I'm getting suspicious emails from Steam

[porl]

Ever since purchasing HL2 and registering for my Steam account I've been getting two types of unexpected email from them. Sometimes I get mails saying...

"This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration. It is being sent in response to a query made by a Steam user to discover all account names associated with a particular CD key"

and sometimes I get mails saying...

" This is an automated message generated by Steam account administration to help you reset your Steam password. Please enter the following code into the 'Verification Code' field of the 'Forgotten Password' dialog. (Enter the code exactly as written. You can use copy/paste operations to enter the code):"

And with the second one it gives me a special code to quote and then tells me that I'll need to answer the security question about the name of my pet

Just curious to see if other legit users have been getting these types of mails, and also if anyone knows, are these mails the result of someone trying to gain access to my account? :naughty:

 

[JamesPicard_007]

Probably somebody trying to get your account. I haven't got any e-mails like that.

 

[sobergrad]

Those both sound like fakes. Like valve states, they will NEVER ask for your password or any info about your account. NEVER. It sounds suspicious, NEVER NEVER give out your account information to anybody.

 

[axeil]

Sounds like someone is trying to get you to hack your account. Don't reply but notify VALVe since they may be able to find whoever is doing this. The messages appear legit, but VALVe will know for sure and if they aren't they can start helping you get rid of whoever's generating them.

Don't do what they say until you check with VALVe.

 

[indy]

jezz how many people are gonna repeat the same reply before realizing that there post whores.

 

[Cobblers]

Yeah I know what you mean, there's nothing worse then people who repeat the same message over and over again! Tut!

 

[porl]

Oooh Lawdy, no, would never reply to them, besides, the email address they are from are [email protected] so I;m assuming that it's just folk trying to hack me account...the little tinkers Hehehehehe......
Cheers Peeps, just wondered if anyone else was getting this

 

[Newton]

Yeah I know what you mean, there's nothing worse then people who repeat the same message over and over again! Tut!

Except trolls

 

[Biggleska]

jezz how many people are gonna repeat the same reply before realizing that there post whores.

Troll.

Yeah, they sound *Really* Suspicious.. does it ask you to enter the passwords on some unheard of website?

 

[Cobblers]

Ok, tell me if I'm stupid, but "trolls"???

 

[czrsink]

Oooh Lawdy, no, would never reply to them, besides, the email address they are from are [email protected] so I;m assuming that it's just folk trying to hack me account...the little tinkers Hehehehehe......
Cheers Peeps, just wondered if anyone else was getting this

If you can, check the source code of the message. If it isn't from Valve, and someone is 'phishing' for your account details thenyou'll be able to tell. When you see the source code and the 'noreply...' link actually points to something like h77p://crackers.1234.com etc then you know it's dodgy.

 

[Llevar]

Yeah I know what you mean, there's nothing worse then people who repeat the same message over and over again! Tut!

Yea, people who repeat the same message over and over really piss me off.

 

[Dekstar]

Troll.

Yeah, they sound *Really* Suspicious.. does it ask you to enter the passwords on some unheard of website?

lol

www.geocities.com/megah4xxingsteamaccountslegit/index.html

If it's that, you might want to reply. As VALVe always work through geocities, trust me.

 

[porl]

No these emails were really from valve, actaully in the email it says Valve will never ask you for your account details via email....it turns out that the mails I got are the standard automated response to when you log on to Steam and you choose either the "retrieve account" or "retrieve password" options...it sends you a code, which is you enter into the steam client along with the answer to you 'secret question' and it allows you to retrieve any lost account details.....reason I know is that some very odd things happened yesterday.

Those mails I mentioned were recieved a few days back but I was still able to log in and play HL2 even 2 days after getting them so I thought they were just generated by chancers querying my serial number. However, i got home yesterday and fired up HL2 only to get a message saying that I was unable to log into Steam coz either my account didn't exist or me password was wrong.
So after trying to log in a few times using my details I decided to do a "retrieve password" and it said that it had sent me an email with a code with which I could retrieve my details....however I waited ages and no mail....so I thought of the mail I'd been sent earlier with a confirmation code in it, so I tried the code from that and it didn't work.....so I tried numerous ways, retrieving my password, and my account using email address and by using my cd key, and everytime it said it would send me an email with a confirmation code, but no emails in my Hotmail account (which was the one I registered with in the first place and the one that had recieved the original emails from Steam)

So then I got very fed up and decided to check my other email account on Outlook Express and I opened that up and about 15 emails from Steam came flooding in all with my confirmation code requests....I tried the code they sent and my details were retrieved and I was able to play again.

