image and shows Gabe Newell in a different context.
How did he lose the account? A user reports on reddit that his Steam account was mistakenly suspended. After selling a CS:GO skin worth 450 €, he received the notification.
Until the matter is clarified, many features are unavailable to the gamer: buying, gifting, trading, activating product keys, playing on VAC-secured servers, and accessing the Steam community.
This effectively renders the account worthless for a collector. The account reportedly contains CS:GO skins worth 13,000 euros, and it costs around 5,000 euros to bring the account “to the point where it should be.” Presumably, he means the Steam level, which can get really expensive.
Since the announcement of Counter-Strike 2, CS:GO skins have been on everyone’s lips:
Steam will only unlock the account under one condition
Why was the account suspended? The reason for the suspension is the suspicion that the account may have been hacked by someone else. The gamer apparently attributes this to his recent location changes.
He recently moved to the United Arab Emirates and shortly thereafter went on vacation in Turkey. During the vacation, he wanted to game a bit and logged in on his usual laptop, but with a different IP.
However, his real problem is that Steam allegedly just does not want to lift the suspension.
Why is the account still suspended? As the gamer reports, he has already contacted Steam support and tried in every possible way to prove his identity: with his full name, passport and ID, the last digits of his card, PayPal, digital keys, without success.
“I offered to provide everything except a blood sample,” says the now accountless gamer. However, Steam only wants to accept one form of authentication: a picture of the box with the CD-Key he used to create the account in 2005.
The post titled “How I Lost 13,000 Euros in Video Game Skins to Gabe Newell [Rant]” received over 500 comments. Under this and other posts by the gamer, where he tells the story, many users complain about having the same problem.
Even ex-professionals like CS:GO player Bradley “Android” Fodor are not exempt.
Overall, Valve seems to be increasingly imposing Steam suspensions at this time. Apparently, they want to take action against third-party sites where CS:GO skins are traded and gambling is done with them. However, some of these suspensions are temporary, as in the case of MontanaBlack:
Steam bans the account of Twitch streamer MontanaBlack with items worth 55,000 euros in inventory
