Buying a CS2 account: what to check first

No. Section 1.C of the Steam Subscriber Agreement (opens in a new tab) says an account is strictly personal: “You may therefore not sell or charge others for the right to use your Account”. The same section forbids transferring an account, and letting others use its password unless Valve authorises it.

So every account sale, this store's included, happens outside Steam's rules. That is a risk you take on as the buyer, and no seller can remove it. What a seller can do is tell you plainly what you get and what happens if it goes wrong, which is what the rest of this guide checks.

Three things, mainly. The original owner may still be able to recover the account through Steam, especially on an NFA account whose email you do not hold. Valve may restrict or ban the account, for something done on it before or after the sale. And an account can simply fail to sign in when you first try it.

A warranty is there for the first and the last of those, inside its window. Nothing covers a ban earned after the account is handed over, and nobody can promise how Valve will treat a bought account later.

An FA account comes with its email, so you can take full control of it. It costs more, and depends on the seller really handing the mailbox over. An NFA account comes with a way to sign in but not the email, costs less, and leans more on its warranty. The NFA guide covers both meanings of the term and what Steam Families has to do with it. KeyScope sells NFA accounts only: a Steam ID and a login token, never the mailbox.

Whichever shop you buy from, get clear answers to these first. What exactly is delivered: login details, a token, or the email as well? How long is the warranty, what does it cover, and what happens when it pays out: a replacement, money back or store credit? Is the stock count real, and what happens if you order something that is not on the shelf? How do you pay, and is a fee added? Can you reach a person if it goes wrong?

A shop that answers all of these in writing, on its own pages, is easier to hold to its word than one that answers in a chat after you have paid. KeyScope's answers are on its FAQ, its refund policy and its terms, and summed up below.

From choosing an account to signing in:

1. Choose a variant on a product page, and a warranty: the first six hours are included, and longer windows up to 72 hours cost more.
2. Check out as a guest or signed in. Only an order placed while signed in is covered by the delivery guarantee: if it is not delivered within twelve hours of the payment being confirmed, what you paid for the undelivered items goes onto your balance. Warranty credit works the same way.
3. Pay in cryptocurrency (or from your balance, if signed in) within six hours of placing the order. On a crypto payment the coin's network fee is shown and included before you pay, and an order comes to at least $0.50.
4. Crypto orders over $200 are checked by hand before anything is delivered.
5. Once the payment is confirmed, the order page shows each account's Steam ID and login token. Accounts on the shelf are released without anyone stepping in.
6. A line ordered On request, past what is on the shelf, is either delivered automatically when the store restocks it or handed over by hand on Discord, as its product page says before you buy, and the order page says which wait it is in.
7. If the account fails inside its warranty window, claim it from your order page or through support: you get a replacement when one is in stock, or, on an order placed while signed in, what you paid for that item goes onto your balance.

No refunds. What cannot be delivered or replaced is credited to a KeyScope balance, which pays for later orders and cannot be withdrawn. No email access, and no cover for a ban earned after handover.

No itemised inventories: the skins and knife accounts say what kind of item is on them, not which one. And no delivery time for a line ordered On request beyond what the delivery guarantee covers on an order placed while signed in. Nothing a shop says makes a bought account permitted by Steam.