Was this account hijacked? (Barmaley) 100+ unusuals

I was trying to find the history of an unusual hat being sold on SCM by an account with a private backpack, and I think I've traced it back to a user called Barmaley (based on level and effect).

Just over a month ago he had over 100 unusual hats: http://backpack.tf/profiles/76561197976103957?time=1403679600
As of a couple days ago they were all gone: http://backpack.tf/profiles/76561197976103957?time=1406790000

A quick google search didn't turn up any sign that he may have cashed out. His backpack is now private and he has 11 scammers and 4 cautions out of 105 friends. He was last online 23 days ago: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197976103957

I'm assuming he was hijacked but I'm posting this in the hope that someone might know more about the account.

It seems we have found a mystery, without any proof nothing can really be done, contact steam/valve about it.

If that account was a hijacker mule, steam support would have wiped the accounts bp and locked the account.

Also, steam support inquiries about other accounts will not be answerred. They can only discuss your account with you.

Not entirely sure what you mean by 'mule', but it looks to me like a legit account that has simply been stripped of over 100 unusual hats in the last month. Looking at the history of a few of the unusuals he had, many of them have been in the backpack for years. If the actual owner of the account has really been offline for some time he may not even realise his account has been compromised.

All speculation on my part of course, but I'd think that if someone really cashed out 100 unusuals in that space of time there would be some indication of it on legit trading sites. I couldn't find anything.

We can only speculate, and not know a thing. Not much point to it till then.

as he said
the only way to know is if the owner reports the hijacking.

Even then, we do not process hijacking/phishing reports anymore.

Geez, could have sworn I put this in the general discussion forum! What's with all the negativity? I posted in the hope that someone may have more information to share, and as a heads up to anyone who may be considering acquiring one of these unusuals.

For what it's worth a large number of them are being sold off on the community market, mostly by a few accounts with private profiles at reasonably attractive prices (especially compared to the ridiculous prices commonly found on SCM).

One other possibility that occurred to me is that the original account owner himself is selling off the hats under multiple alts because of steam wallet limits. I wish I knew, but in the absence of more information I'm avoiding them. The likelihood of dealing with a scammer and ending up with a duped hat is too high for me.

Well that didn't last long A hat which was formerly in Barmaley's backpack was put on the market that I couldn't resist, not for more than a minute or two anyway before my resolve crumbled and I made a sudden lunge for the buy button!

And now we play the waiting game...

SteamRep General Discussion is discussions related to steamrep and related. Non-related gets deleted.

As far as I can see, he has a couple of alts. But I'm not going to tell which those are due their privacy. Neither have they been online very recently.

Okay then I won't post any further on this, but the forum name (and lack of description) makes this less than clear

I hope the mods won't mind if I post a quick update on this.

Looks like the account was hijacked. As of a few days ago backpack.tf shows all the unusuals have been duped back in to Barmaley's backpack. Interestingly they have retained their pre-hijack current ids rather than being assigned new current ids which is something I've wondered about.

So far none of the 4 accounts I identified selling off the hats appear to have suffered any punishment (trade/vac bans) although you can't really know much given they all have private profiles.

Steam support restores items as they where. So its not surprising to see that they got the same ID back.

Also, Steam support would probably have locked the accounts, those wont be logging in again unless the original owner comes to them that they got hijacked, and even then they get restored to even before that. Might not have happened like that, but thats the general action on those accounts: deactivated.

The items has returned to his backpack.