My girlfriend works at a PC club. She changed her phone and forgot to transfer her Steam account. We also upgraded all PCs from Windows 10, which is ending support, to Windows 11 — both at home and in the club. Her email stayed the same, her phone number stayed the same, and the passwords were not changed.

On her account, I gifted about 15 games from my own. She never topped up her Steam account with a bank card.
We live in Russia. This war, which nobody needs, caused sanctions, and now people are killing each other and blaming everyone else. Nobody supports this crap. But because of the sanctions, topping up Steam didn’t work. Only recently it became possible again.

So there was no direct top-up of this account with our card. This is an account we can’t log into now. Support, as usual, just told us to get lost. This account is ours, nobody else will ever log into it. I gifted many games to it from my own account, and I know exactly to whom. Still, that’s “not proof.” Email and phone number stayed the same — also “not proof.” So basically, if you don’t have card payments linked, and you lose your phone, you’ll never get your account back. For them, it’s never enough evidence.

We know everything about this account — when and what games were bought, which ones were gifted, from which cities Steam was accessed, and in which years. Still “not enough proof.” There are no games activated with keys on this account. And even if there are, how are we supposed to check that now? Were we supposed to enter passport data or something?

Why can’t the account be restored by email? There are no expensive skins on it, nothing worth stealing. Just games, and not even that many — half of them I gifted. I understand that Steam benefits when people create a new account and buy everything again.

My account was created back when Steam didn’t even have games yet, and everyone was playing CS 1.6. To me, this just looks like indifference towards the people who supported them from the very beginning. They just tell fairy tales about how “great” their employees are.

You can’t even restore your own account via email. This account has friends who have been in the friend list for over five years and could confirm who owns it — still “not enough proof.” Her real photo was on the avatar before, she later changed it. I’m sure that wouldn’t count as proof either.

My own account is many years old, and I used to top it up from different countries and phones through street payment terminals. Only this year I was finally able to top it up with my own bank card. If I lost my phone, I also wouldn’t be able to prove anything to them.

The funniest part is that she didn’t even know this could cause problems. Earlier this year, she already recovered this account once, and nobody told her that she should, for example, top it up with a bank card so it could serve as proof of ownership. And now they’ve refused several times.

I suggested trying again in a month, since nobody will log into it anyway — not in a month, not in a year. Still, that wouldn’t be considered proof either. If only there was at least one adequate support admin who would listen and help restore everything. Of course, we could make a new account and buy everything again. But what really stands out is Steam’s indifference and their attitude towards the very people who helped them grow and make money. And that’s all of us — the gaming community.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3575329741&fileuploadsuccess=1