Fahdis
Member
So uh... this all concluded today with extreme drama. A bit of a rant...
I gave my cousin my username and password a year and a half ago online while he is in another country so we could do Steam Family Share and swore from his confidentiality that he won't share my credentials with anyone. Now my cousin's family's situation is not that great since he lives in the third world - South Asia... and he was going through some back surgery procedures and couldn't go to school for the term, so I felt it was the nice thing to do so. I don't have Steam Guard on due to access to GeForce Now.
Anyways, he's new to Steam and doesn't know much about how this all works since all he ever did was play a pirated version of COD 4 with his buddies on an old computer with like a GTX 1050 or something, which his friend installed for him. This is for context that Steam Family Share was now enabled on that computer.
I have more than 500+ games, all new and old and adding every few months. So I thought he can play the older games as time goes by. Either way since about a few month's he's had a full recovery and is going back to school. In between this time I noticed like 8 months back his account name changed from his name to another. I didn't bother to ask thinking he's a young kid fooling around with his buddies.
A few days ago, I was going through my account within my Family Share account and then saw that the account had a new name again, with a new PC name and now had a Twitch profile attached with like 1500 Followers on Steam at this point and had these positive comments about his amazing gaming skills and large library. And then I was mildly perplexed yet happy as well thinking positive; I messaged my cousin and asked him what's going on? When did he join Twitch to Congratulate him. And then verbatim, he's like "oh, I sold my computer to a friend for $500 months ago because we needed some things in the house and he had credentials to only my account". Instantly, I was like wtf. I was furious and asked him why he didn't tell me so because that meant my games went with that PC as well due to family share.
He apologized and didn't know how any of it worked and said I'll tell my friend to stop using the account and take off Family Share. I said, only I can do that on my end. So I'm like you knew but you still gave him my games? He was like no, I really did forget to tell you and then apologized profusely. I've known him for years since family and I know he has too much respect for me to do me dirty. Just told him, that his friend will have a nasty surprise for him tomorrow.
I immediately went into Steam Family Share and deleted whoever this person was without noting down the name out of anger. It was something like luke_twitchtv or something, I don't exactly remember, in hindsight I should have noted it down since Steam doesn't let you see who you have shared the account with only who you prior borrowed games from with them Family Sharing with you. Anyways after a day, I got a phonecall from my cousin that something odd happened.
He said that his friend called the same day in frenzy and was distraught... and said he was in trouble. He said he sold the PC further for $1500 with some mods to the hardware seeing how there were so many games and new ones were being added every few months and thought of my cousin a bit dimwitted later (in my cousin's own perception) at the time since he got a great deal after noticing the plethora of games being added a few weeks in or every few months... it was like hitting jackpot... he wanted to apologize for taking advantage and that he got a phonecall from the person he sold to 3 months prior this year that "he lied about the deal and now his Twitch career will be ruined and there will be consequences for him". He asked my cousin to help him but he hung up the phone. He said they aren't friends anymore since that talk and whatever extortion bs is happening to him is his own issue now. Sucks, but it is what it is for being a scumbag. I again asked if he was in on it and he swore on his life, god and parents. Anyways, I let it go but swore off sharing my library with anyone again. Along with setting a new password and steam guard just in case those were compromised too.
I got to thinking, how was this happening behind my back? Realized that South Asia and my timings are mostly 12 hours opposite, so as I slept, this dude sneakily worked on a schedule and I only play for a few hours in the afternoon or dusk at times. I do have a fixed schedule for gaming. Guess he figured it out. Other than that, this dude never bothered messaging me because he definitely saw who's library it was in his account for Family Share, same for my cousin's douche friend... I still haven't received an angry message even now out of entitlement. I'm still expecting one. I don't buy Day 1, but usually I buy in Bulk every 3 to 6 months due to me having access to the South Asian Regional Store or free keys here and there.
That was a fucked experience, I can't believe I was casual about it for so long. I hope nobody gets hurt. But scumbags deserved this.
Tl;dr - I had no idea my Steam account was being whored around in a different country being sold twice to different people while Family Sharing was active on the PC and I didn't notice for a year and a half. Drama ensued and now someone has lost their budding twitch career and sprawling borrowed gaming library from me while another person is being threatened for it. Steam Guard and a new password has been set since.
