Buying/Trading Steam Account

Hey everyone!

First, I am very sorry if this question has already been answered elsewhere, or if this is not the appropriate place to ask it. I have not been lurking long. =( I have an unusual situation though and I'd appreciate any advice that the informed and experienced people of this forum could offer.

I registered my Steam account many years ago using a nickname of my RL name as the account name. I am a girl. I began streaming games recently, and I'm very paranoid about watchers seeing my account name and discovering what my first name is IRL. I would really like to trade or sell my Steam account, which has over 100+ games and many Achievements (Fallout, Bad Company, Modern Warfare 2, Left 4 Dead 2, etc), for an account with a more "generic" name. However, I'm very paranoid of being scammed, and I also worry that a buyer/trader might be turned off by a girl's name being the account name.

What are the risks involved with selling/purchasing, and how likely am I to find a buyer/trader who would want my account despite the name?

 

By "account name", do you mean the username that you use to login with? If so, no-one can ever see it, so I wouldn't worry.

All people can see is your custom url or nickname which gets shown on your steam community.

As to risks with buying or selling, if you use a middleman (Sengira is a good example of a free one, and he's also a mod) and make sure - if you're selling - to get the paypal gifted, the risks are minimised.

The major risk is getting scammed, but if you have proof or purchase ("pop") you can get your account back via steam support anyway. The other risk is that selling/ trading a steam account is against Steam's ToS, so make sure you don't post the username/ custom url/ nickname.

Does that cover everything?

 

Hey reddragon! Thank you for taking the time to respond to my questions.

Yes, when I say account name, I am referring to the username of my account. I know that other users cannot see it normally. However, when I open my Library in Steam, it shows my username on the window. I always have to be careful when Livestreaming games to make sure that people watching do not see this screen, and it is a little annoying to me. I'd like to trade for another account preferably, but I do not know if the username for my account would be a turnoff to a buyer. I also have no idea how much my account would be worth if I decided to sell it instead of trade it.

 

Oh, I get you. Fair enough, but I'd think it would be easier if you just obscured your account name then - I can think of a couple ways.

• Run the games from a desktop shortcut (R-click in steam library)
• Use steam mini-mode
• Custom steam skin

For the last one, this steam skin edits your account name to "My streaming steam account", like in this picture:



To intall it, make a new directory in <steam folder>/skins/<skinname>/resource/styles and drop the file above in it and then switch the skin to whatever you called it in options.

e: That name is changeable, btw.

Seems a lot easier than buying/ trading your account. FWIW, you'll get about 1/10th to 1/5th of the raw account value if you try to sell it.

 

I had absolutely no idea that you could create custom steam skins that function like this to obscure your account name. It completely solves my problem!!

I was expecting to basically take a loss of $200+ on my account just to switch, and was worried about getting scammed, too. Now I don't really have to do it at all.

I can't thank you enough for showing this to me, reddragon. =) I am going to try installing it now. Thank you for your help!!