Scamming in the Steam Community. Will it end? How can we help?

[λngelღмander]

         This topic comes after a lengthy conversation I had with Frost about scamming. He came to me asking if it was alright to post a topic on these forums asking for a communal effort to report an impersonator who was currently using his name successfully to scam people. Regrettably I told him that Steam doesn't actually look into scam reports, and that it'd be folly to expect to have the account banned just from them alone. Steam actually pays more attention to one sided trades and IP addresses. If an account has too many outbound trades with nothing in return, that shoots up a red flag that an account might be hijacked or working together with other accounts, and that's what they pay attention to. However, scam reports on Steam are overlooked (with the exception of the infamous pre-trade warning that a user has been reported for scamming) because it is simple enough to gang up on someone and send in a good 10 reports. 

       

        The Steam Support staff is not geared toward scam prevention. Many traders erroneously believe that Steam Support is there to help them after they've been scammed, and to try to prevent scams, but this isn't the case at all. Steam Support originally existed solely to help people with account and game related problems, such as not being able to download a game, or funds not clearing into the account. It was never meant to be their job to handle scam reports or deal with scammers, but this was tacked onto their duties with the birth of the virtual economies, most notably TF2 and CS:GO. TF2 actually made 139 million dollars in microtransactions during 2013. It's hard to speculate whether this means that 139 million dollars ENTERED steam, or if 139 million dollars in steam funds were spent. These are two different things. We can't be sure how much money steam is actually making from in game trading. If it makes any at all, it is indirectly because steam doesn't profit when traders make money, only when new traders add money to their steam accounts. Steam funds are not equivalent to US dollars in the sense that the only time Steam makes any money on them is when they are originally added to an account from an outside source. Once the money is on Steam, it is no longer anything but credit. You may use the Steam funds to buy games or use them in microtransactions, but that money is no longer profitable for steam. Steam isn't actually making any money when you buy a game with your steam funds, they make their money when you add those funds to your account. The profit ends there. The approximately 13% tax that you are charged during community market transactions are not profit for Steam either. The goal is actually to slowly sap away some of the money you put into the game so that eventually you have to add more to have what you started out with, and that addition of more funds means more profit for steam. The problem comes when people begin trading for what they want. Steam doesn't make money when a 15000 dollar knife or unusual is unboxed, they most likely never make money on that item. That item is a source of in game wealth, and can be sold off for steam funds so that they can buy their games without having to cash in more of their hard earned money. Given that traders aren't cashing in any money, traders are not helpful to the economy directly. They are indirectly driving the less successful traders (the ones losing money) to add new money to the economy, but that is difficult to prove is happening.

 

        People participating in the virtual economies are actually not really helping Steam directly like many of them believe. The virtual economies are beneficial to Steam because they promote the game, and bring in more money. Microtransactions in TF2 would be far less profitable if there were no trading system. It's the fact that there IS a trading system that people want to put money on Steam to buy in game items and keys, if there were no trading system there would be no point to unusuals and no point in unboxing, which is one of the largest sources of their income. Trading itself however stops being beneficial to steam once a trader has cashed in once. They put 5, 10, maybe 50 dollars on their steam account, and buy some items, and that's it. They've reached the end of the usefulness of adding real life cash to steam to continue trading, they will make profit to buy new games and new items and such from that point forward. The only new money entering the economy is from new entries, which is where Steam's true priorities lie. Scamming isn't actually a very big issue for steam. Yes, someone gets scammed. But they're likely to put even more money into their account and continue trading, more careful this time. Hijacking however is a whole different story. Hijacking is a greater problem for steam because it is actually turning people away from the game. When you lose some items, you are somewhat discouraged but still have your account. When you lose your account, you lose your identity, your items, and your friends. It probably feels like the end of one's trading world. Hijacking was rampant before the introduction of escrow, which is steam's most intrusive and actually most efficacious attempt to stop hijacking yet. I won't get into how escrow works, but understand that it singlehandedly ended phishing. Phishing was a big problem for steam because it drove their customers away. Scamming probably drove some customers away, but it also drove some customers to add more money to the steam economy. 

