Jump to content

Trusting people over the internet


Mengh.

Recommended Posts

Scams, phishing links and illegitimate deals are what people often afraid of, when surfing the internet, especially on steam. However, these techniques are often used by people who have no remorse. Surely, being known for not being trustworthy makes you be disrespected by most. But recently, there's been scandals and events where it puts trust to the test, even though you may have been friends with that person for a long time, and a sudden change of heart occurs.

 

Back in April 2015, Wayne wanted to try to beat the system on Sweetstakes.tf and as we have seen, Wayne put his trust in d0, thinking he would go along with it and follow the circumstances. However, d0 believed he hadn't agreed to any circumstances, and now, due to this incident, he has lost some trust around people, shown by his mark on SteamRep.

 

There have been other occurrences where trusting people over the internet, even thought you don't even know them and have just known their online profile for so long.

 

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/41274-scammed-by-mclovin/?hl=scammed

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/41534-got-scammed-what-now/?hl=scammed

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/41596-what-just-happened/

 

Just nitpicked some from the bp.tf forums. however there's loads more in the SteamRep and FoG forums.

 

Thing for me is that I have a policy where I don't loan people. I either offer for a collateral, or just don't loan. Seeing people put their trust in others is somewhat terrifying because of the fact that anything could happen. Sure, you can get transactions done with some people, however, putting your trust into other people can lead you to losing money / items. It's sometimes better to be safe than sorry, often. So, taking precautions and being cautious a lot of the time, is often the best way.

 

There's loads more scams and non-trustworthy schemes, one popular scam is the Ponzi scheme. Put in some money, invite your friends and become rich together! No. Often, sophisticated mumbo jumbo of words just try to reel you in, telling of their schemes and how they make money. They try to make you trust them, put in money and simply run away with it.

 

What's your thoughts about putting trust into people over the internet?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

like venom told me about this," Everyone has a bit of asshole in them,Even good people like Citri and Kitteh.Good people, just wrong decisions."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's really hard to find trustworthy friends, I only have like 8 people on my FL that I would trust with my hats. That's only because I've known them for 4+ years and we've held each other's items many, many times.

 

I'm sure more people on my FL would be trustworthy/nice enough to give a rented item back, but hearing about all these scams make me kind of scared... And I'm totally fine with that

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It usually takes a lot for me to trust anyone, I am just a very paranoid person by nature. I have like 200 or something friends but I would prob trust about 10 of them with anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm afraid I don't trust anyone.

 

The real problem with these recent cases is that the scammers had a ton of legitimate rep and decided to exploit it because they knew they were never coming back to tf2 trading and could still go and trade within cs:go no problem.

 

This devalues rep threads and makes me think "well sure he has 30 rep but he could be about to quit the game". That means I can't trust anyone, not even people who appear super legitimate. That's a significant problem in a trust-based trading situation, and I'm honestly not sure precisely how I'm going to cash out eventually now.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the only person I'd really trust on my friends list is my real life friend. Not meeting someone over the internet is a big part of not being able to trust them fully sadly. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Honestly I'm super-paranoid and wouldn't be willing to trust anyone with my hats, or wouldn't get myself into a situation where I needed to. The only ones I'd trust are my friends from school, because I have to see em and can beat the crap out of em if they tried it. Except probs Angel, who I find myself trusting for whatever reason lol.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've never been scammed or duped. (except for this one time I decided to trust some kid I talked into coughing up the money after running from a spycrab with a key, and he never paid me back and removed me LOL   too much faith in humanity I guess)

 

 

I have a very strong people sense, and most of the time, when I meet someone in person, I can almost immediately tell whether I could trust them or ever be friends with them. There's something about the way people act and talk that speaks volumes in my mildly autistic brain, and I am almost never wrong. However, I did trust Citricat with hundreds of dollars in knives over the course of our friendship, and look how he turned out. I won't lie, I never saw that one coming.

