Do you think one should be marked for trading with scammers/scammer alts?

[Tio José das Vacas]

I'm going too leave this here, it's a thing I wrote 2 weeks ago:

 

 

I know that you all say "whats the problem of trading with a banned user?" - if you trade with a person that is banned (knowingly) your helping him make profit of stolen goods- TF2, CS:GO ,Dota 2 items that represent money, real money, we see so many people that earn money with them - people that own sites (like you Geel) , people that sell items for money daily , etc... We also hear about kids that ask their family to give them money in their birthdays to buy items, I can keep giving examples of why items represent money but my point is, do you think you guys should trade with scammers? Trading with marked scammers, it's no diferent that buying a selphone from a guy in the street - of course you know it's not legit but some people risk their reputations for it- note that in Portugal you can get in trouble for buying stolen goods, probably in other several countries too.

 

I would advice you to create a thread on SR too. We are open to suggestions, let's brainstorm!

[Milz187]

In some cases we do, but they are a rare exception. We've talked about it at length, but the reason you were permbanned for that trade by me (after consultation with senior staff), is that your excuse to not have known the guy to be a scammer was not believable.

 

That's all I will say about this matter, I have wasted a lot of time arguing about this and will not continue to do so. If you feel that your appeal should get accepted, go ahead and argue your case. I am not involved in that process and frankly I'm not personally invested enough to care either.

 

I didn't make any excuses, I simply stated facts that SR did not load, It's as simple as that. You then tried to highlight your excuses to ban me over reddit in which a lot of the community called you out on it. There could be 2 sides to a story but you chose to look at it in the most negative way. You could have seen it in the matter that I had been legit for so long and I've never had a previous issue but you went on to assume that I had known. All I could say is the truth, which SteamRep did not load, but you for some reason found that unbelievable. You assumed that I should have known Earl, as part of your reasoning. Consider that we are in two different circles, you are in the circle that bans people for trading with scammers, my circle of friends is just me and 3 or 4 people and who ever I chat to during a trade. I don't have discussions with my friends on who the dark sheeps of the community are, what is and should be obvious to you isn't as obvious to me. Your basis of the initial ban was that I should have known Earl and that you believed I did thus banned me. If I lied and said I had known he was scammer would that have meant I would have received the 1 time warning everyone else gets?

 

With all that said, a senior admin then admitted to me that I was banned incorrectly and removed my ban. I then highlighted some outpost issues which Sneeza didn't like and then banned me not for the trade you incorrectly banned me for but for not respecting outposts authority. With how this was handled from the start and with me getting banned incorrectly how do you expect me to respect outposts authority, outpost should not have any authority over trades, they are free to ban who they want but demanding authority is clearly against the SSA.

 

I was banned out outpost initially for a rare exception, I then had my rep deleted on SourceOp for a rare exception, generally it needs to be proven that I had known that the person was a scammer to be marked on SR but hey another rare exception and 3 month ban and 6 month caution. When I first reported the issue to Mattie I was hit with a shake down approach being called a liar all whilst he was lying in his approach. There's glaring issues with many of the larger communities and people are scared to speak out in fears of being banned by a rare exception.

 

To comment in regards to the topic.

 

When I first started trading 5 - 6 years ago and for a good while after that services where never forced on the community as they are now. If was that if you thought that someone was suspect then SR was good place to look, it was then for you to decide if that trading with that user was of any harm to yourself, there was no morality or ethics being forced onto the user. People would only check SR if there was PayPal involved as trading item for item presented no risk to the user.