 

        Honing in on the original point here, Steam is relatively uninterested in stopping scamming. If they could flip a switch to end it immediately, I think they would. But it would require more manpower to do so, it would require hiring Support techs, none of whom would likely be working for minimum wage. I think it would be a poor business decision to hire employees to put an end to scamming. It would certainly be possible, but costly. Steam can afford it, but I don't think the money steam would make on the customers not being scammed would be enough to pay for the support staff necessary to have an anti-scamming team dedicated to TF2 and CS:GO. This is why I don't believe Steam will be taking any more preventative measures against scamming.

 

        Understanding that we're probably alone in the fight against scamming, what can we do to help prevent scamming? I've thought of a few things that a community effort may help us with.

• On community sites, have concise and easy to understand warnings and information about various common scam types. Similar to the Scrap.tf rules, where one must actually read the rules (in theory) to be able to leave the page, I think essentially forcing users to know how to help themselves could help prevent scamming.
• Continue to track scammers across community sites and make sure that the information that a person is a scammer is easily accessible. This is already done of course, and it does help to some extent, but all the time I see people come to these forums to complain about being scammed, and when they link a community profile we see immediately that the person is already marked, or has negative trusts for scamming, etc.
• Improve our general attitude toward oblivious scam and shark victims. The current mentality that "they deserved it because they were stupid" is callous and ignorant, one cannot expect someone who doesn't understand the dynamic of the steam economy to be able to protect themselves. This one isn't as much a preventative measure as it is my thoughts on a mentality that I've seen argued on almost every thread that scam victims create on these forums.

We can only expect to be able to help each other. The greatest scam deterrent, in contradiction to the school of thought that led to the trades-with-scammers rule, is simply not having victims. If we can educate the populace in protecting themselves, scamming will solve itself to some extent. Even if scammers couldn't cash out anything they scammed, it would still be a way to get new hats and enjoy their TF2 experience.

 

Stay safe out there guys.

[Buy my mixtape fam]

•          Improve our general attitude toward oblivious scam and shark victims. The current mentality that "they deserved it because they were stupid" is callous and ignorant, one cannot expect someone who doesn't understand the dynamic of the steam economy to be able to protect themselves. This one isn't as much a preventative measure as it is my thoughts on a mentality that I've seen argued on almost every thread that scam victims create on these forums.

I'll be honest, while I just skimmed through the passage, this part stood out to me. I'm guilty of it myself, but we should turn to protecting these people and helping them, rather than saying "haha dumbass rekt" and just leave them be. (I also know several former friends who got scammed, then turned to scamming when everyone brushed them off as stupid)

[Adrian]

Everything you say is very true, We the people of the TF2 community need to stick together and help one another otherwise we are just a bunch of wild animals fighting over who's hat is better then one anothers or who makes the most profit. 

[Piterek]

Wait, so you're telling that it's Valve's fault for not making any anti-scammer system?

It's the user fault that he got scammed, god damn it. It's 2016, dude. Every trade forum, every trading site, even on Steam - you can find there info about scammers, scam attempts etc. If the users are ignorant and can't read it properly like they should then about what are we even talking? After so many years of trading in TF2 and CS:GO people still are getting scammed. How an active trader don't knows about those guys? 

 

Imo - People who are still getting scammed are ignoring stuff like help, guides etc until they get scammed. After this they are "och no, got scammed, help me". Salty; now hate me.

[λngelღмander]

Wait, so you're telling that it's Valve's fault for not making any anti-scammer system?

It's the user fault that he got scammed, god damn it. It's 2016, dude. Every trade forum, every trading site, even on Steam - you can find there info about scammers, scam attempts etc. If the users are ignorant and can't read it properly like they should then about what are we even talking? After so many years of trading in TF2 and CS:GO people still are getting scammed. How an active trader don't knows about those guys? 

 

Imo - People who are still getting scammed are ignoring stuff like help, guides etc until they get scammed. After this they are "och no, got scammed, help me". Salty.

