[PSA] The terrible tragedy of a stolen Steam Deck
[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.
<story>
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.
<vent>
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.
</vent>
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.
</story>
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
<vent>
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.
</vent>
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.
"is a lengthy time consuming process"
No, it REALLY isn't, and any pig that tells you otherwise is trying to get you to drop the issue so they don't have more paperwork.
They don't give a shit about your stolen items, and 9/10 times it's a complete waste to even contact them over "petty theft", regardless of how valuable the item/s are to you.
They don't give a shit about your stolen items, and 9/10 times it's a complete waste to even contact them over "petty theft", regardless of how valuable the item/s are to you.
When I was in college, my apartment got broken into. The cop that came when I called was less than helpful. Some highlights:
- He immediately argued with me that the crowbar marks on the door frame must have been there before.
- I told him about the TV that was stolen and he bragged that he had two TVs that were larger than that.
- He tried to bust me for weed when he saw my hookah. I had to explain to him that it was in fact not a bong and was only used for tobacco.
- He mentioned that if it were him robbing me, he would have stolen the microwave instead.
- As he was leaving, he told me that they wouldn't be able to catch whoever did it, so they weren't going to look.
The cops are so unhelpful with break ins. I had a very similar experience when our house was broken into. First they told us our TV couldn't have been stolen out the window if we only had a bigger tv, then they told us they couldn't find any of our stuff and that they wouldn't try either.
sounds about right
In the UK its not a "complete waste to even contact the police" because you need a crime number from them to claim on insurance.
I can and would claim home insurance for this and just buy a new one. It would only cost me time but my dumb ass has a lot of that
True, but I would have been filled with regret if I never even tried the official way of recovering it :(
is trying to get you to drop the issue so they don’t have more paperwork.
I had to visit 3 police stations before they agreed to take my case
Oof. Honestly I'm surprised it was only three. At least you finally have a paper trail, if you've got any insurance that might cover it.
As for the ISP, there's always the possibility of requesting assistance directly from them, but they probably have internal rules about handing info to non-law enforcement, regardless of the reason.
And if you've got some friends who don't mind backup for intimidation, you could always show up at each workers door, politely introduce yourself and the reason for your appearance. If any of them immediately slam the door in your face or get defensive upon recognizing you (before you tell them why you're there) then there's a good chance they know you're there because they took something.
Anecdote: this happened with my truck in 2019. Someone broke in and stole about $1500 worth of things from a really nice pair of binocs, to the 2000w inverter, and my hand-made bowie knife, and a couple small camping and fishing things. Had to threaten to call the only supervisor I know by name in the police department to get the guy to even take a report for my insurance. They didn't bother following up with the woman who told me she saw the guy. A few weeks go by and I see someone fitting his description driving the described car, I follow for a bit and he went home. I parked the truck right up in front of the door, knocked, and as soon as he opened and looked past me to the truck he yelled "GET LOST OR I'LL FUCK YOU UP" and that was all I needed to call the cops. After about an hour of waiting someone showed up, talked to the guy, said "well he said he didn't do it and we never called this woman for a description so we can't be SURE"
Well lo and behold, a quick glance into his car showed the 2kw inverter under the dashboard, and I was positive I could see the rather distinct custom leather strap of the binoculars under the seat.
No idea who, but apparently someone smashed the guys window to steal a bunch of stuff out of it and they were kind enough to return my items. Crazy how they knew just where to leave them for me to find.
Best of luck in recovering it. Hopefully you get the quick and less... legally/morally ambiguous way.
lots of maintenance workers at the destination house.
Did these people work for a specific company? Complaining to the company directly about stolen items or leaving negative review of the company might help.
Either way it really sucks though, I'm sorry you went through that.
even not a specific company: mention to all of them that it was stolen while they had a pretty limited group of people at the house
you might think it’s a case of “how would they know who there’s no point”, but people who steal things like this likely didn’t do it just once… it is, or will become a pattern of behaviour. if nobody reports it, they have no chance of identifying a pattern of behaviour to narrow down the culprit… if a company gets 2 or 3 reports of stolen items from houses that an individual employee is working at, it becomes pretty clear who the culprit could be
you even have pretty good evidence that it was stolen rather than lost: the fact that it came online for a period means someone has it and has connected it to a network and then not reported it lost
do make it clear though that you’re not insinuating that their company specifically is to blame; you just want them to know in case they have future problems. you don’t want them getting defensive, because that’s not productive for anyone
While they belong to Urban Company, they were called as external agents for this particular job by my renter.
Dumb question, the Steam Deck of the image is yours or you could never get it back? In a first instace I think that the Steam Deck in the image was yours.
It's not mine. Just a random image which is like my emotional state at the time of the event.
Sorry, yo. Keep your head up
Its a dishonest clickbait tactic given most people assume the story would end with "i got it back smashed up".
I was let down by the time I completed reading but not enough to downvote.
Sorry for the loss OP.
Maybe not what you want to hear right now, but I'm really glad Steam cloud minimises the impact of a loss. When I had a Nintendo Switch I was terrified of losing hundreds of hours of Dead Cells or Enter the Gungeon progress. Losing a Deck is obviously a financial loss (and the emotional attachment of someone special giving you yours), but at least there isn't insult to add to the injury the way Nintendo would do.
I am extremely grateful of Steam Cloud. I was playing Celeste and I saw that my progress is saved.
Also, I thankfully didnt use my personal IDs on the device. So the thieves couldn't use it for any other purpose.
Not sure which country you live in, but renter's insurance covered a stolen item for me when I was renting. Worth a check if you have a similar thing.
When it comes to small expensive electronics, you can never be too careful.
