[PSA] Scam Raffle Groups (are they a hivemind??)

[The J-Man]

People of the TF2/CS:GO community, have you ever come across a raffle group and thought maybe you'd win something after donating some metal, but then it would later turn out the group was a ruse and then they spam the group announcements with "LEAVE THIS GROUP AND JOIN NEW ONES"? Well this is what it's about, and this has been done multiple times!

L&Bs Highend Raffles just so happened to be the latest in the series of groups that did that sort of pattern. They've been known to branch out to other unknown raffle groups as well (not sure if their partners were being fooled or if they were in this all along), and the moderators on L&B seem to be in this jape too from what I could tell I mean who in the right mind spams 100+ announcements telling the same thing?!

Here are two SteamRep reports connected to the matter, both detailing encounters with the owner(s) of such raffle groups:
http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/report-76561198301180417-tf2-team-fortress-2-items.136706/
http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/report-76561198144346135-tf2-team-fortress-2-items.135996/

You may want to leave certain raffle groups that you don't know well about, because one day they might start spamming announcement posts again with all caps, and you'll realize joining them was a bad idea. And most definitely don't pay any of them if you know something's off. There are good raffle groups which I'm not allowed to name right now, and a lot of those that do mass spycrabbing on servers are pretty fair and trustworthy. So you might want to do a little background checking with the owners and such, you might catch another El Barto.

Thanks for your time, and I hope this madness ends eventually.

[Mengh.]

Nearly all raffle groups are a scam in one shape of form or another.

[Salvage]

All raffles that aren't free are scams.

[The J-Man]

I can attest, as Mass:CC's group always made sure to pay out their prizes big and small. (The part I mentioned earlier was copy-pasted from a Steam discussion thread that I subsequently removed thinking here and Reddit were better places.)

[Mag!cGuy]

I remember back in the days I did participate in some of those group raffles, and won a few times, or saw the actual winner be added and all, but indeed sometimes the raffle would just disapear into oblivion... Salvage is right anyway, when you think about it, raffles that ask a fee are scams, plain and simple.

[=TNW= Maximus™]

All raffles that aren't free are scams.

Wrong? I raffle in groups... While there may be some "bad apples" there are also those who aren't trying to scam and are genuinely good people. 

[Weedoof]

All raffles that aren't free are scams.

Except that's not true.

 

I have participated in one or two paid raffle groups in the past and actually won things from time to time. They may not be trustworthy as a whole, but there are absolutely good groups out there, rare as they may be.

[Alberny]

Raffle Group Invite => remove friend => block => gg