As early as June 30th, a player with the Steam ID “Gently” added the heavy trader “hobshy” and initiated a private trade to sell items from their personal inventory. After examining the items and confirming that they had been in the “Gently” account for nearly four years, hobshy proceeded with the trade without suspecting fraud.
During this time, hobshy also sold some of the items acquired from the trade and stored some lower-value items in their inventory. However, on August 10th, hobshy’s Steam account was unexpectedly banned by the community. Their profile was set to private, and all trading activities were suspended. Additionally, Valve Corporation duplicated the items from the previous trade and added them to the “Gently” inventory.
Hobshy sought assistance from Steam support, and the Steam customer service team requested information about the previous trade with “Gently.” Hobshy openly disclosed their identity as a “heavy trader” and provided screenshots detailing the transaction. However, the Steam support team responded, “Why would you store so many items in your inventory components? This behavior suggests that you are engaging in ‘improper’ activities.” The customer support team also indicated that hobshy’s attachments did not align with their actual account activities and maintained the account ban.
On August 15th, without informing hobshy, Steam support unilaterally transferred the items obtained from the previous trade to the “Gently” inventory. As of now, multiple sets of duplicated items with identical wear and patterns have appeared in the “Gently” inventory.
Subsequently, hobshy once again contacted Steam support, expressing concern over their initial handling of the situation, which involved copying the inventory and subsequently making unauthorized adjustments to their skins without notifying hobshy. At this point, Steam support’s attitude took a complete turn, indicating that the ban on hobshy’s account had been lifted and that the items previously traded to “Gently” would be returned to hobshy.
Based on Anomaly’s speculation, this incident might have occurred because “Gently” was marked as an “inactive” account by Valve due to inactivity over the years. Following a successful intrusion into the “Gently” account by a hacker, Valve mistook hobshy, who had traded with “Gently,” as the hacker’s “main account,” resulting in the ban on hobshy’s account. Currently, neither Valve nor the CS:GO official team has provided a response to this incident. What do you think about Valve’s actions this time? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