I was still in school when the PSP came out, and I had one on launch. I was dumb and was taking it to school daily, but I was very careful not to leave it out of my sight. One day in science class, it was stolen from right under me as it was inside my backpack, which was under my chair the entire class.
At the time, I blamed the 2 trouble makers in front of me since at points I was facing the back of the class for a group activity. I found out years later it was the Mormon next to me I trusted, who I can only assume expertly unzipped my bag and slipped it out while nobody was paying attention. I never got that PSP back, and I ended up buying another one later, both with my own money... It was a brutal reality check that taught me a handful of lessons in life
My brother had a moment like that as a kid. He had a phone and put it in a locker when he went to gym (kids stuff, you know. Get them active, get them tired) and… the locker wasn’t locked. Plus having the pin enabled was annoying so he didn’t have that either. Yep. He learned that lesson…
In highschool I had a gameboy color in my backpack with pokemon tcg in it.
I went to the bathroom and came back. It was no longer in my backpack after that. Thanks sophomore year physics class.
My deepest condolences... Can I offer you an egg in your trying times?
I asked, through the person who hired the workers, if they took it. But all the workers refused.
Cool, you're all fired. GTFO of my house.
One of the workers definitely stole it
Plot twist, it was the mother.
I'm pretty sure about it. I put the Deck in the bag, put the bag in the house and leave. After I come back, it's gone. There was no one else other than the workers.
It's really insane that paid help went digging through your shit and stole an expensive item. I do not think that is something people would or could expect.
The only country I'd trust paid help in is Japan. Anywhere else and it is very likely a considerable portion are either thieves or one unlocked door away from thievery. Doesn't matter if it's in my home or in their shop(like for a car).
You should expect it. A huge % of people are shitbags just waiting for their chance. I've found and returned 3 wallets in my life and every time when I mentioned it to someone else they were in total disbelief that I didn't just steal the person's money and calling me an idiot for it. These were people I would have thought were trustworthy otherwise.
A huge % of people are shitbags just waiting for their chance
The existence of civilization as we know it depends on this being false.
they were in total disbelief that I didn't just steal the person's money and calling me an idiot for it. These were people I would have thought were trustworthy otherwise.
Then you aren't a good judge of character
FYI, the cops will not do shit with the info you gave them. Probably never even wrote it down.
Do you have renters insurance?
The deductible is probably more than the SD is worth.
Ya sadly it might be, but worth checking
I've a suggestion that might work depending on how honest the perspn hiring the worker is and on their contract. You can tell the person to send some questionnaire or feedback form etc to all of them which will track their ip and name/email (say unique form per worker). Then you can match the ip, as home ips are mostly static for short duration. Tell them to send the form at night or sometime when they'll be at home and give it a short deadline.
This is actually a terrific idea. Unfortunately there is a high probability that the workers will use their mobile data to access the form. But I'm thinking how it might be possible to set this up in a believable manner. These workers from the lower lower middle class section of society and they don't understand forms. Thanks for the suggestion.
Hi there, I can see that the thief is currently using the device. Will it be possible to send a link via my friend saying "Yo bro, check this meme. This girl is crazzyyyy
<link>" which, once clicked, gets the GPS coordinate?For example, it's possible via browser to get the location of a device. Can the same thing be done on Linux? I can create a simple nginx webserver on my spare server but unsure about how to proceed.
grabify link, hide it as a pic.
Afaik steam deck doesn't have a gps module. You've to get any of their identifying information.
What you can do is perhaps sending memes with different cannery token redirects for each worker. Send them around when the device is being used. That way you can compare the grabbed ip with steam log and see which worker's match. As the deck doesn't have sim they either will use home wifi or mobile hotspot. Both will work this way.
I am so sorry, that is a horrible story. It is not your fault!
I, along with the rest of my family, are probably too trusting of people. At my old place, i used to leave stuff like this all the time and I never even thought that it could get stolen.
I wish I learnt this lesson earlier but in a different manner. 😔
Oh my, I really felt this story. I'm so sorry for your loss
Heads up, Google now has a FindMy network like Apple's that'll update much more frequently than a Tile due to the sheer number of users. The downside, as compared to a tile, is that it'll notify the thief that a tracker is following them.
Can you give me a little more detail on this? How to enable it and does it work on devices without GPS?
It works like Tile and Apple's FindMy network, mostly through Bluetooth I believe. Every single phone running android (and with the setting enabled) can ping the location of your trackable when nearby. It's just like Tile, except with a network of every single Android device instead of just Tile users. If you're unsure how Tile or Air tags work, then you might have bit more research to do that's outside the scope of this comment.
I'm not sure what you mean by enable it, the first step would be to purchase a compatible trackable. Currently there are only two brands making them, unless others have started since I bought mine. Pebblebee seems to be the more popular ones, and that's what I went with.
If you want to play around with the app, you can download it here, but there won't be much to do in it until you have a trackable.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.adm
All the times I checked, there isn't any hardware yet that would be worth it. Chipolo sounded promising, but the reviews really disagree. I wish Samsung adopted Google's network. Their trackers are fantastic and offer features no other company does.
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.
Make sure to wait 5 minutes after you see them playing a game and open up a new one to kick them off in the middle of what they're doing
Other than law-enforcement, no one can find the customer details associated with an IP address.
Yeah, what you need is to subpoena the address to find out who the owner is of the internet connection. From there you can probably find out which construction worker lives there and take it to small claims court.
Probably not worth it
This is unlikely but is there any CCTV in that room?
Oh that sucks.
:( I'm sorry that happened to you. That's a sad sight
Just hugged my steamdeck
Hug it again for my sake :(
reminds me of when i had a backpack with all my stuff stolen by knifepoint….
also, get another one. i’d bet the person that bought it for you was hoping to play games with you…