If you have an impersonator read this.

[Andrei#Ukrainian]

Hello People.

Nodaways one of the most popular traders problem is impersonators

 

Most of the well-known and little known traders, administrators and etc had or have an impersonator

 

Impersonators steal things of people who do not often trade then in most cases these people leave the market of trade forever

 

And we all know that Valve is going to do nothing about it 

So what im offering 

 

From today I'm going to post a comment on the profile of each account that in friends have my impersonator

Yes, i realize that some of impersonator having private acc etc but i will go by it for now

 

Probably the most reasonable thing that occurred to me about the fight against this problem

 

I propose to do the same thing to everyone who has read this post

If you also have some interesting ideas about this, I will be happy if you write them down in the comments( not posting "impersonated" on your steam name - not all people have space for that, not like adding your impersonator and asking him to stop because you are lose money - please...)

 

 

 

 

[AlwaysBorn]

You could higher someone to make a steam bot that automatically adds an impersonators friendslist warning them that he's an impersonator. Automating the process, all you have to do is add the steam id link of the impersonator. 

Only works if the impersonators friendlist is public.

[HarryG]

Firstly (speaking as someone who recently has had multiple impersonators), while I agree that something needs to be done to get the word out about impersonation, I'm not sure how I feel about essentially promoting mass profile comment spam when in many cases an impersonator is only on a potential "scammee" friends list for a very short period of time before either failing or getting the item they want. I've noticed that most of an impersonator's friends list consists of apparent alt accounts/scammer friends that comment positive rep onto the profile. Secondly, it's extremely worrisome to me that the only reason such a big name in the trading community (from what I've heard) only seems to care at all is for fear of losing customers. That's not exactly the right message to send to the people we're trying to help in my opinion; it just furthers the idea that this community is all about profit with no actual focus on well, community. 

[Fishtail]

1 hour ago, Andrei#Ukrainian said:

Hello People.

Nodaways one of the most popular traders problem is impersonators

 

Most of the well-known and little known traders, administrators and etc had or have an impersonator

 

Impersonators steal things of people who do not often trade then in most cases these people leave the market of trade forever

 

And we all know that Valve is going to do nothing about it 

So what im offering 

 

From today I'm going to post a comment on the profile of each account that in friends have my impersonator

Yes, i realize that some of impersonator having private acc etc but i will go by it for now

 

Probably the most reasonable thing that occurred to me about the fight against this problem

 

I propose to do the same thing to everyone who has read this post

If you also have some interesting ideas about this, I will be happy if you write them down in the comments( not posting "impersonated" on your steam name - not all people have space for that, not like adding your impersonator and asking him to stop because you are lose money - please...)

 

 

 

 

 

Great idea. I, myself, have over 5 impersonators constantly impersonating me. While I don't have much time often to do the suggested idea, i have been trying to add people or at least leave a comment on their profile who are in my impersonator's lists. Another idea I might suggest (though might not be as effective), is to leave an item so that it is displayed first in your inventory when an impersonator links their targets to your inventory. Idea is to name and put a description warning them about the danger they are in for. This could work well, but seeing as most people barely log onto TF2, items acquired from newer trades will be displayed first and it'll be pointless. I login often, or right after a trade, so it does help me a bit. Just a thought.

 

59 minutes ago, HarryG said:

Firstly (speaking as someone who recently has had multiple impersonators), while I agree that something needs to be done to get the word out about impersonation, I'm not sure how I feel about essentially promoting mass profile comment spam when in many cases an impersonator is only on a potential "scammee" friends list for a very short period of time before either failing or getting the item they want. I've noticed that most of an impersonator's friends list consists of apparent alt accounts/scammer friends that comment positive rep onto the profile. Secondly, it's extremely worrisome to me that the only reason such a big name in the trading community (from what I've heard) only seems to care at all is for fear of losing customers. That's not exactly the right message to send to the people we're trying to help in my opinion; it just furthers the idea that this community is all about profit with no actual focus on well, community. 

 

Have you had over 10 people everyday come to you and spam your profile telling you that you scammed them, or an impersonator did? Or perhaps getting about 20+ comments each day from people linking you to the impersonators' profile? And the real question, have you ever been scammed or horrendously sharked before? If you have, you'd very well know how much angry and confused those victims are after they find out an impersonator tricked them. Moreso than losing customers, it's about doing the right thing - helping keep innocents and the vulnerable safe. It might be inconvenient for some, since they might happen to know about the impersonators, or do background checks. But the point is, most people have no clue about such things since they are your everyday nice folks thinking the world is a good place. They are the easy targets for impersonators. And even though it might be inconvenient for others, and you get hated for it, I'd rather know that I did the least I could in helping those people avoid falling for the disgusting tricks that they'd most likely fall for otherwise, because of MY name. Also, impersonators add people that are mostly in YOUR friends list, or the ones you've traded with in the past. The trend has been going on for a while. 

                                      I get your point, but Andrei is trying to help. Take it positively instead of criticizing it, and trying to be a smartass. It's a very serious issue, and if you don't understand the gravity of it... you've got a problem there. Simple as that.