I didn't assign blame to Steam for not making an anti-scammer system. I merely said that it's most likely not in steam's best interests to do so, from a strictly business point of view. 

 

And you literally ignored everything I said in my third bullet without directly addressing it. That's the attitude that drives scam victims away from the community and it's not constructive at all.

[HarryG]

 

• Improve our general attitude toward oblivious scam and shark victims. The current mentality that "they deserved it because they were stupid" is callous and ignorant, one cannot expect someone who doesn't understand the dynamic of the steam economy to be able to protect themselves. This one isn't as much a preventative measure as it is my thoughts on a mentality that I've seen argued on almost every thread that scam victims create on these forums.

 

 

This point is incredibly stupid. The "dynamic of the Steam economy" is not difficult to understand , you should not be prepared to exchange any items if you don't know what you're doing; therefore, yes, they do deserve it, because it is INCREDIBLY stupid to get into this without knowing what you're doing. Not to mention the amount of babyproofing we already do to these people that are potential scam victims, sending the Anti-Penek brigade all across kingdom come whenever a new god-tier unusual is unboxed. There are almost no circumstances of scamming I can recall where the victim didn't bring it upon themselves due to trading away an item they knew nothing about and without getting help from someone else first. So yeah, they really do deserve it, because that really is stupid.

 

Maybe scam victims deserve to be driven away from the community, because they never took the time to learn about it in the first place.

[Woifi The Viking]

I think one problem is that those guides are super long, have many different scam types and situations that you won't run into 99% of the time, and are boring to read.

 

1.) Many people don't like reading long things, just like no one reads those agreements when installing a new piece of software.

2.) Even if they read it, there is a chance that they don't understand it clearly if they are new to the Economy.

3.) I can't blame them for not memorizing such a guide. After some time they will forget most of it again simply because they don't run into any scams. Best that could happen is that when a suspicious situation happens that it rings a bell and they remember something from the guide and probably look it up again.

4.) Since many people won't run into scams for some time, they will naturally let their guard down. Maybe are also a bit sleepy on top and boom a scam can happen faster than you realize it.

5.) Many people are very trusting and believe everything someone says without questioning it too much. So if someone asks them to trade their hat to a trusted middleman they feel extra save. Maybe they also remember vaguely to use a middleman from one of those guides. They forgot about the part how to check if the middleman is really trusted and not fake.

6.) Checking if someone is trusted or not is not easy. You have to copy paste their STEAM-URL (which is not turned on by default) into your browser and into certain sites that you have to bookmark beforehand. All things newbies probably don't have.

 

Tl;dr If you are new to the community everything is just overwhelming, so many sites/items/prices, reading a boring guide is usually not high on your to-do list.

[λngelღмander]

I think one problem is that those guides are super long, have many different scam types and situations that you won't run into 99% of the time, and are boring to read.

 

1.) Many people don't like reading long things, just like no one reads those agreements when installing a new piece of software.

2.) Even if they read it, there is a chance that they don't understand it clearly if they are new to the Economy.

3.) I can't blame them for not memorizing such a guide. After some time they will forget most of it again simply because they don't run into any scams. Best that could happen is that when a suspicious situation happens that it rings a bell and they remember something from the guide and probably look it up again.

4.) Since many people won't run into scams for some time, they will naturally let their guard down. Maybe are also a bit sleepy on top and boom a scam can happen faster than you realize it.

5.) Many people are very trusting and believe everything someone says without questioning it too much. So if someone asks them to trade their hat to a trusted middleman they feel extra save. Maybe they also remember vaguely to use a middleman from one of those guides. They forgot about the part how to check if the middleman is really trusted and not fake.

6.) Checking if someone is trusted or not is not easy. You have to copy paste their STEAM-URL (which is not turned on by default) into your browser and into certain sites that you have to bookmark beforehand. All things newbies probably don't have.

 

Tl;dr If you are new to the community everything is just overwhelming, so many sites/items/prices, reading a boring guide is usually not high on your to-do list.

I think one way we could combat this is to explain these few things to newbies:

 

Don't click on any links anyone sends you.

