安全2026年10月9日阅读约 5 分钟CS2Sell

Buying or selling a Steam account: the Subscriber Agreement and recovery risk

Valve's rules say a Steam account can't be sold or transferred, and its recovery process favours whoever can prove the original purchases. Why that makes account deals a favourite scam.

Steam accounts with old inventories, rare items or big game libraries are offered for sale all the time. Valve's agreement says you can't sell or transfer a Steam account, and its recovery process is built to return an account to whoever can prove they paid for what's on it. Put those two facts together and a bought account is never really yours, which is exactly what scammers rely on.

What the Steam Subscriber Agreement says

The Steam Subscriber Agreement, last updated on September 10, 2026, deals with this in its section on your account. It says your account, including its contact details, billing information, history and subscriptions, is "strictly personal. You may therefore not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account, or otherwise transfer your Account."

The same section says you may not reveal or share your password or let others use your account unless Valve specifically allows it. It also says Valve isn't responsible for activity on your account by anyone you gave your login to.

Two more rules close the loopholes. Valve's support pages say a SteamID and the account name used to sign in can't be changed, even by Steam Support, and that accounts can't be merged. And for items, the agreement's section on trading says items acquired through Steam's marketplaces are license rights, that you have no ownership interest in them, and that Valve doesn't recognise transfers made outside Steam.

Why the original owner can take it back

Valve is explicit that recovery is always possible. Its page on stolen and hijacked accounts says you can always contact Steam Support for account recovery "even if someone has changed the account's email address, password, and phone number." If self-recovery fails, Steam Support verifies that the account is yours.

How it verifies matters. Valve's proof-of-ownership page says ownership is established with payment information previously used on the account, such as the card type, the name on the card, the billing address and the last four digits, or a PayPal invoice for a Steam purchase, or with retail product codes that were activated on it. Those records belong to the person who originally bought the games and items.

A buyer who paid the seller outside Steam has none of that, whatever email or phone number they attach afterwards. In Valve's system, the seller remains the person who can prove ownership.

Stolen accounts are resold, and a bought account can be reclaimed by whoever proves the original purchases

Why so many accounts for sale are stolen

Account resale is a major reason phishers go after Steam logins in the first place:

In September 2022, BleepingComputer reported on a phishing campaign aimed at gamers whose goal was to sell access to the stolen accounts, some prominent ones valued at $100,000 to $300,000.
In March 2025, BleepingComputer reported Silent Push research on fake free-case sites for CS2 players, and said the aim was to steal Steam accounts and resell them on specialised grey markets for tens or even hundreds of thousands, depending on the games and items they held.
In June 2026, Malwarebytes listed selling the account on criminal marketplaces among the first things attackers do after taking over a Steam account, alongside stealing items and scamming friends.

In hijacking cases, Valve says it locks the account until the rightful owner contacts Steam Support. An account bought from someone who stole it can be locked and handed back to its real owner.

The risks for a buyer

Losing it to recovery. The original owner, or the victim it was stolen from, can reclaim it through Steam Support, and the money you paid stays with the seller.
No recourse with Valve. The sale itself breaks the Subscriber Agreement, and Steam Support doesn't restore items that leave an account.
Bans that spread. Valve says that if an account with a phone number gets a VAC or game ban, every other account using the same number gets it too, where the developer has enabled this. Accounts sharing a phone number may be treated as the same identity under the agreement, so attaching your number to a bought account ties it to your own.
Restrictions after the handover. Changing the account's security trips Steam's cooldowns: removing the Mobile Authenticator blocks trading and the Market for 15 days, and a password reset blocks them for five, or 30 if the account was inactive for over two months.

The risks for a seller

Selling breaks the agreement you accepted, and handing over your login means handing over everything tied to it. Valve says it isn't responsible for what happens on your account after you disclose your password. Your phone number and payment history may still be attached, and Valve's phone-number rule means a ban earned by the new user can reach other accounts on your number.

The deal itself is also a scam opportunity in both directions. A "buyer" who asks for the login or Steam Guard codes before paying is asking for exactly what Valve says never to hand over, and any link to sign in somewhere other than Steam's own pages deserves the checks in our guide to spotting Steam phishing sites. Valve's rules are blunt: never share your password, never type your codes into a site Valve doesn't run, and never give anyone an SMS recovery code.

Items go wherever the account goes, including back to its original owner

What to do instead

If the value you're after is in the inventory, sell or trade the items, not the account. Items move between accounts through Steam's own trading and Market systems, which Valve supports. On CS2Sell, Sell lets you sign in with Steam and sell items from your CS2 inventory.

If your own account was stolen and you suspect it's being sold, don't negotiate with anyone offering it back. Valve says never to pay a scammer holding your account; recover it through help.steampowered.com instead, with as much proof of ownership as you can gather. Our account security checklist covers locking it down afterwards, and our guide to Steam Guard and trade holds explains the cooldowns you'll see.