Take care guys there are about 500 bots right now creating GAs to get to level 1 and also entering your GAs and winning them!

How to spot that BOT did win your GA?

  1. User names contains numbers at the end most of the times.
  2. On his Steam profile you will see Bot001-Bot500 under the account name.
  3. They have 0.1 hour play time of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, 10.7 hour of HITMAN™ 2 and 0.0 of Postal.
  4. They have the same single emoticon in comments.

The main account is a guy from Philippines and he is level 4 on SG thanks to all the 1$ bundles. He have all the bots as his friends.

EDIT:
He and his bots are now Suspended - Permanent <3
GREAT JOB SUPPORT <3

EDIT 2 - UPDATE:

His main account and 50 bots accounts were reported to Steam. We will see if they take action.

List of games lost to this guy: The Gardens Between, Cultist Simulator, GRIP: Combat Racing, Europa Universalis IV, Mages of Mystralia x2, Two Point Hospital, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Ancestors Legacy, X-Morph: Defense, Aegis Defenders, Motorsport Manager, Hand of Fate 2, Dead In Vinland, Street Fighter V, Sword Legacy: Omen.

I had 0 people in my BL but now I have this one guy but he takes 50 spots.

4 years ago*

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Could you find my lost pet from 20 years ago???

NVM probably is "in a farm" now

4 years ago
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That is sad.

I remember looking for my lost dog for 2 days. Good thing that she had her name plate and my phone number on the collar so someone found her and called to me.

4 years ago
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that's a really nice place, I have heard

4 years ago
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Nice work

4 years ago
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It was a team effort ;)

4 years ago
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Actually, I have noticed it like 15 hours ago. I was in hurry, I didn't have the time to write a report then, and I've missed the BotXXX part, but I have bookmarked some of those GAs (wasn't aware of the scale though, got just like 20-30 of them), and I was about to do this shortly. Checking them now I see, that all those accounts are already suspended. Great job, Zarddin and Mods :)

Also, probably it was not "just" 500, but at least 800 of them. The highest, that I have found on my list is Bot792. I'm curious, if there is a chance to ban them on Steam as well?

4 years ago*
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There might be 1000 bots or maybe the bot number was picked at random from 1-1000.

About that ban on Steam for all the accounts I'm working on it as we speak writing reports for each of the accounts :)

4 years ago
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@%&$& ... what the hell did I set in motion when I commented yesterday lol.

Thanks Zarddin and all for following up on my comment and finding the evidence to the scandal!

I was literally just about to turn off the PC when I posted that so didn't have time to further investigate myself.

4 years ago
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Good that his SG accounts got banned.

Now it is time to take down all his Steam accounts with the help of Steam support :P

4 years ago
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That sure would be nice. But is he breaking Steam rules? As I understand, it's OK with Steam to have multiple accounts (actually I do have 1 alt account, created for MMO, in which is was OK to run alts, but the 2nd account was needed to run a 2nd copy of the game in VM).

4 years ago
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He used his bot accounts to scam and steal games so I think it breaks Steam rules but we will see what will Steam decide.

4 years ago
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I'm not sure, what Steam thinks about SG, but possibly it could work the best, if this request was sent by our Mods, alongside the list of all accounts banned for exploiting here. Also, again not sure, if this would be OK with our rules (naming and shaming), but sharing the name of his main account on Steam would make easier for more of us to report him, where it really hurts.

4 years ago
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Well we can hope that Mods will or already did create request on Steam about this.

It would be easier if naming and shaming rule would be lifted for this one case so mods could put his SG and Steam account links here.

Good this is that naming and shaming apply to SG but not to let say Steam chat ;)

4 years ago
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I always heard about bots being active here, good work on stopping some Zarddin!

4 years ago
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Thank you but it was a team effort and support did also a great job with fast bans :)

4 years ago
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His main account and 50 bots accounts were reported to Steam. We will see if they take action.

It's not forbidden to have multiple accounts on steam (unlike SG). So I don't know what action you expect from steam support.

4 years ago
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Commercial farms have been banned before.

4 years ago
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They were banned for abuse, not for mere existing. And violation of rules on third-party site like SG is not abuse on Steam.
Like, some people bought accounts for their farm - and got banned.
Some people were mass-registering accounts for their farm with third-party service - and got banned.
Some people just created a great load on steam by sending too much requests at the same time - and got banned.
There is always a reason why. And still many users with big bot farms are still not banned, because they did nothing wrong.

4 years ago
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Have you reported any of the huge farms ever?

4 years ago
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Why would I? They did nothing wrong.

4 years ago
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So we can't be sure if they got banned for those reasons or just detected by Steam for those reasons and would've got banned before if just reported by someone. That was just my point, so there might be a bigger chance this one gets banned too.

I wouldn't trust them to be that strict about following the letter of the TOS when they can just spiritbanhammer anything they want. :)

4 years ago
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True. But these accounts were used to scam and steal and that break Steam rules.

Maybe I'm just too optimistic in hoping they will do something.

4 years ago
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I don't think steam support will consider it a scam or steal.
But hell, you lose nothing by trying to report it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4 years ago
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So I'm away for a few days and this happens? I take full blame, then :D

Good job, Zarddin!

4 years ago
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Please never go away again for any amount of days, hours or minutes :D

4 years ago
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I... I... I can't promise you that...

4 years ago
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Zarddin, you have my respects. Well done!

4 years ago
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Thank you kind sir :)

4 years ago
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Thanks a lot. This just made me check every giveaway I have made. I admit I have been lucky since I have always done level 1 giveaways...until now.
But why are users with private profiles allowed to enter giveaways? I always lookup the winner before I send the key. How do you know they activated it on their account?

4 years ago*
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afaik Users with private profiles need to periodically make their profile public so Steamgifts can check it.
And yea, level 0 and 1 should generally be avoided if you want to avoid bots and other unscrupulous users.

4 years ago*
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I looked before any of the accounts were changed to private and all the games these bots win were activated on that guy main account.

4 years ago
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"I had 0 people in my BL but now I have this one guy but he takes 50 spots." :D

Good it got solved. Good job Zarddin!

4 years ago
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Thank you kind sir :)

4 years ago
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Thank you for your investigation!

4 years ago
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Would've loved to see one of those accounts, but couldn't find your Street Fighter V giveaway and not any other of those you mentioned...

4 years ago
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Add me on Steam to friends :)

4 years ago
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Good Job... and better only make lvl5+ giveaways...and also the more the lvl the lesser the trouble; mostly :)

4 years ago
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Yeah that looks to be true.

4 years ago
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"the more the lvl the lesser the trouble; mostly :)"
sad but true

4 years ago
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Damn, this leacher has taken it to higher level it seems

4 years ago
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Sadly many good games were lost to him :(

4 years ago
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Closed 4 years ago by Zarddin.