 

Don't give your items away in exchange for things you won't receive in the trade window.

 

People aren't always who they say they are. Ask a friend for help identifying people you know by name if they randomly add you.

 

 

We could, I suppose, have community volunteers who give advice to newbies, I don't know how we'd set it up. I think we could probably condense the rules well enough that they make sense and are detailed enough to save people.

[HarryG]

Oh, and to address this: My post basically outlines that there's no point in feeling empathetic towards people that don't take the time to learn anything about the community and then trade away items they don't know the value of. Essentially: No point in feeling sorry for someone that did it to themselves; there's a difference between empathy and common sense situation evaluation.

[Captain Caboose]

Only 8 replies and it's longer than the Magna Carta

 

I need a tl:dr

[MrDeepDarkmind]

I am gonna say people who said they got scammed posted here and forumers here didn't care about it 

So it is there fault for getting scammed. But if you think you can help these people that got scammed how about be that one guy who got info on his scammer and filed a police report about it and got his items back.

but hey  scamming and Sharking is never gonna die since its online trading. Its not craigslist 

but if you want to help people to not get scammed why don't you make a website about it and give people some items who got scammed (not expensive ones but like items they can use), plus that might make the community better

but i doubt anyone is gonna make a website dedicated to people who got scammed. but yeah why not lets stand up for little kids who don't know they are getting scammed because they are to blind to see that they are getting scammed, and we have to teach the little rascals about that and you are getting scammed woooooooo.  

[Adrian]

Only 8 replies and it's longer than the Magna Carta

 

I need a tl:dr

Of the post? 

 

Valve doesn't give enough of a shit to make anti scamming shit so we as the community need to help one another.

[Woifi The Viking]

I forgot one point. Language barriers. You won't read a long guide if your English is bad and you won't translate it either. When talking to a scammer tho you might use google translate or he does.

[Happysedits]

I forgot one point. Language barriers. You won't read a long guide if your English is bad.

Yup, my problem a lot of times

[Piterek]

Guides aren't that long tho, but like Angel already explained - you can make this way shorter in some cases.

 

Language barriers may be a problem, true, but there isn't only a English one. Steam TF2 Guides and other sites.

 

Also imo the main problem in virtual economies is that people aren't taking it so seriously as a real world ones.

I mean that this virtual currency can still be turned into real money so it should be counted as it, kinda... It could raise awareness about scamms, at least.

Think about it - A "scammer" enters the shop, says "Give me this and that. You go first. Then I pay". (kinda bad explained, saw it now, uch...) Will you give him the stuff first and when he would run away you would call him a thief/scammer after YOU gave him it? Same goes for the virtual economy.

 

Can't explain any better or even write properly now, too sleepy... ;<.

[AFFIRMATIVE]

Not only new people or kids would fall for this, valve themselves have stated that's not the case

 

 

Now i assume the thread is addressed to new and naive people being scammed.

 

I agree with the fact that kids are overwhelmed by the amount of stuff and variations of that stuff by different people to the point where they just don't have the patience for it, they are just kids. Guides aren't long for a lot of people, but they are pretty long for most kids.

 

A big fat red warning about scammers and their methods when you make your account would be helpful not only because it will catch their eyes, but its something official supported by the creators of the platform and its something that can be translated for multiple languages from the getgo. It's a start, and it doesn't compromise the enjoyment of older people on the platform.

 

So obviously what choice can a kid make?

 

Read regulations on making a steam support account and contacting steam support about them being scammed and providing proof of account ownership?

 

Or make a new account and continue to ask their parents for money since the next thing that will catch their attention will most likely be the new call of duty or something like that? 

 

The only circumstance where kids would contact steam support is either being helped by their parents or an older individual who knows the platform, and a lot of kids do not have support for their native language and they need to get someone who knows english or any of the languages they can be helped with.

 

But most won't do that, they have not yet comprehended the impact of losing their account with all their games because its not their money that they bought them with, its their parents' money. They know they can just make a new one and continue asking them to buy stuff because they have not experienced the effort of gaining their own money which in turn they will make them care more for their products.

