Have Outpost and Steam Rep gone too far?

[Teeird]

The biggest issue really lies with Valve themselves...they just allow people to make account and after account after account......But you can't really blame them---limit accounts/make creating an account difficult (and lose users and thus money), or make it easy to get accounts and therefore easy for people to scam (in which case valve is pretty much unharmed--aside from demonstrating how much of a mess steam support can be). 

 

I think you're overstating the actions Valve takes. Yes, they do trade ban users and they do delete stolen items....but the former requires you to deal with a stupidly large amount of hijacked/scammed items and the latter...well, I've seen that vary quite a lot--from them sometimes deleting items to them not deleting them at all. Just look through SR marked scammers, a lot of them scammed more than once, yet most of them still aren't trade banned. 

1. Only the minority of community members have unscrupulous behavior. Let's not screw over honest Steam Members further *cough steam guard cough*.

 

2. I think Valve does a fine job taking care of scammers, any further action would make trading not fun (over regulation and things being too strict).

 

SteamREP has lost a lot of it's control over the years, they've displayed they can't keep up with the community to keep the place safe from scammers (#1 objective), so now they pick and choose who gets to be a scammer. People with a year+ report that are clearly more dangerous than people who trade with scammers aren't getting attention, and then some slightly big name traders buy stolen items and get marked instantly. It's inconsistent. The community can't have any inconsistencies. I'm sorry but it's the blunt truth.

 

Do yourself a favor and make the jump to CSGO, where all of OP's problems are solved.

[OverduePixels]

You have answered many questions altogether. Lets break it part by part shall we? 

 

So for the most part, you don't GENERALLY have to worry about SCM purchases. There are SCM scams, and you should be aware of them, and of course any "high-value" (put in quotes because I know some people don't consider it high value since there is a monetary cap) item you'll want to do your due diligence first just for your own precaution and peace of mind. Obviously the last thing you want is to buy a hat off the SCM and then find out it came from a hijacked user- that's a lot of drama you probably don't want to deal with and the like.  With that said, SCM history is different than inventory history and an accidental purchase is never even warned (at least not that I have ever heard of before). (*Edit- Certainly there would never be required background checks, that's taking things to the extreme.)

 

Exactly my point. That will indeed be taking things to the extreme. Thank you for clearing that and glad to see we share same viewpoint

 

 

 

The difference here is when you know that the person you are buying from is a scammer and you do it anyway. This is you knowingly and deliberately supporting scamming. Abusing the SCM to effectively launder "hot" items so you can try to avoid consequences is absolutely not OK. I agree with a previous poster that scam prevention is so very important- that's actually the whole reason FOR SteamRep: preventing scams through education and information. Part of preventing scamming is by not supporting scammers by buying their stuff. When no one will buy or trade with a scammer, that eliminates the reason for doing it (or at least discourages it) and helps prevent future scams. We want to decrease the number of scammers in the community.

 

Yes, I agree but this is like what Gren said...Fighting the war on drugs but in this case...Scammers. Yes, it might lower down or might discourage prevent future scams but you also have to take point that new one surfaces all the time. Its a huge case that will take enormous amount of time to finally somewhat stop it or it will be just like drug wars that will never stop, will just slow the process once in a while and will continue happening until the end of time or the games themselves. 

 

Just like the war on drugs which has been going on for decades has decreased per capita drug related crimes, right?  

 

Also to note- Valve has and does continue to trade ban, trade lock, and/or community ban people who sell scammed/hijacked items on the SCM. They work quickly to try to remove those people from the community. Those who repeatedly receive scammed/hijacked items also get trade banned, trade locked, etc. Steam Support are incredibly hard-working and sadly understaffed but they are absolutely still active and loads of scammers get trade banned and/or banned from the SCM every day.  It is, in fact, against the Steam Online Code of Conduct and the Steam Trading Guidelines to defraud users through scams, etc. and then flip those items for profit. That's why people get trade banned and items deleted from their backpacks.  I don't know why people think Valve doesn't care because they absolutely do. 

 

I seen Valve trade banning and doing things of that nature. I also seen that they are against scammer/hijacker as well. What I have yet to see is that 

Those who repeatedly receive scammed/hijacked items also get trade banned, trade locked, etc.

 

I have not seen Valve doing anything when it comes to receiving.