BUT HOW DID STEAM GET MY NTL EMAIL ADDRESS?!?!?!?!?

I registered with my hotmail email address because I remember at the time of registering thinking that I'd use my hotmail coz I can access it from any PC not just my home machine. At no point during the registration did I give my NTL address. I've even got the print outs of the pages where it says "These are your account details - print this page out" and it clearly states my hotmail address, not my ntl one.
My hotmail address must have originally been my registered email address with Steam initially coz like my original post says, I'd been getting these account confirmation mails from them to that address, so why would it have changed to my other address when I no time did I give my other address to Steam

HOW DID STEAM GET MY NTL EMAIL ADDRESS?!?!?!?!?

Does the steam client scan your internet/email caches????
If so, what else does it scan??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[we11er]

You must have told it your email address at some point.

 

[KagePrototype]

Perhaps someone who lives with you has been messing around on your computer. If that's nothing, you better contact Valve about it. It doesn't do that to me at all.

 

[one day....]

Or maybe steam is spying on us all and they are planning to release a massive virus that renders our pcs useless.

Or maybe you gave them your mail.

 

[6iXx]

settings > change contact email.

It also shows your current contact email address. check it

 

[porl]

No I distinctly remember thinking at the time not to give the MY NTL address coz I can only acces that from my home machine, I wanted to register with an address I could reach from any PC.

it only asks for your email once, and that is the one that it puts on that screen when it says "These are your account details - please print this page for your records" and I did print them and save them inside the box, and they all state

but that still doesn't explain the change from my hotmail to my NTL address...even if I did give both emails why would steam switch from one to the other for no reason......initially I'd recieved a few mails from Steam to my hotmail account. They are still sitting in my inbox.....so that must have been my inital registered email with them, other wise I wouldn't have got these mails from them tomy hotmail......so why has it suddenly changed to my NTL address?????

But I do seriously thing I did not give them my NTL address....It weirds you out a bit....could it be that Steam do scan things the naughty little tinkers

 

[Chris D]

No I distinctly remember thinking at the time not to give the MY NTL address coz I can only acces that from my home machine, I wanted to register with an address I could reach from any PC.

it only asks for your email once, and that is the one that it puts on that screen when it says "These are your account details - please print this page for your records" and I did print them and save them inside the box, and they all state

but that still doesn't explain the change from my hotmail to my NTL address...even if I did give both emails why would steam switch from one to the other for no reason......initially I'd recieved a few mails from Steam to my hotmail account. They are still sitting in my inbox.....so that must have been my inital registered email with them, other wise I wouldn't have got these mails from them tomy hotmail......so why has it suddenly changed to my NTL address?????

But I do seriously thing I did not give them my NTL address....It weirds you out a bit....could it be that Steam do scan things the naughty little tinkers

You may have provided two e-mail addresses.

My account name on Steam is my Hotmail address. My e-mail address on Steam is [email protected].

Porl, Steam would not scan your e-mail addresses. You have either given the e-mail to them or someone has been playing around with your computer or someone is trying to hack your Steam account details.

Do a full virus scan, do an Ad-aware/Spybot scan and ensure your firewall is working. Something isn't right...

 

[SIN55]

are you positive your Outlook isnt showing you your Hotmail inbox??? It may seem stupid, but sometimes the anwser is right in front of you. Perhaps all your steam messages went into your junkmail, but werent filtered by Outlook or something.

 

[The Mullinator]

No I distinctly remember thinking at the time not to give the MY NTL address coz I can only acces that from my home machine, I wanted to register with an address I could reach from any PC.

it only asks for your email once, and that is the one that it puts on that screen when it says "These are your account details - please print this page for your records" and I did print them and save them inside the box, and they all state

but that still doesn't explain the change from my hotmail to my NTL address...even if I did give both emails why would steam switch from one to the other for no reason......initially I'd recieved a few mails from Steam to my hotmail account. They are still sitting in my inbox.....so that must have been my inital registered email with them, other wise I wouldn't have got these mails from them tomy hotmail......so why has it suddenly changed to my NTL address?????

But I do seriously thing I did not give them my NTL address....It weirds you out a bit....could it be that Steam do scan things the naughty little tinkers

Even if Steam did scan your computer to get an e-mail address you never told it then it still doesn't explain how these other people would have found out about it.