[Flaim]

I know its been said multiple times over the years, but at this point in time you have to be pretty dumb to get scammed, or maybe just unlucky.

 

I made a flow chart for how I FEEL everyone should treat scams:

 

 

Theres some scams that are unlucky- like when ThePhantom got scammed by LMF. lmf seemed trustable and just wasted his whole reputation on that scam, which phantom didnt have a REAL reason to set it aside as a sketchy offer. This also includes new ignorant people who may have unboxed something valuable. 

 

Then theres people that get scammed once and learn- this was me. i lost a bills hat to a scam way back when and that set me straight. honestly, it is good to be scammed to an extent. you learn, and if youre not dumb itll never happen again

 

Then theres the last person that cannot be helped no matter how many confirmation buttons they have to hit- these people are usually younger, and for some reason have too much trust with people online. they cannot be helped because they fall for it again and again, and i dont know why.

 

It all comes down to whichever category you fall under. If youre in the 3rd one, you need to smarten up, or just face it that trading isnt for you. I dont really think theres any more precautions steam or anyone can make to help them.. And as for phishing, I realize thats a sketchy subject, but isnt it pretty hard to get phished now that mobile authentication is forced?

[Kevin the Chicken God]

speaking as someone who was scammed three times when I was new to unusual trading, you have nobody to blame but yourself for being gullible and not being careful. It's on you, and you have to live and learn from the consequences. This is really the best way to learn to be careful, since people aren't going to bother reading or getting lectured on how not to be dumb. I also don't really think people would be patient enough to consult a guide or a website to see if the deal they're being offered is a scam, since most scams on noobies are these "too good to be true" deals, they'll jump on them immediately rather than going elsewhere for advice. Overall I think it's a nice sentiment, but the purpose would be lost

[Scott Bakula]

speaking as someone who was scammed three times when I was new to unusual trading, you have nobody to blame but yourself for being gullible and not being careful. It's on you, and you have to live and learn from the consequences. This is really the best way to learn to be careful, since people aren't going to bother reading or getting lectured on how not to be dumb. I also don't really think people would be patient enough to consult a guide or a website to see if the deal they're being offered is a scam, since most scams on noobies are these "too good to be true" deals, they'll jump on them immediately rather than going elsewhere for advice. Overall I think it's a nice sentiment, but the purpose would be lost

 

Agreed. Some people need to be burned to learn that fire is hot.

 

I know it sounds callous, but we can try to idiot-proof things as much as we want, and they'll just make a better idiot.

[Gren]

I'm pretty much with FLAIMBOT_ and Kevin The Chicken God on this one.  

 

All scams are the result of naivety, ignorance, stupidity, betrayal or a combination of all four.   And predominantly, it appears to be the first 3, and much less so the fourth (betrayal; this accounts for those cases where relatively high profile members of the community go rogue and often scam their 'friends').   

 

Ignorance and naivety can be cured.  You make a mistake and you learn from it and move on.  As a result, you actually become a better, or at least wiser person.  Giving up a few keys in items is not a high price to pay for this.  

 

When you make a mistake and don't learn from it, you fall into the 'stupidity' category.  You remain there until you learn from the mistake.  How long that takes varies from person to person, but it's not really something that's very easy to help along.  People change because they want to, not because others want them to. 

 

What percentage of people scammed do you think is younger than 17?  Maybe 70%?  Maybe even a bit higher, like 80%?  It's anecdotal, but in my experience the scammed person is almost always a kid.  Here's the thing: TF2 is rated M, which means 17+ years.  And for good reason.  I wouldn't want my 13 year old son interacting with a bunch of people calling eachother n******s and f******s all the time.  I also wouldn't want my 13 yr old son to participate in a digital economy that's ripe with scammers and has a very real and potentially addicting gambling component.  You know who's really at fault here? Mom and Dad.  That's called complacent parenting.  Maybe a 14 yr old or 15 yr old can handle it.  Maybe they're mature enough.  But most pre-pubescent teens cannot handle the onslaught of uncensored interaction that is an online game like TF2.  

