The disposable nature of scam accounts on Steam has always been a bit of a problem – roll into town, set up some fakes, spam to your heart’s content then roll right out again. If the account is banhammered? No problem, you can just set up a new one and start all over again.

Not any more.

Many features are now going to be walled behind a $5 cost (for example, purchasing a game) – and there are very specific criteria where and how that money needs to be spent, before your account moves from Limited to Regular. From the Steam support page:

Limited users are prevented from accessing several features on Steam, including but not limited to:

Sending friend invites
Opening group chat
Voting on Greenlight, Steam Reviews and Workshop items
Participating in the Steam Market
Posting frequently in the Steam Discussions
Gaining Steam Profile Levels (Locked to level 0) and Trading Cards
Submitting content on the Steam Workshop
Posting in an item's Steam Workshop Discussions
Accessing the Steam Web API
Using browser and mobile chat

They’ve thought about ways people could try to game this system, so – for example – throwing money at a cheap game then reversing payment will remove your freshly gained full account status. Hopefully this move will encourage would-be scammers to move right along and hold fire on phishing / Malware links sent to innocent Steam users. More at the link.

Christopher Boyd