 

I guess I've been pretty lucky so far, I've held onto plenty of unusuals for people (including citricat, the day I met him he let me use a 9 bud unusual to fool a trusted friend scammer), and I've never scammed anyone.

 

 

I think it's souring that a few rotten people ruin it for the best of us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I dont trust anyone. I won't trust anyone with my items, I won't give any of my items away. I dont give gifts to friends, and if I ever leave this game, I am deleting all of my items rather than let anyone else have them. I dont gamble either. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I honestly don't care if people are making sketchy profit, but strait up scamming someone and lying to them when they have trust in you pisses me off

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me to trust someone, they have to be unique and open about what they do on steam.

For example, Angelmander's determination to help everyone out (and trade for csgo keys)

 

Another big factor of trust for me happens to come from the poster service I've been doing.

The unique people who add me and request a poster tend to keep me added, and we talk every now and then.

 

An example of that would be RozeEagle. He came to me twice to make a poster for his expensive unusuals. He's recommended my services and kept me added.

A toughsox one for some people would be TheVenomWithin. He's helped me out with selling my crappy unusuals here and there, and tells me about his next potential shark buy.

 

I trust all three of these nuts, and am willing to lend them stuff when they need it.

 

they are trustworthy people, or my shit is too worthless to steal

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have IRL friends who have heard me talk about my items and I wouldn't even trust them. 

 

Trust is almost impossible to earn for me, when it comes to the cyberworld. My parents trained me like a dog to not believe anyone on the internet... the feeling has stuck for over 6 years.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been running a brokering service and sold over 90 unusuals for other people, mostly HeartLyss. I've held his golden pan for a day, given it back. Done PayPal transactions for a long time, 147 trust ratings on backpack.tf and I see no reason to scam.

1. You will be caught.

2. Should you get caught you can't sell your shit (unless you find people who also wants to get marked)

3. You will be a worthless piece of shit for the rest of your life.

 

I honestly feel like you're giving the people who live off of being trusted in the community a bad name.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been running a brokering service and sold over 90 unusuals for other people, mostly HeartLyss. I've held his golden pan for a day, given it back. Done PayPal transactions for a long time, 147 trust ratings on backpack.tf and I see no reason to scam.

1. You will be caught.

2. Should you get caught you can't sell your shit (unless you find people who also wants to get marked)

3. You will be a worthless piece of shit for the rest of your life.

 

I honestly feel like you're giving the people who live off of being trusted in the community a bad name.

 

As I've said before, rep that you've got doesn't mean someone won't scam, and has been well demonstrated by these recent examples. Bone only trusted Kitteh because he had a ton of rep. And look what happened to him. That's not an isolated incident either, there have even been cases of SR admins turning scammer in the past. 

 

And sure, the actions of one do affect the whole community. When one or a significant number of previously trusted users turn scammer, it shows the rep system really doesn't even come close to guaranteeing anything regarding chargebacks and scams.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I actually have not many problems in trusting people. Try to see the perspective of other people trying to trust you, instead of you trusting them.

 

Create a policy on yourself that requires patience for people or friends in order to scam you. That way, scammers will automatically just go on more gullible people since its not worth wasting that much time on you.

 

Hell, there are people that are a few weeks old on my friends list and they want to borrow a key or a few from me. Even if i don't know them that much, i just lend them my keys just because it makes me happy to see their gratitude, even if it wasn't too much of a big deal. Of course only if they have a good reason.. not "but huuu there's this australium i want"

 

You have a friend ? ask something of an equal value from him that he doesn't need if he wants borrow something from you. Chances are if he is your friend, he already knows how paranoid you might be and he has no reason to refuse you.

 

A lot of people are scammed by friends when they are given an ultimatum by them: they either are good people for helping a friend, or too greedy because he didn't help him with a small thing, which is not true. Take the few seconds of his insults instead of the potential $20 or so that could've been stolen. You will always regret it later that you got scammed and you will probably insult yourself more than that friend of yours insulted you for not borrowing him items.

