Alright so if you are reading this guide so it is probably because you were defrauded by someone and as a result of that you no more have your precious items (if that is not the case and you are more interested about how scams work then read the other guide, Common Scams and how to avoid them). To put it straight, there is NO sure shot guaranteed method to recover your stolen CS:GO skins. Unfortunately, that is the harsh truth and very little can change that. However, there is something you can do and that involves stopping the person who looted you, from looting others in a similar fashion.
Filing a report with Steam Rep
An organization run by the Online Fraud Prevention Foundation, Steam Rep is a charitable service (under the 501c3 non-profit). They have tied up with various other moderators from the different trading communities like r/GlobalOffensiveTrade, SourceOP, r/TF2trade, Fortress of Gamers in an attempt to augment the security of digital item transfer. They achieve this with the aid of a team of highly reputed volunteer network and other moderator teams. Currently, it serves as one of the biggest databases of scammers in the VALVE trading communities.
The basic rundown of a filed report
The terms of the trade
The most important part of a filed report is the proof of the deal that you confirm that you fully agree to the terms of the deal. Naturally, the strongest evidence of said confirmation are screens of the conversation via the VALVE chatting feature. The importance of crisp trade terms is very high (please note this must be ALWAYS done via the chatting feature by VALVE, all external methods including but not restricted to Discord, Skype, IM, IRC, etc are completely invalid. Giving the evidence for the dealing will be very strong evidence. Full-sized screenshots are highly important in this step.
The concluding contract must contain the precise details of the trade in question including but not limited to the items in questions, the source and sink of money (that is the Bitcoin Address, the Pay-Pal email ID, the name of moneypak account) and the exact number of $ that is being traded.
The details of fund transfer
You can utilize the history of your Inventory, Gifts, and offers of trading as evidence of your failed trade and potential fraud. IRL cash movements in the forms of receipts, transaction TX IDs in the case of crypto-related transactions are also valid. This can vary highly simply due to the extremely large number of payment methods in existence.
Proving the identification of the Fraudster
The staff needs to have the means to cross-check that the suspect is the real individual who defrauded or made the attempt to defraud the user. Unfortunately, it tends to be simpler in the case that the fraud was a success due to the fact that the staff can track the items that were scammed between the accounts via Exchange or Zone. As usual, the strongest evidence of this issue is a photograph of the suspect’s identity and matching URL (which can be enabled via the settings of the Steam Client) which can be taken during the fraud or fraud attempt. A secondary but slightly more complicated method is the photographs of the name data available on Steam-Rep past history data page of the Friendship Activity page of your profile which will give strong evidence that you had been friends with said user at some point in time.
Always make sure to provide the full block of data from the Steam-Rep Account Information pages which may look like:
This block gives the complete details of a user along which the Steam 64 (which is a number starting from 7656 which acts like the permalink to any steam user’s profile). This 64 isn’t changeable and is a strong link which can be used as a way to permanently get a link to an account.
Conclusion
As mentioned in the first paragraph, there is NO sure shot guaranteed method to recover your stolen CS:GO skins however by following this guide you might be saving others from being scammed and also the Steam Rep’s appeal policy requires the fraudster to recompensate for the damages caused by them and if the fraudster repents they might return the scammed items in atonement to clear their from all the charges (and quite often their conscience). Hope this guide helps you in the aftermath of a scam (though I also hope you never reach this stage in the first place).