Steam user banned for life for trying to sell account (but has been re-activated)

[David.Seth2]

What happens if you violate Steam's Subscriber Agreement and you have a library of games worth nearly $2,000? As one user learned, you'll lose access to all of those games.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/...-subscriber-agreement-loses-1800-in-games.ars

Any thoughts on this? Its like the more I read into it, the more I cant decide who is in the right (although if I had to choose Valve would be it). Some person tried to sell his account to make some extra cash. I guess he didn't realize that doing this breaks Valves ToS, so a month later his account was banned. Many people in the comments in the article above think Valve overstepped, saying that the guy had only talked about selling it and maybe should have gotten a warning or a temp ban. But Valve is in a hard spot with situations like this, they have to agree with all the studios/companies that use steam as a distribution for their game. And on top of that, had they banned the account after the transaction, some poor guy would have been out all the money paid for the account, and the seller wouldn't have gotten any "punishment" plus would have just kept the money. This is why I tend to side with Valve, but I wish they had just given him a warning or temp ban from the beginning. Their ToS, like most other companies, is very long and sometimes confusing. Do they reeeally expect every user to read that thing when they install steam? Or any software for that matter? But Valve just dropping the hammer really bugs me. They pride themselves on being very consumer friendly. Yet this was a huge let down. Anybody who cheats or hacks a game pretty much knows they will get banned (from said game). But selling your account? I bet there's plenty of steam users who don't realize that this is against Valves "laws". Here was his email conversation with valve:

Thankfully Valve reinstated the account, I just wish they had either a) given him a warning or b) given him a temp ban and told why he got the temp ban and for how long it was going to be in affect

 

[joule]

This really makes no sense. As previously mentioned, intent != action. If this were the case, anyone could easily "frame" another Steam user's account: post said account with intention to sell, Valve identifies it, account banned. Oops!?

Valve completely overstepped their boundaries, hence the reason the account was re-activated. :frog:

 

[David.Seth2]

This really makes no sense. As previously mentioned, intent != action. If this were the case, anyone could easily "frame" another Steam user's account: post said account with intention to sell, Valve identifies it, account banned. Oops!?

Valve completely overstepped their boundaries, hence the reason the account was re-activated. :frog:

But see thats the thing. What is valve supposed to do? Wait and see if the account is sold? And if it is, who do they punish? The person who paid money for an account? How would you feel if you paid for a steam account (lets say you didn't realize that was against ToS), and then it was banned for life shortly after. You would be out a steam account plus all the money you paid. This is why I think Valve should have just issued a temp ban and had been upfront with the guy in the beginning.

and maybe if they made their ToS a lot shorter and simpler to understand, I think there would be a lot less confusion. Then anyone who tries anyway to break the rules and then get perma band, well, they have no excuse