 

So there's one group of people who will learn from their mistakes, another that won't and out of those, most shouldn't be here in the first place.  It's up to you to protect yourself, there are tons of resources available, in virtually every language.  Ignorance isn't an excuse when you have the biggest library on the planet at your finger tips.  

[Toughsox]

If anyone here is making a case of a relatively new player/trader that unboxes an unusual which he has absolutely no idea of value, being scammed or sharked, as it being HIS fault....  do me a favor and check if you have me on your friends list and just delete me.   Fucking insane how people blame the victims here when you have skilled scammers that have honed their scamming ways over years of trial and error.....scammers that have fooled even the most experienced of player/traders...and blaming the victim. And no Angel, I will NOT give permission for you to edit this. Delete it only if your banning me. And Im dead serious on this.

[=TNW= Maximus™]

If anyone here is making a case of a relatively new player/trader that unboxes an unusual which he has absolutely no idea of value, being scammed or sharked, as it being HIS fault....  do me a favor and check if you have me on your friends list and just delete me.   Fucking insane how people blame the victims here when you have skilled scammers that have honed their scamming ways over years of trial and error.....scammers that have fooled even the most experienced of player/traders...and blaming the victim. Anyone thinking this is acceptable can go fuck themselves, period. And no Angel, I will NOT give permission for you to edit this. Delete it only if your banning me. And Im dead serious on this. 

I respectfully disagree.

 

When I was an extremely new trader, I unboxed my first unusual and before doing anything, I checked the prices and asked friends for price checks. You don't have to be an expert trader to check the price of an item (even on SCM!). Obviously there are always outliers, but for the majority of people scammed, it's THEIR fault

[Tasty Salamanders]

Not only new people or kids would fall for this, valve themselves have stated that's not the case

 

 

Now i assume the thread is addressed to new and naive people being scammed.

Valve is talking about HACKERS there, not scammers, different things. Plus Angelmander talks about how Escrow (despite the many community complaints about it) did basically shut down the hacker issue.

 

On a different note:

 

What percentage of people scammed do you think is younger than 17?  Maybe 70%?  Maybe even a bit higher, like 80%?  It's anecdotal, but in my experience the scammed person is almost always a kid.  Here's the thing: TF2 is rated M, which means 17+ years.  And for good reason.  I wouldn't want my 13 year old son interacting with a bunch of people calling eachother n******s and f******s all the time.  I also wouldn't want my 13 yr old son to participate in a digital economy that's ripe with scammers and has a very real and potentially addicting gambling component.  You know who's really at fault here? Mom and Dad.  That's called complacent parenting.  Maybe a 14 yr old or 15 yr old can handle it.  Maybe they're mature enough.  But most pre-pubescent teens cannot handle the onslaught of uncensored interaction that is an online game like TF2.

I feel it is probably worth mentioning the whole international things when it comes to ratings. Here in Australia an M rating is 15+, and even that is only a recommendation (there are 5 basic ratings in Australia, 3 of them are only recommendations and 2 of them are actually legally restricted). I can't speak for other countries obviously but there are likely similar situations in other countries where TF2 would be considered appropriate for younger audiences.

[=TNW= Maximus™]

Valve is talking about HACKERS there, not scammers, different things. Plus Angelmander talks about how Escrow (despite the many community complaints about it) did basically shut down the hacker issue.

 

I haven't been added by a phisher in ages. Escrow, as annoying as it is, almost/completely solved phishers

[Budi]

This is the problem with our society in the 21st century. I grew up in a time (the 80s), when if you fell off your bike, screwed up in school, or got hurt messing around IT WAS YOUR FAULT. Your mom didn't call the school to bitch the teacher out, they didn't go sue the bike manufacturer, it was just simply, "You' shouldn't have done that, learn from it and move forward." We were better people for it, and trial and error sometimes is the best learning experience, not casting a huge safety net for every possible outcome that could be harmful to someone so they live in a bubble. 

 

We need a lot more learn from it and move forward attitudes in this world, not the coddling of every person that cries fowl when they claim they didn't know "x" would happen when they did something stupid.