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.
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“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
Just claim your a company and they will magically give a shit about $1 of missing junk
Makes you wonder who they’re working for.
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.
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.
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.
My deepest condolences… Can I offer you an egg in your trying times?
Thanks for the egg. It’s eggcelent.
Classic SuperTux would like to know your location.
stop! you’re scaring the americans with that unwashed egg!
Looks like the eggs I have in America
That’s because it’s not dirt but normal pigmentation of the shell.
Only some of it. The ones at the bottom of the picture can be rubbed off with a wet finger.
There are pre-rinsed eggs in the US? I know our rice comes pre-washed, but I’ve never heard of pre-washed eggs.
All eggs sold in stores in the US are pre-washed. It’s why they need to be refrigerated, unlike most other places.
Huh, TIL. I’d always heard that you need to wash eggs before using them.
What would be the point of washing that part of the egg you’re going to throw out 3 seconds later?
To remove any residual feces or salmonella that might still be on the shell.
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.
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).
That’s really sad. Many movers could’ve stolen from me over many moves, if they wanted, but I haven’t yet found a case of it happening. That sounds like a really stressful way to live, thinking that way
I work a labor job and had three ladders stolen from me on a single project. As I was a contractor at the time it came out of my pocket. There was actually a fourth attempt when I found mine with painter’s tape over where I wrote my name.
That’s messed up. Has that been a common occurrence?
I’ve had a couple tools go missing at other sites but all the ladder theft was at one site.
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
Civilization exists because of strong people keeping week people in line. It has nothing to do with morality. It put Donald Trump in the white house FFS. Watch what people do when they think no one is paying attention and won’t face any consequences and they show their true colors.
I’m an excellent judge of character. I just had to learn to stop giving people the benefit of the doubt. No one has gotten anything past me in years and I’ve had countless moments of telling others “I told you so” when someone I warned them about fucks them over.
You really have been hurt by a lot of people obviously, but spreading miserable amounts of cynicism isn’t helping. I know people throw around “you should seek therapy” flippantly but I think it should be a serious consideration for you if you aren’t already doing so
This is a stupid way to think. And you obviously aren’t a good judge of character. You admitted to thinking thieves were honest people
Do you have renters insurance?
The deductible is probably more than the SD is worth.
Ya sadly it might be, but worth checking
FYI, the cops will not do shit with the info you gave them. Probably never even wrote it down.
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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
![[PSA] The terrible tragedy of a stolen Steam Deck](https://lemm.ee/pictrs/image/d0025178-349f-4b06-b0c0-d068fb24e279.jpeg){kind=link}