Valve will no longer return items lost in Steam trade scams

Lose an in-game item in a Steam trade scam and you could previously ask Valve to get it back. But that's no longer the case.

In a policy change, Valve has now decided to cease reimbursing scam victims - because the scams themselves should be too identifiable to fall prey for.

"We sympathise with people who fall victim to scams, but we provide enough information on our website and within our trading system to help users make good trading decisions," Valve's updated Steam Trading Q&A states.

"All trade scams can be avoided."

The company also likely spent a notable chunk of its customer service budget having to trawl through and verify each individual claim.

Introducing new stock into the system when giving Steam users back their old purchases was also affecting the market value of that item, Valve said.

"Our community assigns an item a value that is at least partially determined by that item's scarcity," Valve's statement continues.

"If more copies of the item are added to the economy through inventory rollbacks, the value of every other instance of that item would be reduced."

Valve's Q&A page includes nearly two dozen examples of typical trade scams with tips on how to avoid them - including item switching, verification scams, fake CD keys, fake website scams and desktop control malware.