If they got the e-mail through steam then there are only two possibilities for how they got it. One is either Valve told them ,and the chance of that is virtually not existant. Or they found a way of hacking into the steam network to get private information like that, however if that is the case then why would they be wasting their time trying to get your steam account when would have such power over the network?

So more likely you gave your e-mail to another website or person, or you have adware/spyware on your computer.

 

[porl]

Well I dunno how it happened, I checked in Steam and it said that my email was my NTL one.....so why would they email me initially at me Hotmail?? I got mails from them to my hotmail before all this happened so at some point it must have changed from my hotmail to my ntl address and I only found out you could change your email address in Steam when you guys said on here on the forum.

....something fishy is going on, it has to be, there is just no other way....even if i did give both email addresses when registering up, why the change from one to the other a few days after I been playing?

Decided, I'm going underground, ditching my account and cd key, I don't care if it is illegal, not having ANYONE monitoring my gaming activities saying what and when I can run things on my PC.
I got the cracks at home....it's too spooky........big brother, 1984, Brave New world, police state next, ID cards coming in in Europe, and they can throw you in the clink if you're caught without one did you know!!!, the authorites and emplyers, they have your phone number, address, your medical records, your earnings, they know your hobbies, your financial status, the type of home you own, they monitor what goes on on the net, Gmail have started monitoring email content now....they know every fookin thing about you, and now they know who brought a bloody computer game and when they play it for god sake....it's all the thin end of the wedge....and Ironically that is what HL2 is all about.....art imitating life or life imitating art??? things start getting worrying when you can't even tell....some one once said just because you're paranoid, don'r mean they're not after you......well said, it's true.....

 

[Feath]

Well I dunno how it happened, I checked in Steam and it said that my email was my NTL one.....so why would they email me initially at me Hotmail?? I got mails from them to my hotmail before all this happened so at some point it must have changed from my hotmail to my ntl address and I only found out you could change your email address in Steam when you guys said on here on the forum.

....something fishy is going on, it has to be, there is just no other way....even if i did give both email addresses when registering up, why the change from one to the other a few days after I been playing?

Decided, I'm going underground, ditching my account and cd key, I don't care if it is illegal, not having ANYONE monitoring my gaming activities saying what and when I can run things on my PC.
I got the cracks at home....it's too spooky........big brother, 1984, Brave New world, police state next, ID cards coming in in Europe, and they can throw you in the clink if you're caught without one did you know!!!, the authorites and emplyers, they have your phone number, address, your medical records, your earnings, they know your hobbies, your financial status, the type of home you own, they monitor what goes on on the net, Gmail have started monitoring email content now....they know every fookin thing about you, and now they know who brought a bloody computer game and when they play it for god sake....it's all the thin end of the wedge....and Ironically that is what HL2 is all about.....art imitating life or life imitating art??? things start getting worrying when you can't even tell....some one once said just because you're paranoid, don'r mean they're not after you......well said, it's true.....

http://www.qsl.net/kc2ufo/5.jpg

You'll need one of these.

This sounds more like a "Friend trying to find out your password thing" than some unknown hacker trying to gain access to your account.

 

[porl]

compulsary cameras in your home.....that's what it'll be next....."rubbish they'll never do that" I hear you say well, maybe it seem that way now but not in the future...it'll be common place to have cameras in your home. Just like if you went back 60 years and said to someone "They're going to fill the streets and roads with cameras to watch you for your own good" the person from 60 years ago would say that that was rubbish and it'd never come to that but it has happened....i bet you can walk a mile round town in and out of the shops and I bet you're filmed more than 100 times....

.....the authorities argument would be "Well if you don't do anything wrong, why object to a camera in your home"........

but that ain;t the point....It's coming believe me

 

[porl]

Ahh I already have one of those foil hats and a small one for my cat

 

[LegoJones]

Or maybe steam is spying on us all and they are planning to release a massive virus that renders our pcs useless.
QUOTE]

For some they already have... its called Half Life 2!

 

[Ripley26]

DON'T USE HOTMAIL.

Hotmail is usually pretty easy to crack. Most people don't think of the "Secret Question/Secret Answer" part of the security system. If you know the person, it's usually pretty easy to get past.

 

[cronholio]

Did you buy HL2 on steam? When you purchased it di you provide your NTl email address?

 

[Asuka]

Never got any emails like that.

 

[westie]

Or maybe steam is spying on us all and they are planning to release a massive virus that renders our pcs useless.

Or maybe you gave them your mail.

We already have that virus it's called Half life 2.