 

Scammers are not black and white. Not all of them have a black heart and want to watch the world burn. There others that i like to call "scammers with morals". 

 

These kind of people uses your distress against you in a moral matter. Always be clear in what you tell him.

 

Example:

 

"Friend":Hey there

Victim:hey

"Friend":I wanted to ask you something, is it okay if i borrow like four keys from you?

"Friend":Its not like you will use them anytime soon

Victim: for what?

"Friend":On a bet that i made and i'm very sure that i'l win.

Victim: what bet?

"Friend": A tf2 one, if i win i'l get the other items that people bet on it.

"Friend": Don't worry, once i win i will give them back to you, it will take only 5 minutes.

Victim: sure i guess, let me know once you're done.

"Friend": Yup

5 minutes later

"Friend": Hey turns out i lost the bet xD

Victim: oh.. sorry to hear that.

Victim: should i send you a trade offer for the keys? or you will send one?

"Friend": What keys?

Victim: the keys that i gave you ..

"Friend": I told you i will give them back if i WIN the bet.

Victim: wtf those are my keys, you told me you will give them back

"Friend": This is not fair, you didn't told me that you wanted the keys if i would lose

"Friend": I thought you gave me the keys in hope that you didn't need them as much as i do

Victim: FFS thanks for scamming me..

"Friend": Yeah call me a scammer because you forgot to tell me that you also wanted the keys if i would lose.. awesome.

 

 

The conversation above somewhat summarized the wayne and d0 overdramatic love story that for some reason got a lot of attention. That's one example, there other situations where he could take advantage of you because you vaguely agreed with him without establishing all the grounds.

 

As for you trusting someone with your items, there aren't too many cases of scam in this. Its either because you don't have enough space in your inventory, or you want to cash out. Most people have that 100% friend that they trust if they want to hold them temporary, but if you don't.. you either use a secondary account or risk it with someone not 100% trustworthy.

 

As for cashing out, your either take a risk with someone or use a middleman that is trustworthy from steamrep. Inform yourself on these situations so you can be more aware of possible errors and have better judgement against other people.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People can take very profound masks online and literally act like someone they're not. This is why you should never deal with someone based on how reputable they are; rather based on how much they have to lose by scamming you.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Define trust. Any big time trader I would trust with my entire tf2 backpack

They stand to lose much more future profit from stealing my stuff than they would ever gain from stealing it. It's not worth it. And I trust the internet with secrets if that is what you meant. None of you guys actually influence my daily life. It won't matter a single bit what you know and thus I'm very open about my life.

 

But fully, 100% trust? I don't trust my best friends and family members 100%. There are some thing I believe they had better not know.

 

"Trust nobody, and keep your dragons close".

 

-Tyrion Lannister

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Define trust. Any big time trader I would trust with my entire tf2 backpack

They stand to lose much more future profit from stealing my stuff than they would ever gain from stealing it. It's not worth it. And I trust the internet with secrets if that is what you meant. None of you guys actually influence my daily life. It won't matter a single bit what you know and thus I'm very open about my life.

 

But fully, 100% trust? I don't trust my best friends and family members 100%. There are some thing I believe they had better not know.

 

"Trust nobody, and keep your dragons close".

 

-Tyrion Lannister

 

By 100% i meant in the context of your items only, not your entire life. There will always be secrets that its better to not disclose with anyone in your life, including your family.

 

But yes, with the amount of indifference, anonymity, and other outrageous statements you hear daily from the internet, people are less reluctant to tell something on the internet since it won't have as much personal impact compared to saying it to someone in real life.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

I trust the people I know IRL, since, in the words of former CIA director Robert Gates, "I know who you are, I know where you live" :v

 

Other than that, there's one person I'd trust on my friends list with my stuff.  I'd say, be careful about who you trust, be select about it, it's possible to trust people/find trustworthy people though.

 

 

sidenote, anyone remember google :v

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...