 

From there people started to get banned for being obvious fences for scammers or for  buying off scammer for cheap and then reselling those items. It made sense to be banning these people as they were obviously banned with another account or the new user is consistently making profit by dealing with a scammer. But things I feel got a bit silly when morals began to be forced onto other users, I'm against helping scammers profit but I don't see the logic in banning people for trading with people who have been banned for trading with scammers. There could be the scenario where user A is marked for buying a item X from a scammer but also bought item Z from the SCM. If you were to purchase item Z you could be punished as hard as the original person who had scammed item X 10 trades ago. It's all pretty messy and can be viewed differently by many people but the only real viewpoint in this regards is the viewpoint of the SR, it could be a collective viewpoint or the viewpoint of a single person.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong but things then took a turn when the duped Burning Team Captain was floating around on the market, no rules were changed to start with but If you had purchased that Burning Team Captain you were going to be a marked scammer "banned" It went from you can be banned for being an alt of of scammer / fencing multiple items to you can be marked as a scammer for a single trade if it was the Burning Team Captain... where did this rule come from? The owner of SR was also the owner of a Burning Team Captain? Not long after that it filtered down to you can be banned for a single offense under a "rare exception" then they put rules on it and even outside of the clear rules you could still be banned under a "rare exception" like myself.

 

Now recently I hear you can be banned for trading with an obvious alt, this is really becoming a joke and by this logic of their rules anyone that traded Bob in those 3 months he was building his backpack should probably be marked, new traders with some money to spend are going to have a difficult time. SR is pretty much forcing their service and rules onto the community.

 

With how everything is being setup there's a mentality of guilty before innocent, when I was marked on SR my Nephews account was listed as a scammer because he had logged into my house. It got me thinking that If they are being marked due to association then how many others have been as well, I had a look through the FoG and SOP forum and there's a lot of similar cases. It is not right to be labeling people as scammers when they have not scammed, and marking people as scammers because at 1 point they had logged in from a friends house who had then be listed as a scammer (even if they did not scam anyone) doing so is a breach of the SSA as it defamation.

 

Have a read through this http://store.steampowered.com/online_conduct/and you will see how SR, FoG and many of the partners are breaching the SSA. Listing alt accounts is a breach of privacy and is defamation in some cases. I understand wanting to rid the community of scammers but when innocent people get caught in the firing line there's an issue.

 

The below scenario bothers me:

 

You can be a person who likes hats, not know anything about SR / Outpost / Backpack.TF and then invest some money into the SCM. You can then get a trade offer from a marked user and think yeah I like that item, I'll trade, complete the trade and then complete a couple other trades with the same person. Then you have a message on your profile from FoG demanding you give them reason into why you completed that trade with the possible requests of screenshots. If you don't reply to them and give reason then you will be a SteamRep scammer. 3rd party services should not be forced onto Steam users.

[fmca]

I'm going too leave this here, it's a thing I wrote 2 weeks ago:

 

I would advice you to create a thread on SR too. We are open to suggestions, let's brainstorm!

 

Er, Tio, for one thing what you wrote on Muselk's report in no way covers the moral difference between borrowing an item that has not been scammed and buying an item that has been scammed. As you yourself admit in giving Muselk a written warning against trading with scammers at all, even if that includes borrowing an item for a video he's making.

 

Secondly, I'm sorry but if there is one thing SR does not give the impression of, it's that it is a website that is "open to suggestions". I'd laugh if it wasn't so serious.

[fluffyy]

Er, Tio, for one thing what you wrote on Muselk's report in no way covers the moral difference between borrowing an item that has not been scammed and buying an item that has been scammed. As you yourself admit in giving Muselk a written warning against trading with scammers at all, even if that includes borrowing an item for a video he's making.

 

Secondly, I'm sorry but if there is one thing SR does not give the impression of, it's that it is a website that is "open to suggestions". I'd laugh if it wasn't so serious.

well maybe they are open to suggestions, but shit still wont get done about it if anyone wants the suggestions in place considering steamrep is slower than a snail to do ANYTHING

 

steamrep admins spend more time in general discussion than doing actual scam reports, from what ive seen theyve just abandoned them entirely, maybe respond to an old ass one here or there or a very easily handled one.

