[PSA] The terrible tragedy of a stolen Steam Deck
This is a post I wish I never had to make. Forgive my grammar and spelling as I am a bit emotional.
My Steam Deck was stolen and I just had it for less than 2 months.
It has been more than 2 weeks since it happened but it still hurts the same. I wanted to make this post because it was a very costly mistake from my side and I don't want it to happen to anyone else.
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It happened when I was shifting from one house to another house and there were lots of maintenance workers at the destination house. After I kept my luggage inside the house, I left to buy some essentials. My mom was the only person left who was watching over the stuff. By the time I came back, the workers had left. I thought I have some free time so decided to pull the Steam Deck out but it was missing.
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I was absolutely devastated; I can't even begin to explain in words what it felt like. I asked, through the person who hired the workers, if they took it. But all the workers refused. I was just crushed; I could feel my heart dropping into my stomach. Even now, as I am typing this story, that emotion is replaying.
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After this happened, I removed all payment methods from my Steam account (Steam Guard 2FA was already active). I saw after 5 days that the Steam Deck was online for a brief period of time, via Steam Guard. I purposefully didn't sign out of the device because I wanted the thieves to make the mistake of signing in and giving me some clue about their location; the Steam Deck was still inside my city. I took the IPs and submitted it to the police and asked them if they could track it. They said they will try their best since getting the customer details from an IP is a "lengthy and time-consuming process". But at this point, I can't do anything; it's not possible for me to visit all the worker's home individually and check as I don't have the authority. I gave up and convinced myself to move on.
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This taught me a lot of things and I wanted to share with the community, now that I have slightly recovered mentally.
Secure your luggage when moving
When you are moving, you usually have a million thoughts in your head. This can cause you to neglect your luggage's safety. If you are going to unload your luggage temporarily, KEEP IT IN A SECURE MANNER FIRST and then do everything else.
A secure manner could mean
- Under someone's watch
- Putting it far away from the exit
- Putting a lock on the luggage
- Putting it inside a cabinet and locking it
Don't just unload the luggage and start doing something mentally involving.
Be wary of outsiders
Sometimes, there will be outside people in your home. It's crucial to keep the Steam Deck out of reach of everyone. Not everyone is a thief but different people have different moral standards. Don't create a tempting scenario for others. Keep it secure when there are guests/workers at your place.
Put some form of tracking on the device
The Steam Deck is like a traditional laptop; it has no SIM or GPS. Once it's lost, it's really hard to get it back. There are methods by which you can track the Steam Deck (Steam Guard) but it involves IP and it's not enough to get an exact location. Other than law-enforcement, no one can find the customer details associated with an IP address.
An alternate approach, which can be slight pricey, is to put a Tile tracker on the device. There are tutorials on how it can be attached to the device.
Note: I'm not associated with Tile in any way.
Get the official Serial Number and MAC ID of the device
It will help you to uniquely identify the device IF it gets stolen. You may find the serial number on
- The bill of purchase
- Inside the Steam Deck settings section
- On the Steam Deck package
- You can ask Steam support for the serial number once it's associated with your account The MAC ID is present on the Steam Deck settings page (and also on your access point logs if it has connected even once).
I hope this post is educational and makes you wary of the physical dangers around us. Please keep your handhelds or any valuables safe
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What hurts even more is that the Steam Deck, which was the 1 TB OLED model, was a gift from a very special person and I feel like I have betrayed that person by losing it. I had lots of plans with the device, like making a couch plug-and-play setup, a retro gaming setup, a productivity device by using desktop mode, etc. But all my plans were shattered in an instance. I'm now convincing myself to move on to something else.
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Edit: As of 20th August, I can see via Steam Guard that the device was logged into a few hours ago (2 weeks post the burglary). I know the risks involved in keeping my device signed in. I'm counting on the person's stupidity. Any proper thief would have formatted the device.
Did you contact Valve or have the person who bought it contact Valve to report it as stolen?
Yes, i contacted valve. They marked the device as stolen. The Valve employee said that it won't be applicable for future warranty attempts. I'm not sure what else is possible.
I hope when the thief connects his account to the device, it get banned or something.
I have mixed feelings about this. Steam could make a lock that is more like the IMEI or android and iPhone lock that means it is far less valuable to steal and easier to track and lock. But by reporting it you remove THEIR obligation to provide warranty to someone that innocently buys a used steam deck that is still within its warranty period but that doesn’t hurt the person who stole it only another innocent party in the ordeal. Now if they gave you $25 off another steam deck or something I would see the point.
Not saying don’t do it. Just that it seems a little redundant now.
Buying stolen property isn't innocent and can take the matter up with the person that sold it to them.
Buying stolen property unknowingly is innocent. A steam deck can end up on eBay or Facebook marketplace place or even in second hand stores like CEX etc without being tagged as stolen.
If you buy something and a few months later it dies from a recognised fault, it sucks for the person who bought it in good faith. They have no recourse and the only person gaining anything from it is Steam.
They can do all of the following:
It should teach the person never to buy stuff without an original invoice. The buyer should understand it's a stolen product when they opened it and saw that there is an active account associated with it AND the charger is not included.
Ah you sweet child. Go to any legit second hand store and ask for the original receipt for the item. Nope. A charger may well have been changed or another similar one given after all it’s only USBC.
There are a plethora of reasons why a legitimate seller may have a non standard charger and when I sell an old phone or a laptop on a market place there is an expectation the item isn’t stolen. It’s called good faith in contract law and why you can’t be guilty of handling stolen goods if you have no knowledge or expectation of it being stolen. For example if you buy it in a pub with a dog and 2 kilos of meat all for £50, then there is a reasonable expectation it is stolen, but buying from a second hand electronics store or eBay, there is an expectation it is not stolen.
As for someone else’s login, well if you wipe the drive or factory restore it, it no longer has anything on it and can have no such identifiers. This is why I stated that Steam can and I believe should do more to make the device lock down, but they have no incentive as it costs them money to implement and manage but with little to gain for them.