I gave my cousin my username and password a year and a half ago online while he is in another country so we could do Steam Family Share and swore from his confidentiality that he won't share my credentials with anyone. Now my cousin's family's situation is not that great since he lives in the third world - South Asia... and he was going through some back surgery procedures and couldn't go to school for the term, so I felt it was the nice thing to do so. I don't have Steam Guard on due to access to GeForce Now.
Anyways, he's new to Steam and doesn't know much about how this all works since all he ever did was play a pirated version of COD 4 with his buddies on an old computer with like a GTX 1050 or something, which his friend installed for him. This is for context that Steam Family Share was now enabled on that computer.
I have more than 500+ games, all new and old and adding every few months. So I thought he can play the older games as time goes by. Either way since about a few month's he's had a full recovery and is going back to school. In between this time I noticed like 8 months back his account name changed from his name to another. I didn't bother to ask thinking he's a young kid fooling around with his buddies.
A few days ago, I was going through my account within my Family Share account and then saw that the account had a new name again, with a new PC name and now had a Twitch profile attached with like 1500 Followers on Steam at this point and had these positive comments about his amazing gaming skills and large library. And then I was mildly perplexed yet happy as well thinking positive; I messaged my cousin and asked him what's going on? When did he join Twitch to Congratulate him. And then verbatim, he's like "oh, I sold my computer to a friend for $500 months ago because we needed some things in the house and he had credentials to only my account". Instantly, I was like wtf. I was furious and asked him why he didn't tell me so because that meant my games went with that PC as well due to family share.
He apologized and didn't know how any of it worked and said I'll tell my friend to stop using the account and take off Family Share. I said, only I can do that on my end. So I'm like you knew but you still gave him my games? He was like no, I really did forget to tell you and then apologized profusely. I've known him for years since family and I know he has too much respect for me to do me dirty. Just told him, that his friend will have a nasty surprise for him tomorrow.
I immediately went into Steam Family Share and deleted whoever this person was without noting down the name out of anger. It was something like luke_twitchtv or something, I don't exactly remember, in hindsight I should have noted it down since Steam doesn't let you see who you have shared the account with only who you prior borrowed games from with them Family Sharing with you. Anyways after a day, I got a phonecall from my cousin that something odd happened.
He said that his friend called the same day in frenzy and was distraught... and said he was in trouble. He said he sold the PC further for $1500 with some mods to the hardware seeing how there were so many games and new ones were being added every few months and thought of my cousin a bit dimwitted later (in my cousin's own perception) at the time since he got a great deal after noticing the plethora of games being added a few weeks in or every few months... it was like hitting jackpot... he wanted to apologize for taking advantage and that he got a phonecall from the person he sold to 3 months prior this year that "he lied about the deal and now his Twitch career will be ruined and there will be consequences for him". He asked my cousin to help him but he hung up the phone. He said they aren't friends anymore since that talk and whatever extortion bs is happening to him is his own issue now. Sucks, but it is what it is for being a scumbag. I again asked if he was in on it and he swore on his life, god and parents. Anyways, I let it go but swore off sharing my library with anyone again. Along with setting a new password and steam guard just in case those were compromised too.
I got to thinking, how was this happening behind my back? Realized that South Asia and my timings are mostly 12 hours opposite, so as I slept, this dude sneakily worked on a schedule and I only play for a few hours in the afternoon or dusk at times. I do have a fixed schedule for gaming. Guess he figured it out. Other than that, this dude never bothered messaging me because he definitely saw who's library it was in his account for Family Share, same for my cousin's douche friend... I still haven't received an angry message even now out of entitlement. I'm still expecting one. I don't buy Day 1, but usually I buy in Bulk every 3 to 6 months due to me having access to the South Asian Regional Store or free keys here and there.
That was a fucked experience, I can't believe I was casual about it for so long. I hope nobody gets hurt. But scumbags deserved this.
Tl;dr - I had no idea my Steam account was being whored around in a different country being sold twice to different people while Family Sharing was active on the PC and I didn't notice for a year and a half. Drama ensued and now someone has lost their budding twitch career and sprawling borrowed gaming library from me while another person is being threatened for it. Steam Guard and a new password has been set since.