 

Side note: "Or to take it further:  what if someone creates a new trading website that openly states it does not recognize SR as an "official authority"?  Let's say this website actually generates traffic because all the marked traders will flock to it."

 

This already happened. The site shut down in around 2 months because everyone on it got trade banned because, predictably, they kept scamming.

 

Not sure when this happened. I might have missed that incident. 

 

TL;DR:  Protect yourself, do your due diligence anyway. If you think you're doing something bad/wrong/unethical, you might be so just don't do it. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Protecting yourself and self control is the word here. Yes, this did help. Thank you for clarifying it.

[Piotr Nieroda]

Change of subject. Monkey just got banned for the stupidest thing ever, a simple hide and warning would have sufficed. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

 

[Piotr Nieroda]

So for the most part, you don't GENERALLY have to worry about SCM purchases. There are SCM scams, and you should be aware of them, and of course any "high-value" (put in quotes because I know some people don't consider it high value since there is a monetary cap) item you'll want to do your due diligence first just for your own precaution and peace of mind. Obviously the last thing you want is to buy a hat off the SCM and then find out it came from a hijacked user- that's a lot of drama you probably don't want to deal with and the like.  With that said, SCM history is different than inventory history and an accidental purchase is never even warned (at least not that I have ever heard of before). (*Edit- Certainly there would never be required background checks, that's taking things to the extreme.)

 

The difference here is when you know that the person you are buying from is a scammer and you do it anyway. This is you knowingly and deliberately supporting scamming. Abusing the SCM to effectively launder "hot" items so you can try to avoid consequences is absolutely not OK. I agree with a previous poster that scam prevention is so very important- that's actually the whole reason FOR SteamRep: preventing scams through education and information. Part of preventing scamming is by not supporting scammers by buying their stuff. When no one will buy or trade with a scammer, that eliminates the reason for doing it (or at least discourages it) and helps prevent future scams. We want to decrease the number of scammers in the community.

 

Also to note- Valve has and does continue to trade ban, trade lock, and/or community ban people who sell scammed/hijacked items on the SCM. They work quickly to try to remove those people from the community. Those who repeatedly receive scammed/hijacked items also get trade banned, trade locked, etc. Steam Support are incredibly hard-working and sadly understaffed but they are absolutely still active and loads of scammers get trade banned and/or banned from the SCM every day.  It is, in fact, against the Steam Online Code of Conduct and the Steam Trading Guidelines to defraud users through scams, etc. and then flip those items for profit. That's why people get trade banned and items deleted from their backpacks.  I don't know why people think Valve doesn't care because they absolutely do. 

 

TL;DR:  Protect yourself, do your due diligence anyway. If you think you're doing something bad/wrong/unethical, you might be so just don't do it. It's always better to be safe than sorry.

 

Hope this helps.

 

 

Side note: "Or to take it further:  what if someone creates a new trading website that openly states it does not recognize SR as an "official authority"?  Let's say this website actually generates traffic because all the marked traders will flock to it."

 

This already happened. The site shut down in around 2 months because everyone on it got trade banned because, predictably, they kept scamming.

You just acknowledged that the time it takes to go through reports is generally way too long. Why doesn't steam rep accept a few more dedicated mods to speed up the proccess and make the community as a whole safer. They obviously cant handle it, and need help.

[knavesmith]

This already happened. The site shut down in around 2 months because everyone on it got trade banned because, predictably, they kept scamming.

Please do share the name of this wonderful trading site.

[OverduePixels]

Change of subject. Monkey just got banned for the stupidest thing ever, a simple hide and warning would have sufficed. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

 

Yes, you don't have to say whether an unusual is duped or not on the trade notes. It is not mandatory to put whether an unusual is duped or not, however it would be considered a misleading trade if a user falsely claimed a duped unusual was clean. . 

 

I don't know the fully story here. If he really did receive ban just for that post, its a bit harsh to hand out ban just like that.

 

....Taken back 

[www.]

in my opinion- the cycle of processing reports and determining what is just and unjust as an admin or moderator through steamrep is slow and flawed, shown through many examples (ie http://forums.steamrep.com/forums/report/ ). if a more accurate, productive and more community-demanding form of dealing with these sort of things isn't used, eventually someone will notice, make something that's better, and pass these outdated methods on, using better ones. not only does the sr + to continue in its old ways, people are still getting scammed left and right (also check out the new scamming method, sharking!)

