Ragin Beige Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Help! I just traded for my dream unusual (sunbeams ol' geezer). But after I traded, I went through his bp for evidence for a new price suggestion and I saw the user marked as a scammer. Not knowing about this beforehand, will anything bad happen to me because I traded with a scammer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrafterofGenius Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 It's a low value unusual and you were unaware as well as it being your first offence, therefore you'll just get a temp ban from OP and a warning amongst other places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynexyl Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I think you should not have created this topic. Anyway, yes, you'll receive a warning and a temp ban i think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polar Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 In this day and age, I don't understand how people still don't check SR. Admittedly, there was a time, 2+ years ago, when this was not part of mainstream trading expectations. But so many people have been warned and banned for trading with scammers. I just don't understand how this still happens. On a side note, I'm waiting for that guy to appeal and get unbanned and the shit ton of appeals from people who got banned for trading with him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Дебра Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Help! I just traded for my dream unusual (sunbeams ol' geezer). But after I traded, I went through his bp for evidence for a new price suggestion and I saw the user marked as a scammer. Not knowing about this beforehand, will anything bad happen to me because I traded with a scammer? Accidents happen. If you don't trade with scammers 3+ times you are unlikely to get marked. Expect a outpost ban up to 2 weeks though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheVenomWithin Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Lmao you'd be in less trouble if you didn't make a thread about it. Worse you'll get is a few week outpost ban and a warning from other sites. Make sure you always check beforehand, as you can get marked next time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senpai Absol~ Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Dude, don't make a thread ;-;. bad idea Edit: Like im sure some of the more active Forum members Have traded with scammers and didn't get caught Because of not making a thread l0l Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOOM! Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Why did you make a thread xD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budi Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 See this is the problem I have with this entire process. Steam Rep is complete shit, if any of you actually bothered to read the pending reports on the "scammer" this guy traded with, 1 report is completely stupid because the guy who made it basically traded an unusual for 2 other unusuals and a strange weapon. Same thing with the newer pending report. The guy traded for a higher end viewfinder and gave up like 6 unusuals in the deal. None of these are scams, sharking maybe, but clearly don't fall within the correct filing of reports to designate a scammer. None have actually been reviewed by an admin and most of the posters who've looked at the pending reports agree they are completely off base. Looks more like a couple of butthurt kids that didn't do their homework with trades and then complained about the deal after the fact. I'm not defending the shark, but the bigger issue here is that guy got marked for doing things that shouldn't have had him marked on Steam Rep in the first place, and then this guy above who bought the beams hat is now banned for trading with a guy who never should have been marked anyways. The whole system is fucked and this is why these attempts at going after scammers and whoever trades with scammers will never be solved in the correct manner. The entire system is flawed to the core.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexican Citrus Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 In this day and age, I don't understand how people still don't check SR. Admittedly, there was a time, 2+ years ago, when this was not part of mainstream trading expectations. But so many people have been warned and banned for trading with scammers. I just don't understand how this still happens. On a side note, I'm waiting for that guy to appeal and get unbanned and the shit ton of appeals from people who got banned for trading with him... Probably because everyone sees how inept they are with reports and appeals. It's hard to put weight on SR tags, seeing how horribly the site is managed (but ultimately I have to pretend to trust their terrible system because I like being able to use OP). I mean hell, the only person with a tag on my friends list is d0. I also found a scammer months ago, and my report doesn't even have a reply yet. They've never shown that they're deserving of my trust, so it baffles me as to why OP and Bp.tf like them so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ocu.TF ♥ TWP Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Just curious - does backpack.tf have a system for automatically checking the histories of unusuals and comparing them with known scammers? I know it wouldn't be very reliable, but the fact that Aditya has so many rich people added makes me feel uneasy. At least one of them must have traded with him after he got banned... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gren Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 See this is the problem I have with this entire process. Steam Rep is complete shit, if any of you actually bothered to read the pending reports on the "scammer" this guy traded with, 1 report is completely stupid because the guy who made it basically traded an usual for 2 other unusual and a strange weapon. Same thing with the newer pending report. The guy traded for a higher end viewfinder and gave up like 6 unusuals in the deal. None of these are scams, sharking maybe, but clearly don't fall within the correct filing of reports to designate a scammer. None have actually been reviewed by an admin and most of the posters who've looked at the pending reports agree they are completely off base. Looks more like a couple of butthurt kids that didn't do their homework with trades and then complained about the deal after the fact. I'm not defending the shark, but the bigger issue here is that guy got marked for doing things that shouldn't have had him marked on Steam Rep in the first place, and then this guy above who bought the beams hat is now banned for trading with a guy who never should have been marked anyways. The whole system is fucked and this is why these attempts at going after scammers and whoever trades with scammers will never be solved in the correct manner. The entire system is flawed to the core.... Agreed 100% I don't agree with the 'guilty until proven innocent' approach. I can make a report right now using an alt accusing someone of 'scamming'. for the time being they'll have a pending report which will probably earn them a temp ban from all trading sites and most diligent traders won't do business with them simply because they'll see a pending report on SR. Then there's the subjectivity. So a guy like Cranwell needs 5 offenses before he gets marked, but the average trader fucks up once and gets his "trading license" revoked? That's bullshit. And then there's the fact that the whole system as it exists today doesn't do the thing it's designed to do: limit phishing and scamming. I can't even count the number of accounts I blocked in the last 5 days, let alone last month or last 3 months. I'd say I get at least 10 sketchy adds per day. The theory goes, if we punish people for trading with scammers, it'll serve to reduce scamming. But it doesn't. At all. The major flaw in that plan is the fact that you can trade on SCM with impunity, so if a scammer can't get rid of the item on OP, they can always list on SCM. But let's be honest, e.g. if a scammer gets a legitimate 12 bud hat and advertises it as an 8 bud quicksale, that thing's going to be gone in under 5 minutes anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polar Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 The whole system is fucked and this is why these attempts at going after scammers and whoever trades with scammers will never be solved in the correct manner. The entire system is flawed to the core.... Probably because everyone sees how inept they are with reports and appeals. It's hard to put weight on SR tags, seeing how horribly the site is managed (but ultimately I have to pretend to trust their terrible system because I like being able to use OP). I mean hell, the only person with a tag on my friends list is d0. I also found a scammer months ago, and my report doesn't even have a reply yet. They've never shown that they're deserving of my trust, so it baffles me as to why OP and Bp.tf like them so much. I can't say I disagree that there are flaws. You should both know the amount of effort it goes into doing the thorough research that goes into every single ban. Our responsibility on bp.tf is to handle suggestions. Handling scammer reports, etc is all secondary and comes as time permits. In many ways, I see this as a big reason for not having user reports on our site. That's why we defer to SteamRep assuming that they, and their affiliated communities like FoG, DO have the time and have expressed the commitment to do that research on our (and everyone else in the community) behalf. I know n0-name doesn't take bans lightly and does the research required. SR has an issue of being very slow. Therefore, a lot of people who should be banned aren't. However, when someone IS SR marked, we have to assume that it was justified. As a trader, if you want to trade in the community you have to accept that. And if you feel a ban is unjust you can add the person banned and help them make an appeal. But that doesn't make it okay for you to start making judgment calls yourself about what is and isn't acceptable. You didn't do the thorough research. You don't know all the hidden notes that go with SR bans. Just curious - does backpack.tf have a system for automatically checking the histories of unusuals and comparing them with known scammers? I know it wouldn't be very reliable, but the fact that Aditya has so many rich people added makes me feel uneasy. At least one of them must have traded with him after he got banned... We don't. Again, our responsibility first and foremost is to handle suggestions. We will look at trades with scammers / user reports as time permits. But we never go hunting for people trying to get them banned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polar Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 But let's be honest, e.g. if a scammer gets a legitimate 12 bud hat and advertises it as an 8 bud quicksale, that thing's going to be gone in under 5 minutes anyway. The whole reason for banning for trading with scammers is to detract people from doing this and allowing scammers to dump items so easily. If you get a permaban for knowingly trading with a scammer, don't you think you would reconsider buying that 12 buds hat for 8 buds? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zirune Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 The whole reason for banning for trading with scammers is to detract people from doing this and allowing scammers to dump items so easily. If you get a permaban for knowingly trading with a scammer, don't you think you would reconsider buying that 12 buds hat for 8 buds? There will always be somebody willing (or unaware) to buy things for cheap in order to make a profit or get something they want. It happens in real life, why wouldn't it online, where there are even less consequences to doing something like this? That's only compounded by the fact that histories are imperfect, bans aren't instantaneous, the SCM exists, it's trivial to make (or buy, or steal, or...) new accounts... It may be a noble goal to shutter out scammers, but it's literally impossible. It can very easily backfire with people who trade with people who trade with people who trade with... people who trade with scammers getting banned for no legitimate reason. It's like throwing people who do cocaine in jail for supporting Mexican drug cartels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polar Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 There will always be somebody willing (or unaware) to buy things for cheap in order to make a profit or get something they want. It happens in real life, why wouldn't it online, where there are even less consequences to doing something like