[Milz187]

I know that you all say "whats the problem of trading with a banned user?" - if you trade with a person that is banned (knowingly) your helping him make profit of stolen goods- TF2, CS:GO ,Dota 2 items that represent money, real money, we see so many people that earn money with them - people that own sites (like you Geel) , people that sell items for money daily , etc... We also hear about kids that ask their family to give them money in their birthdays to buy items, I can keep giving examples of why items represent money but my point is, do you think you guys should trade with scammers? Trading with marked scammers, it's no diferent that buying a selphone from a guy in the street - of course you know it's not legit but some people risk their reputations for it- note that in Portugal you can get in trouble for buying stolen goods, probably in other several countries too.

 

Hey dude, much respect to you. You gave me the time of day during my appeal.

 

Regarding your cellphone analogy, someone selling their phone does not mean it's stolen, it could be that they just got a new cellphone and don't need the old one. It could be that they need some quick $$$ to feed their kids and it could also mean they stole it. To assume they are all stolen is a narrow approach imo. 

 

Now if you want to compare what is going on in SR and putting it in a RL scenario things are going to start looking very silly.

 

Considering your analogy and consider that the person had not stolen that phone and you bought off him but then it was found out that he had stolen his shoes. Will it make sense if the governor had banned you off buying anything anymore and banned anyone from buying anything off you because you had bought a phone off a dude that had stolen shoes at one point.

 

Now imagine the scenario where you are barred from selling or buying anything in town because you had bought a phone off some dude that had once stolen shoes but then your friend Mike comes over for a drink and logged into your internet. The governor now has the automatic assumption that Mike is you and has banned Mike from selling or buying anything. Mike goes home not knowing any of this and plays some game with his wife, the next day while Mike is at work, Mikes wife who is having an affair and is sleeping with a dude called Tim and then went and paid Tim a visit. She did what she had to do and left for home. Tim that night decides to go out for a drink and then found himself not allowed to buy a drink because Tim had slept with a lady whos husband had a friend who had bought a phone off a dude who once stole shoes... this is SR logic, everyone in this chain is a thief and all deserve the same punishment as the person that stole the shoes.

[sirploko]

Glad to hear you think our concerns are a waste of time. As I've said before ploko, don't go into PR or customer relations, you don't suit it. Maybe you guys should hire someone else.

 

Yes, that's totally what I said. You are so observant, it's not even funny. If you don't know what you are talking about, you should just shut up. And, again, I am not a PR guy and I'm not trying to be one either. Your opinion is irrelevant to me and so are you.

[fluffyy]

Yes, that's totally what I said. You are so observant, it's not even funny. If you don't know what you are talking about, you should just shut up. And, again, I am not a PR guy and I'm not trying to be one either. Your opinion is irrelevant to me and so are you.

just dont respond if youre gonna act like that and make yourself and outpost staff look bad...

[Milz187]

Yes, that's totally what I said. You are so observant, it's not even funny. If you don't know what you are talking about, you should just shut up. And, again, I am not a PR guy and I'm not trying to be one either. Your opinion is irrelevant to me and so are you.

 

With that attitude you'll be a bad PR guy.

 

You said earlier that you don't ban people for 1st offense unless it's a "rare circumstance" care to explain the circumstance here? http://imgur.com/a/xCbn2

[fmca]

Yes, that's totally what I said. You are so observant, it's not even funny. If you don't know what you are talking about, you should just shut up. And, again, I am not a PR guy and I'm not trying to be one either. Your opinion is irrelevant to me and so are you.

 

Good job buddy, thanks for proving my point

[puddingkip]

Yes. Others have already elaborated on it but you're helping scammers profit. Don't make deals with criminals

[BankingBot]

Just something to consider, accomplice can face the same punishment as whoever is committing the crime. "The key consideration is whether the individual intentionally and voluntarily encouraged or assisted in the commission of the crime, or (in some cases) failed to prevent it. "

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-law-basics/what-is-complicity-or-accomplice-liability.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accomplice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aiding_and_abetting

[zirune]

Yes. Others have already elaborated on it but you're helping scammers profit. Don't make deals with criminals

 

Are they, though?

