The police urges caution as scammers begin to target Steam users

While the idea of scams, especially online ones are nothing new to us in this day and age, it's crucial that we never drop our guard to stop ourselves from falling prey to them. There are always a number of tell-tale signs to look out for - if an offer sounds way too good to be true, or if that message from a "system administrator" smells fishier than your local wet market, that's when you know something's up.

Speaking of suspicious administrators, the Singapore Police Force has urged the public to be particularly cautious of messages that they receive on the popular gaming platform Steam.

 Apparently, there has been a recent spate of scam activity where scammers, in the guise of Steam administrators, attempt to fish out login details from users by telling them their accounts were wrongly reported for fraud or other similar reasons.

After receiving a response from the victim, the scammers would then re-direct them to another "administrator" who would provide further instructions for account recovery. Needless to say, this is where all the monetary demands come in. This second "administrator" would request that users log out of their accounts and provide their login details to facilitate the recovery process, as well as make online transactions on dubious websites to speed it up.

However, it's worth noting that this isn't their only way of getting you to part with your money (and accounts). Some of these scammers have also opted to take a more "conventional" route by persuading victims to purchase Steam Wallet cards and assuring them that a full refund would be made once the affected account was restored. 

Needless to say, these "refunds" would turn out to be nothing more than hogwash, and by the time the victims realised that they had been scammed, they would already have lost their accounts and their money.

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In such cases, prevention is always 100 per cent better than cure, and the SPF's notice ends off on a similar sentiment. As a general rule, verified online sites such as Steam, as well as similar platforms and marketplaces like the Epic Games Store will never ask users for their login details, much less by way of a cheap "message" in your inbox.

Additionally, users should always keep an eye out for suspicious online behaviour and purchases made to their credit and debit cards. If such activity is discovered, the matter should be reported to the respective banks and users should have the affected cards cancelled immediately.

To clarify any doubts or report any suspected instance of scam activity, users can call the police hotline at 1800 255 0000 or check out the SPF I-Witness page here.

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.