How to Run a Steam OSINT Background Check with SteamDetective

Updated

SteamDetective is a free userscript that runs in Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey and overlays ban, reputation and history data directly on any Steam profile page. It pulls from over 30 sources — SteamRep, Backpack.tf, Mannco.store, Marketplace.tf, Skial, SteamHistory.net and others — so you can assess a stranger before a trade, a teammate before a competitive match, or a suspicious account you suspect is an alt. It is a signal-gathering tool, not a verdict: cross-source bans and history tell you where to look, not what to conclude.

Before You Start

  • Browser extension: Install Tampermonkey or Violentmonkey. SteamDetective runs as a userscript, so it will not work without one.
  • The userscript itself: Add SteamDetective to your userscript manager. Once active, it injects a data panel into Steam profile pages automatically.
  • Optional Steam API key: The friend audit's "friend-since" dates require a Steam API key. Without one, the rest of the friend list still loads, but that column stays empty.
  • A target profile: Any public Steam profile URL works. Private profiles will show less data, and some third-party sources may return "No account" or blank statuses.

Step 1: Read the Core Account Signals

Open the target's Steam profile. The panel shows the basics first — treat these as your triage layer:

Signal What to look for
Account creation date Very new accounts paired with large inventories or trade activity are a common alt/scam pattern
Trade / community bans "Trade banned" or "community banned" status is a hard red flag for trading
Trade probation Restricted trading; often tied to recent account recovery or fraud flags
VAC bans Cheating enforcement history; check count and recency
Limited account Under $5 USD spent — frequently seen on throwaway accounts
Identifiers ID2, ID3, ID64 and profile URL, useful for cross-referencing on other sites

A single signal rarely decides anything. A 2013 account with a clean record and a VAC ban from 2016 tells a different story than a 2024 account that is trade banned and limited.

Step 2: Cross-Check Reputation Sources

The reputation section aggregates statuses from multiple trading and community sites. Read them together rather than one at a time:

  • SteamRep (Archive): status, profile archives, and whether the profile has been reported.
  • Backpack.tf: banned / feature banned / normal / no account, plus last visited, premium status, donation amount, inventory value and rank, and trust links.
  • Mannco.store, Marketplace.tf, STN.Trading: normal / banned / no account, with join dates and trade counts where available.
  • FirePowered and Skial: ban status including "unbanned," which matters — a lifted ban is still history.
  • SteamTrades.com: account status, registration date, last online, and review/trade/comment counts.
  • MvM Lobby: ban status and stats.

How to interpret: a ban on one marketplace can be a dispute; the same account banned across several independent sites is a much stronger pattern. "No account" on a site is neutral — it just means they never registered there.

Step 3: Audit Groups for Alt Patterns

The group audit lists every group the account belongs to, with search by name and filters for member count and public/private status. It also highlights keywords that recur across group names.

Use it to spot:

  • Clusters of tiny, newly created groups with similar naming — a common alt-farming pattern.
  • Shared membership in the same obscure groups as another suspect account (compare manually).
  • Groups whose names repeat scam-adjacent keywords the tool flags.

Group overlap alone is weak evidence — popular trading groups are shared by thousands of legitimate users. Weight it alongside account age and ban history.

Step 4: Audit the Friend List

The friend audit lists the entire friends list with each friend's Backpack.tf trust score and ban status, plus friend-since dates if you supplied a Steam API key. You can search by name and filter by trust, ban type or custom URL.

What to look for:

  • A high proportion of friends who are banned or have low/negative trust.
  • Friends added in a tight window right after account creation (visible with the API key).
  • A friends list that is unusually small and entirely composed of flagged accounts.

Step 5: Check Name, Real-Name and URL History

Rebranding is a standard evasion tactic. Two sources cover it:

  • SteamHistory.net: username history, real-name history and URL history.
  • SteamID.uk: name change count, URL change count and opt-out status.

Frequent name or URL changes are not proof of wrongdoing — plenty of users rebrand casually — but a recent rename immediately before contacting you, combined with a thin account history, is worth pausing on. An "opt out" status on SteamID.uk means that site cannot show history, so rely on SteamHistory and the profile's own comments instead.

Step 6: Run the Sourcebans Checker (Community Servers)

If your concern is cheating on community servers rather than trading, the Sourcebans checker queries the ban lists of 20 community server networks at once and shows each site's status, ban count and latest ban. Filter by active/inactive and temporary/permanent. This is the fastest way to see whether an account has been removed from multiple server communities.

Step 7: Use the Research Links

The panel includes one-click research links to eTools.ch, Searx.one, Reddit, YouTube, SteamDB.info, SteamLadder.com, SteamCollector.com, SteamLevel.net, Inventory.gift, Dispenser.tf, RGL.gg and ETF2L, plus automatic archive searches on the Wayback Machine and Archive.today. You can also add your own links. Use the archive searches when a profile's current state looks scrubbed — old snapshots often preserve the previous name, avatar and description.

Reading Results Without Overreaching

  • Bans are signals, not proof. A VAC ban is enforcement history; a marketplace ban may reflect a payment dispute. Look for convergence across independent sources.
  • "No account" is not negative. It only means the user never signed up on that site.
  • Private profiles limit everything. Expect missing data and do not read gaps as guilt.
  • Friend-since dates need the API key. Without it, that column is blank by design, not because the data is hidden.
  • Recency matters. A 2015 ban followed by years of clean activity reads differently from a ban last month.

Common Snags

  • No panel appears: confirm the userscript is enabled in Tampermonkey/Violentmonkey and that you are on a steamcommunity.com profile page, then reload.
  • Friend dates missing: add a Steam API key in the tool's settings.
  • Sources show blank or "No account": the profile may be private, or the third-party site may be temporarily unreachable — recheck later.
  • SteamID.uk shows opt-out: that user has hidden their history there; cross-check SteamHistory.net and archive snapshots instead.

The practical workflow is short: open the profile, read creation date and bans, scan the reputation table for convergence, then use group, friend and name-history audits only when the first two layers raise a question. That keeps a background check to a couple of minutes while still catching the patterns — new limited accounts, multi-site bans, recent renames, flagged friend networks — that separate a throwaway alt from a long-standing account.