 

Now, I'm not talking about intentionally dealing with somebody that is very obviously a scammer; If a guy's selling you a Burning TC for 50 keys every other day, you're prooooooobably doing something wrong. Repeatedly and intentionally trading with a known scammer or extremely obvious unknown scammer should probably still be actionable against. I'm talking the people who accidentally trade with somebody that isn't an incredibly obvious scammer in a one-off trade (or multiple one-off trades, as will inevitably be the case with people who trade a lot), and who don't get the kind of deal that should raise red flags all over the place.

 

There's so many holes and assumptions being made when you suggest that somebody who trades with a scammer is helping them profit:

 

1) You assume that the trade is directly linked to scamming. We're talking buying keys with $$$ from somebody who stole those keys. If somebody trades for an unusual that was traded for an unusual that was traded for an unusual that was scammed, are they really supporting the scammer?

 

2) You assume that the scammer is making a profit. If a scammer trades me an unusual + keys for my unusual in an even trade, they're making a profit... How, exactly? The scammer isn't even making it easier to liquidate their goods, because they're literally trading away money. This is a big issue that was brought up with backpack.tf automatic and marked people buying items.

 

3) You assume that the trade is done with knowledge that goods involved were scammed. Many items are duped (and thus it's extremely difficult if not impossible to track them thoroughly), many more come from or are passed through private accounts, many more items are sold on the Steam Community Market. Barring any huge red flags, it's practically impossible to tell if non-god-tier items have been scammed or not. The intention behind an action means a lot in real life, when it comes to the severity of a crime and whether a crime was even committed in some cases.

 

4) You assume that the other half of the trade is a marked/obvious scammer. See previous discussions on what makes a scammer (alt) 'obvious' to see just how clear-cut that issue is. A non-obvious scammer (alt) and an average, non-scammer trader are practically indistinguishable, and Steamrep's current rules acknowledge that it's unreasonable to punish people for making trades with people that aren't obvious scammers... The hitch is what makes something 'obvious'.

 

5) You suggest that the scammer would not be able to profit without making the trade. This is the point that really irks me in all of this. It's literally impossible to stop a scammer from selling their goods. Between the Steam Community Market, alt accounts, and people who don't know or don't care about Steamrep, there's no way to stop a scammer from being able to move their goods. That should be extremely obvious from the number of previously-stolen goods that are all over the market, and the number of people marked as scammers that continue to trade. If scammers can still readily trade, what is banning somebody who's 4th-degree-involved really solving?

 

6) You assume that punishing people for such an action is a net benefit to the community. If it's not, you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

 

I'd also challenge the notion that you shouldn't "make deals with criminals". Making a deal with a criminal is perfectly fine in real life, so why should it be any different here? Just because somebody's a criminal doesn't mean everything they do is criminal. If the purpose of a law or rule is to prevent crime, then only actions that are or directly support crimes should be punished. Tangentially supporting a crime is impossible to avoid. It makes absolutely no sense to punish somebody for doing something that doesn't support a crime, just because the person they dealt with happened to commit a crime in the past.

[BankingBot]

if you did it unknowningly like the milz guy, it's not punishable tbh. however, if you see that red tag on steamrep and still trades with them,it is punishable

[TheSilencer]

 

5) You suggest that the scammer would not be able to profit without making the trade. This is the point that really irks me in all of this. It's literally impossible to stop a scammer from selling their goods. Between the Steam Community Market, alt accounts, and people who don't know or don't care about Steamrep, there's no way to stop a scammer from being able to move their goods. That should be extremely obvious from the number of previously-stolen goods that are all over the market, and the number of people marked as scammers that continue to trade. If scammers can still readily trade, what is banning somebody who's 4th-degree-involved really solving?

