Hi /r/dota2.
I'm first a player, then a trader in dota 2. Dota 2 has been the most engaging game I have ever played, and have sinked in more than 3000 hours playing it alone. I first started trading since diretide last year, spamming countless hours of diretide with friends to get what was originally a lot of cosmetics. Over the year I went into intense trading and collection, and became pretty reputable on dota2traders.com. My reputation thread can be found here:
http://dota2traders.com/forum/thread/76561198047323201-greenm0nster-greens-rep-thread.59993/
Everything changed last week when I found a steam notification on my browser AND on my alt, stating (copy and paste):
This account has been flagged by Steam Support for violations of the Terms of Service Agreement. Purchasing, gifting, >trading, buying and selling items on the Community Market, and cd-key activation have been disabled.**
Obviously, I was pretty shocked given that I have never done anything that would compromise the status of my account. Upon asking Steam Support the reason behind my ban, the response was as follows:
Hello Benjamin,
Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
We have found activity in this Steam account related to the hijacking of another user's Steam account.
Per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, we have locked the account. The account will not be unlocked.
The Steam Subscriber Agreement can be found at: http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
In addition to violation of contract, activities on the account may violate federal law and state law. If such activities >persist, Valve reserves the right to refer the matter to authorities.**
I was shocked. I have never tried to hijack someone's account, and I have absolutely no incentive to do so given my established inventory and trade history. I wouldn't want my reputation to go to waste as well.
This is when Steam Support became unreliable. Upon probing further into the situation and attempting to discuss the ban in order to clear my name, I was met only with an automated response from Support Tech Grant:
Hello Benjamin,
Unfortunately, we will be unable to assist you further with this issue.
Thank you for contacting Steam Support.
Upon asking for further clarifications, details, or evidence regarding the ban and why I was not allowed to have any input or clear my name, my steam support ticket was deleted. As in, the entire ticket disappeared from my steam support account, and i realised our conversation was merged into another ticket regarding a totally different issue i.e my other ticket on lockbox codes.
Figuring this might be a mistake, i sent in another ticket, only to it meeting the same fate: my ticket was deleted with no explanation from steam support again.
My thoughts:
This is a shady situation from Steam Support. Firstly, they didnt give me any chance to justify or clear my name. Basically, they judged me guilty without even the chance of being proven innocent.
Secondly, the deletion of support tickets was done so surreptitiously, with no prior warning or notification. What is the point of submitting steam support tickets if they are just going to be swept under a rug with no reply?
I'm writing this post in hope of gaining attention to this issue. I know not all /r/dota2 users are traders or into cosmetics, but I would like to raise attention to this issue in the hope that some valve staff can and will take action, and to warn item/hat collectors that this could happen to your steam account with no prior response.
Every upvote is greatly appreciated and I would like to thank you all for reading such a long wall of text. Thank you.
Best Regards, Greenm0nster
En fin, vaya broma de mal gusto. Valve dando pena una vez más.
