The risk of adding people that adds you without any reason.

I don't personally know a lot of people on Steam, so I'm usually open to friend requests. Even if I don't play a lot, it's nice to have some contacts to chat or trade with now and then. However, I recently learned what Gwarsbane noted: you probably don't want to add level 0 private accounts. I did once without checking and soon realized it was probably some kind of spam/scam account, so I removed them and started checking profiles of my friend requests before responding. I don't get many, so it's not too big of a deal, but yeah, if something seems weird, it's probably better to avoid contact with the person.

I downloaded the file onto my pc but didn't run it. Is it too late for me? I'm running a virus scan right now and freaking out.

I've had a ton of scamers adding me recently

I stupidly clicked on it when I got one of these and it downloaded a file. I thought it was one of those scams where you trade items for something, but clearly not. I didn't run the file obviously and have seen no effect on anything so hopefully nothing happened.

Today 2 of these scammers tried to add me, one was typical level 1, and another was level 11, with 1 game, Dota 2 badge, 0.1 played hours on each game or just the amount to get trading cards, I think he just made a better looking account by adding the games and crafting the cards he stole from others, he also had 4 reviews to this 0.1h played games, saying like "very good", "very nice", and his name was Spiderman related, so be careful.

Its basically prettey "easy" to avoid.

1. Check profile status. Age of the profile, level, amount of games and so on.

2. Always ask for the reason why you have been added. The reason should be easily explained, so if one does not answer he has no reason or, more common, does not want to state his reason since its something that will harm you.

3. Why should anybody link anything to an URL outside of steam? If you get a link, that leads outside, simply do not open it. If you opened it and it wants you to download something, do not do it. Why should you download something that a stranger sent you? I mean, why? ^^ If he wants to trade, he can trade in steam. If he wants to show you a game to trade, he can link to the steamshop.

4. If someone pushes you, he probably has not much time. Having not much time may be pretty common, but if you are about to be banned any day, you would also rush people. Take your time, never hurry when making any decisions concerning strangers that want something. And if you need to hurry, always pick your safety.

So, yeah. Just some hints one might follow to keep his account safe. :)

Edit: Never, never, never open a file from a source you do not know! Never. Your best Anti-Virus-System is your brain.

I've gotten dozens of invites from low-level nobodies the last two weeks. All profiles were either private or in russian.