 

the community might be older but that doesnt mean it doesnt evolve. these past few months have been awkward from the objective point of view, seeing someone get banned and people getting pissed about it because the information wasnt shown to the public (even to the accused at times), or invalid (loopholes) which makes the entire accusation on the trader seem incredibly unwarranted.

 

lets see how this all plays out.

[3.50]

Change of subject. Monkey just got banned for the stupidest thing ever, a simple hide and warning would have sufficed. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

I'll disagree with this here assertion of yours; that was a right proper dee-served ban-hammerin', and should surprise no one. (A lengthy ban for that offense would be stupid, but a small one such as (s)he got seems to be warranted)

 

I'm pretty sure, even without checking, that it's clearly in OP rules that commenting on someone's prices or commenting that a hat is duped is considered spamming, or something to that effect. It's no secret that you're not allowed to do it, and you're certainly not allowed to spam the same spam multiple times, even after the trade owner responds. I kind of doubt that anyone who's been on OP any amount of time is unaware of that rule, because it happens so often that someone goes "Umm HET IS DOOPED" and the trade poster responds, "IS AGAINST ROOLZ TO SEY THAT, (link to rules) SO I'MA REPURT YU". Hard to miss, really.

 

And perhaps most importantly, it's highly annoying when someone leaves comments like that, because any interested buyers can easily find out for themselves that a hat is duped. It's almost like posting a comment on a Bill's Hat trade saying "OMG, IT'S PAINTED SALMON, THAT'S A BAD PAINT AND AI DON'T WANT IT" No need for anyone to make that sort of comment; it doesn't add anything but annoyance, so just move along if you don't want it.

[3.50]

 

 

 

I don't know the fully story here. If he really did receive ban just for that post, its a bit harsh to hand out ban just like that. The user was being as nice as someone can on such a situation like that.

 

Nahhhh. "Nice" would have been keeping his mouth shut. (Actually, that's just simple courtesy) If Monkey really DID want everyone to be aware the hat was duped, (s)he could have simply asked in the comments, like dis: "I might want this het, but I think it is duped and that worries me; can you confirm/deny?". Ignoring that would have made the trade owner look bad, and the info would have been out there for everyone to see. (And Monkey already had the information him/herself, at that point)

 

Derogatory comments about a hat's value, especially when the commenter has no apparent intention of buying, are rude and unnecessary. (I run into a lot of this sort of thing. Not sure if this is how Monkey's story went, but for me, frequently people will offer on something I have for up trade, and if I decline they'll insult the item in question/my prices/my mum)

 

There's enough in that screenshot to show that Monkey commented unnecessarily about prices/dupedness (Breaking OP Rule #1 in the process), had his concerns politely answered (credit to trade owner; not all would have been so polite), and then Monkey came back and said almost the same thing again (Breaking Rule #1 twice with the second post, and saying it was "misleading")

 

There was no good reason to post the first comment, and the second was completely unnecessary. Repeating him/her/itself and saying the trade owner was "misleading" when he had already politely provided, on request, (apparently) all the information he had about the duped-ness of his hat...I can't see what logic one would use to defend that sort of Monkey-business. Now, if Monkey wanted to add him and have that discussion over PM, that's no one's business. But saying it on OP clearly broke OP rules, and got a clearly-deserved and unsurprising ban.

[OverduePixels]

-snip-

 

Hmm...Didn't thought about that. Good points. 

 

Not sure why you had to write all of that. Haha...I guess you are frustrated with these type of people and I think you often get those

 

Anyways, I have no choice but to agree and yes, this does indeed break rule number #1. 

 

Anyways, don't want to get off topic. This isn't what the topic is about so will drop it here 

[3.50]

Not sure why you had to write all of that. Haha...I guess you are frustrated with these type of people and I think you often get those

Yeah, I....guess I might have been storing that up for a while Plus, I'm just a bit long-winded, in general

[Grimes]

Change of subject. Monkey just got banned for the stupidest thing ever, a simple hide and warning would have sufficed. This is getting more and more ridiculous.

 

I wouldn't want smart ass comments on my trade. 

[Pyrocide]

Who got banned for what?

[brendanHAX]

Who got banned for what?

 

Which incident are you referring to?