How to Avoid Scams When Trading CS2 Skins

Counter-Strike 2 is an online shooter among the best on the market today. Despite being on the market for over 10 years, it still has a large community of players. Steam’s economy has been heavily influenced by item trading for years, and as a result, many transactions happen there every day.

Every day, so many purchases, sales, and trades occur, so there’s a high risk of getting scammed. You’ll learn everything you need to know to protect yourself from scammers so you don’t lose your items or money.

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The Most Common Scam in CS: GO

Some scams are simple, but others use malicious software to exploit security holes in the Steam service code to get money and items.

Steam Gift Card Scam

Scams are a common way to steal money from users online, not just on Steam. In this case, scammers contact players pretending to be Steam support employees or traders interested in one of their skins.

Scammers often pose as Steam support and say that the user’s account has been hacked. To prove they’re the owners, the users must buy a Steam gift card and send the code to Steam support. Steam “employees” will reimburse the user with their Steam wallet. Obviously, this isn’t true, and the scammers will disappear with your money instead.

A variation of this scam involves hackers pretending to be legitimate Steam users looking to trade outside the platform. These scammers typically offer an expensive CS2 skin at an unusually low price, requesting Steam gift card codes as payment. Many people fall for this deal, thinking they’re getting a great bargain, only to realize too late that the scammer disappears with the gift card code, never delivering the promised skin. To avoid falling victim to such scams, it’s crucial to use a CS2 (CS:GO) skin price checker to verify the true value of the skins being offered.

Phishing Scam

Often, phishing scams take place on multiple levels and are very intricate. In most cases, phishing scams involve a fake scam site with a login feature or scammers impersonating Valve employees or traders from reliable CS2 websites. When a tricked user logs into a fake trading site, rather than logging into a real one where they can sell skins for money, the scammers are stealing their login info or API key. You may not know your data’s been phished until the scammers steal your skins.

Another scammer will impersonate a Valve employee and claim they need your login data to confirm that it’s you. Once you give them your data, they can delete your account in the future.

API Scam

In this scam, scammers get access to your CS2 trading. API keys are unique codes for each account, which are used to facilitate trades outside of Steam. In the event scammers get your API key, they can stop any trade offers from coming to your account and redirect them to their fake account instead. Most API scams are carried out after a successful phishing attempt, and you’re often unaware of the scam until it’s too late.

SSFN File Scam

The SSFN file scam is not a common CS2 scam method, but if the scammers know what they’re doing, it can be especially devastating. It bypasses your Steam guard’s two-factor authentication, which is particularly destructive because it uses security exploits in the Steam app.

The scammers usually pretend to be Valve employees and tell you they need your SSFN file to fix your account. In many cases, players don’t know about this method and don’t expect to get scammed this way, so they give the data to the scammers, who can copy it to their computers, log into your Steam account, and clean everything up.

Item Swap Scam

If they’re selling CS2 skins that are really expensive, they use this method. Just before you accept the trade, the scammer switches it to a much cheaper skin from an expensive CS2 skin.

A player who doesn’t pay attention to the screen often clicks ‘accept trade’ without making CS2 skin price check, unaware that they’ve actually just handed over a rare CS2 skin to someone.