Valve Refunds Gamer Whose Steam Account Was Hacked and Drained

A hacker spent a user’s funds on in-game purchases and ran a gaming marathon.

Gamers facing account hacks typically encounter a difficult situation involving long message threads with support teams and repetitive, templated responses. However, Steam support offers a different industry example.

A recent incident involving a user under the Reddit username Opening_River_7562 highlights Valve’s customer orientation. He recently logged into his Steam account and noticed that someone had emptied his wallet:

I checked my purchase history and saw an in-game purchase for a game I have never even played and am not interested in. The transaction was paid for directly with funds from my wallet.

He also noticed that statistics showed unlocked achievements that he definitely did not earn: “Someone managed to access my account, spend money from the wallet on microtransactions, and run themselves a gaming marathon.”

Opening_River_7562 first contacted the support team of the game where the unknown person made the purchase, but they refused to help and advised him to contact Steam:

I created a support ticket with Steam support detailing the entire situation: the unauthorized in-game purchase paid for with wallet funds, my lack of playtime in this game, the suddenly appearing Counter-Strike achievements, and the fact that the game developers told me to deal with Steam.

Opening_River_7562 feared he would receive a standard template rejection from Steam, but he ultimately received a full refund for all the spent money:

After reviewing the login logs and confirming the hack, the specialists reversed the payment and fully refunded the funds to my Steam wallet. Huge thanks to the Valve support team for actually reading the request and checking the logs instead of just sending a boilerplate denial. By the way, the amount was $30—they returned every single cent to me.

Commenters noted that this is why Valve is called the “greatest company,” and they criticized those who accuse Steam of being a monopoly.

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