It's not about completely stopping scammers from trading and profiting but stopping the "scam-a-guy-sell-off-the-unusual-to-a-quick-buyer-make-a-few-bucks-and-boom-rinse-and-repeat!' process. 

 

 

 

2) You assume that the scammer is making a profit. If a scammer trades me an unusual + keys for my unusual in an even trade, they're making a profit... How, exactly? The scammer isn't even making it easier to liquidate their goods, because they're literally trading away money. This is a big issue that was brought up with backpack.tf automatic and marked people buying items.

 

If the scammer is selling a scammed unusual, then it's an even trade for you, but a profit for the scammer. Of course, it's different when it's a non-scammed item.

 

 

 

 

4) You assume that the other half of the trade is a marked/obvious scammer. See previous discussions on what makes a scammer (alt) 'obvious' to see just how clear-cut that issue is. A non-obvious scammer (alt) and an average, non-scammer trader are practically indistinguishable, and Steamrep's current rules acknowledge that it's unreasonable to punish people for making trades with people that aren't obvious scammers... The hitch is what makes something 'obvious'

By obvious, I'm pretty sure you know what it means. You probably reject a dozen friend requests sent by a level 0 user with a private backpack and default Steam avatar. What makes you reject them? Something fishy about them, right? What is it about them which makes them so suspicious?

 

 

 

1) You assume that the trade is directly linked to scamming. We're talking buying keys with $$$ from somebody who stole those keys. If somebody trades for an unusual that was traded for an unusual that was traded for an unusual that was scammed, are they really supporting

 

 

 

I'd also challenge the notion that you shouldn't "make deals with criminals". Making a deal with a criminal is perfectly fine in real life, so why should it be any different here? Just because somebody's a criminal doesn't mean everything they do is criminal. If the purpose of a law or rule is to prevent crime, then only actions that are or directly support crimesshould be punished. Tangentially supporting a crime is impossible to avoid. It makes absolutely no sense to punish somebody for doing something that doesn't support a crime, just because the person they dealt with happened to commit a crime in the past.

 

 

A mark is supposed to be more than just a warning but a punishment. A criminal's entire life doesn't revolve around a crime in real life. Their raison d'etre isn't drug-dealing or pick-pocketing or armed robbery. Punishing someone for buying a vaccum cleaner off an ex-con is kinda different from buying a high-tier unusual (not-scammed or anything) from a TF2 or CS:GO trader who was marked for scamming high-tier unusuals.

[Cobalt]

Read the SR FAQ. Not too hard to see the reasoning behind why trading with scammers is logical to mark for. Much like buying goods from smugglers. Should you be arrested for that?

[Milz187]

Snip

 

Hey I think you may be missing a couple details, like in the ideal scenario scammers should be stopped from scamming and ideally they should not have a means to trade.

 

Where my concern is that the system was put in place to protect the community from scammers and as such SteamRep has introduced a strict approach towards scammers but imo they have done so incorrectly and have a guilty before innocent approach and the people it is looking out to protect it has placed into a situations where they could do no harm yet be marked as scammers.

 

- If a friend of yours was a scammer and you had logged into your steam account from his house at any point... before or after he was a scammer they you will also be listed as a scammers alt.

- If your friend was marked as a scammer not for scamming but for trading with a scammer and you understood that he wasn't a scammer and felt it will be wrong to not be allowed to trade with them but decided to then you will also be marked as a scammer.

 

How I see it is for SteamRep to be active is keeping scammed good out of the community they need to ensure that all their alts are listed, this is where innocent people get marked... with their process it's unavoidable not to have innocent people incorrectly marked as a scammer. The system is designed to protect the innocent in the community where instead it has flaws that could incorrectly mark them.

[Studious Damon]

Its funny because the only thing that accomplishes is scaring people into not trading scammed items. However they can just throw it up on the market and no one will be the wiser.