this? That's only compounded by the fact that histories are imperfect, bans aren't instantaneous, the SCM exists, it's trivial to make (or buy, or steal, or...) new accounts... It may be a noble goal to shutter out scammers, but it's literally impossible. It can very easily backfire with people who trade with people who trade with people who trade with... people who trade with scammers getting banned for no legitimate reason. It's like throwing people who do cocaine in jail for supporting Mexican drug cartels. A couple of things (1) Of course you won't get rid of scammers. But if you can at least reduce the numbers from troves of scammers to small schools of them, I would still consider it a victory. (2) People don't get banned for a small, silly mistake. All these people getting banned are people who have shown repeated negligence. I think part of the problem with the system is that complete ban reasons and explanations are usually hidden. A lot of the traders the community tends to defend have PAGES and PAGES of notes. We're not talking about 1 or 2 or 3 trades with a scammer. We're talking about convincing the scammer to trade to an alt so that you don't get caught. Making profiles private. Moving things on bp.tf and not outpost so the history isn't obvious. Repeated trades with scammers are rarely "accidents." Almost always are concerted efforts to make a quick buck for themselves and giving the scammers incentive to continue their scamming ways in our community. I don't know about you, but I know that these are people I don't want in our community. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Budi Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I can't say I disagree that there are flaws. You should both know the amount of effort it goes into doing the thorough research that goes into every single ban. Our responsibility on bp.tf is to handle suggestions. Handling scammer reports, etc is all secondary and comes as time permits. In many ways, I see this as a big reason for not having user reports on our site. That's why we defer to SteamRep assuming that they, and their affiliated communities like FoG, DO have the time and have expressed the commitment to do that research on our (and everyone else in the community) behalf. I know n0-name doesn't take bans lightly and does the research required. SR has an issue of being very slow. Therefore, a lot of people who should be banned aren't. However, when someone IS SR marked, we have to assume that it was justified. As a trader, if you want to trade in the community you have to accept that. And if you feel a ban is unjust you can add the person banned and help them make an appeal. But that doesn't make it okay for you to start making judgment calls yourself about what is and isn't acceptable. You didn't do the thorough research. You don't know all the hidden notes that go with SR bans. Agreed with the first part. It does take time and effort to actually collect, analyze, and interpret all the evidence to make the bans that truly need to be done and dismiss the ones that don't. My problem with SteamRep, Valve, and the community is that the users seem to want for the most part, a system that actually targets scammers and gets them to stop. SteamRep fronts as a service that does this, but has failed horribly (at least the last few years). Valve for the most part is trying to absolve themselves from having to be involved in helping people who have been scammed or to ban scammers. They'll go after phishers and hijackers, but have take the motto of, if you are dumb enough to not research your trades carefully, then it's not our problem. So the big problem is you have a community (the people) that wants a service, a service (SteamRep) that represents itself as the law, but fails to enforce the law justly or swiftly, and then the overarching government (Valve) that turns a blind eye due to lack of resources, time, and bigger concern of revenue. Then you have businesses (bp.tf, Outpost, Bazaar) using said service (SteamRep) to pass out bans even though the judicial process isn't working in the name of, "well this is the best we can do for now". The solution is either the community needs to rise up and create a new judicial system for marking and banning scammers that has enough manpower and resources to do the job correctly if you want results. It needs the blessing of Valve to give backing to that system, and then the businesses need to get onboard with the new system if it truly works. Only in this case will any of this get better. Otherwise you will always have lawlessness with trading, a "black market" for items, and people dodging bans because they just don't give a shit about the consequences of a broken system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slocumruls Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 In this day and age, I don't understand how people still don't check SR. Admittedly, there was a time, 2+ years ago, when this was not part of mainstream trading expectations. But so many people have been warned and banned for trading with scammers. I just don't understand how this still happens. On a side note, I'm waiting for that guy to appeal and get unbanned and the shit ton of appeals from people who got banned for trading with him... Aditya already tried to appeal and it was rejected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AiR²³ Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Do those super busy community pillars over there at steamrep still take half a year for each and every action like actually reading reports, lifting bans and such? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skylineee Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I accidentally bought a blizz Batter's Helmet from a scammer and got a 2 week ban from OP. No worries, just don't do it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gren Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 The whole reason for banning for trading with scammers is to detract people from doing this and allowing scammers to dump items so easily. If you get a permaban for knowingly trading with a scammer, don't you think you would reconsider buying that 12 buds hat for 8 buds? Yea absolutely and I fully understand that. But the system should be designed to protect the victim. In order to protect the victim, we need to limit scamming/pishing. However, the current system does nothing to discourage these attempts; with all due fairness they simply can't, since the only one entity that could really put a stop to these practices are the owners of the source code that underlies trading and TF2, in other words Valve. In my opinion, the system punishes those who don't deserve the kind of punishments that come with a perma ban. The people that suffer from these bans are those who took advantage of a good deal. So a phisher account gets marked, big deal, they'll make 10 more. But you ban a fence and thousands of dollars go down the drain, most likely for agreeing to a trade that was too good to pass up. And the point here is again, the crime has already been committed. What if I don't buy the hat. The scammer can just sell on SCM, buy keys, launder those through a series of alts and then quickly sell for pp (which isn't a problem if they agree to go first and sell for a cheap price). I'm not saying that fencing shouldn't be punisheable. But I think life-time bans for one time or even 3 time fencing are too harsh. What about for example: 1st offense: 2 week ban, 2nd offense 1 month ban. 3rd offense: 3 month ban. Consecutive offenses: reviewed on individual basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polar Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 I'm not saying that fencing shouldn't be punisheable. But I think life-time bans for one time or even 3 time fencing are too harsh. What about for example: 1st offense: 2 week ban, 2nd offense 1 month ban. 3rd offense: 3 month ban. Consecutive offenses: reviewed on individual basis. Yeah, I had been thinking about this a lot, and I would be on board with that. But one thing I want people to understand is that the vast majority of times, these aren't 1 or 2 isolated incidents. MOST of the time the community doesn't ever see the full list of offenses that sometimes run pages long. A lot of these profit traders trying to make a quick buck are on the permanent fl of these scammers and their alts. They go through a lot of trouble to hide what actually goes on to avoid getting caught. This goes for a lot of the people the community defends. You guys only see 1 or 2 reports. When we go digging we end up finding a huge network of alts. So much so that you can say without a doubt these people are knowingly trading with scammers. There's no way they don't know exactly what they are doing. I think bigger than the issue of banning for a few small mistakes (it's rarely ever a few small mistakes), is the fact that most of these websites lack the transparency in their ban reason. I think the full set of notes and complete ban reason should be made available to all. Sadly, that's just not going to happen. As a result, there is this outrage over what people think is a silly, one time mistake when the permanent ban is fully justified. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gren Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 Yeah, I had been thinking about this a lot, and I would be on board with that. But one thing I want people to understand is that the vast majority of times, these aren't 1 or 2 isolated incidents. MOST of the time the community doesn't ever see the full list of offenses that sometimes run pages long. A lot of these profit traders trying to make a quick buck are on the permanent fl of these scammers and their alts. They go through a lot of trouble to hide what actually goes on to avoid getting caught. This goes for a lot of the people the community defends. You guys only see 1 or 2 reports. When we go digging we end up finding a huge network of alts. So much so that you can say without a doubt these people are knowingly trading with scammers. There's no way they don't know exactly what they are doing. I think bigger than the issue of banning for a few small mistakes (it's rarely ever a few small mistakes), is the fact that most of these websites lack the transparency in their ban reason. I think the full set of notes and complete ban reason should be made available to all. Sadly, that's just not going to happen. As a result, there is this outrage over what people think is a silly, one time mistake when the permanent ban is fully justified. I can absolutely see how that would be true. In a lot of cases probably, it turns out that this isn't the first or even 3rd offense but rather a pattern of behaviour. As you point out, there's a lack of transparency, and that's the same point I'm getting it when I say that it seems sometimes a trader gets marked for one offense whereas others seem to need 3 or even more documented cases. This in turn gives the impression that the rules either aren't clearly articulated or aren't diligently, strictly and objectively enforced. If we could at least lay out the rules in an objective fashion, i.e. this offense will get you that, this will get you that, etc. it would help. The reasoning always seems to be "In IRL this is illegal too". Which is true of course in most cases but IRL for example, I know that if I go 20 miles/hour over the speeding limit, I'll lose a couple of points and it'll cost me $200. I also know that if I drive drunk and hit someone, I will most likely go to jail for a few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanner the Original Scout™ Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 In this day and age, I don't understand how people still don't check SR. Admittedly, there was a time, 2+ years ago, when this was not part of mainstream trading expectations. But so many people have been warned and banned for trading with scammers. I just don't understand how this still happens. On a side note, I'm waiting for that guy to appeal and get unbanned and the shit ton of appeals from people who got banned for trading with him... you mean cranwell Yeah, it's your first offense. Only f-o-g.eu and TF2outpost will piss on you. Everywhere else just a little warning, maybe even here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gren Posted January 27, 2015 Share Posted January 27, 2015 you mean cranwell Yeah, it's your first offense. Only f-o-g.eu and TF2outpost will piss on you. Everywhere else just a little warning, maybe even here Yea, that's another problem. The ban criteria aren't aligned between the different trading entities. Op seems to be the most 'vigilant' whereas bazaar for example just doesn't seem to give a shit about anything other than an outright SR mark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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