[λngelღмander]

I have no idea what service you're actually offering, and If you're saying you'll post on impersonator profiles, that would be pointless. The kinds of people falling for impersonation scams usually aren't even aware that there can be impersonators, because they may be new to steam and don't understand you can have the same name as someone else, don't understand the basic nature of steam trading, etc. For your sake, don't waste your time doing this. I have like 20-50 active impersonators at any given time, more pop up every day

[Fishtail]

1 minute ago, λngelღмander said:

I have no idea what service you're actually offering, and If you're saying you'll post on impersonator profiles, that would be pointless. The kinds of people falling for impersonation scams usually aren't even aware that there can be impersonators, because they may be new to steam and don't understand you can have the same name as someone else, don't understand the basic nature of steam trading, etc. For your sake, don't waste your time doing this. I have like 20-50 active impersonators at any given time, more pop up every day

 

You're asking him to just ignore the issue and let it go on without taking any action or not do the least he can? I have no words. Instead of running away and ignoring it, how about trying to do something about it? Sure, we can't do much, but doing the least we can is our responsibility to the community. Especially you, a well-known admin, suggesting that is pretty disgusting. Having a good reputation and name comes with a big responsibility as well, with all due respect. Sort of like having a kid/pet really. You get one, you take care of it. Not just let it suffer and die.

[λngelღмander]

Just now, Fishtail said:

 

You're asking him to just ignore the issue and let it go on without taking any action or not do the least he can? I have no words. Instead of running away and ignoring it, how about trying to do something about it? Sure, we can't do much, but doing the least we can is our responsibility to the community. Especially you, a well-known admin, suggesting that is pretty disgusting. Having a good reputation and name comes with a big responsibility as well, with all due respect. Sort of like having a kid/pet really. You get one, you take care of it. Not just let it suffer and die.

...

I handle scam reports, especially impersonation reports, on a daily basis. I'm not trying to discourage him from helping the community, I'm not even sure what he's offering to do. When he eventually responded to me I was going to suggest he search for impersonator profiles that were not already marked by steamrep and report them to f-o-g where they could be handled and banned. 

 

I've seen extremely successful scammer profiles whose public comment sections are full of "this guy scammed me dont trade" type comments and the victims just don't see it. 

[Fishtail]

6 minutes ago, λngelღмander said:

...

I handle scam reports, especially impersonation reports, on a daily basis. I'm not trying to discourage him from helping the community, I'm not even sure what he's offering to do. When he eventually responded to me I was going to suggest he search for impersonator profiles that were not already marked by steamrep and report them to f-o-g where they could be handled and banned. 

 

I've seen extremely successful scammer profiles whose public comment sections are full of "this guy scammed me dont trade" type comments and the victims just don't see it. 

 

Think what he meant was to post comments on the vulnerable users' profiles - the ones in the impersonators' friends list. It won't guarantee a 100% success rate, but even 1% targets saved is better than nothing. Having them banned on SR or FoG is pointless since most people don't check anyways - especially the ones that don't know about it. It COULD help a bit, but almost all the impersonators we see are banned already on most TF2 trading/rep sites. I think posting comments on the users' Steam profile is a better idea. Infact, investing in a bot that does so for you would actually be fairly smart. 

[Andrei#Ukrainian]

For people who care, i'm doing this only because i'm done getting over 20 adds in a day about dudes who were scammed / or someone tried to scam them. Just tired of all the spamm im getting 

 

[AlwaysBorn]

8 hours ago, Fishtail said:

 

Think what he meant was to post comments on the vulnerable users' profiles - the ones in the impersonators' friends list. It won't guarantee a 100% success rate, but even 1% targets saved is better than nothing. Having them banned on SR or FoG is pointless since most people don't check anyways - especially the ones that don't know about it. It COULD help a bit, but almost all the impersonators we see are banned already on most TF2 trading/rep sites. I think posting comments on the users' Steam profile is a better idea. Infact, investing in a bot that does so for you would actually be fairly smart. 

He's just not spending his time smart though. He might be able to help that 1%. But imagine what he could do for the community if he had invested his time smarter.

That's why I said he should purchase a bot. Costs around 10 keys and you're automating the job. Only thing you have to do is add the impersonators profile into the bot (and run the bot in the background off course). Now you have extra spare time which you can spend smarter. Time is your most valuable asset, use it wisely.

[Fishtail]

2 hours ago, AlwaysBorn said:

He's just not spending his time smart though. He might be able to help that 1%. But imagine what he could do for the community if he had invested his time smarter.

That's why I said he should purchase a bot. Costs around 10 keys and you're automating the job. Only thing you have to do is add the impersonators profile into the bot (and run the bot in the background off course). Now you have extra spare time which you can spend smarter. Time is your most valuable asset, use it wisely.

 

As someone who got to where he is with a whole lot of patience, I know the value of time. It is the greatest resource after all. What i'm saying is: if people are getting scammed because of you, you gotta do the least you can to help them be safe, regardless of how inefficient it may be, until you find a better solution.

[AlwaysBorn]

20 hours ago, Fishtail said:

 

As someone who got to where he is with a whole lot of patience, I know the value of time. It is the greatest resource after all. What i'm saying is: if people are getting scammed because of you , you gotta do the least you can to help them be safe, regardless of how inefficient it may be, until you find a better solution.

1. If people are getting scammed because of an impersonator then you don't own those people anything. It's the scammers fault. You have absolutely zero fault. You don't owe them anything. You don't even need to help. If they get scammed because they failed to do a simple background check then that's negligence on their part. You don't have to invest your time.

2. Regardless of that, you can try to make the community better as a whole. If you're going to do that you have to be time-efficient. Taking an inefficient road just seems a waste of your own time.

 

And I I believe I get your point: you're trying to point out that you always have to help others. I agree. I just wouldn't be able to take such a time-inefficient road that you're proposing with which you can barely have any impact at all. You have opportunity costs. The time that you invested in inefficiently trying to avoid others getting scammed you could have spent more wisely. By your logic you're trying to say better to have a small impact than no impact at all. Which sounds fine, but you're not calculating in opportunity costs then.

[Fishtail]

2 hours ago, AlwaysBorn said:

1. If people are getting scammed because of an impersonator then you don't own those people anything. It's the scammers fault. You have absolutely zero fault. You don't owe them anything. You don't even need to help. If they get scammed because they failed to do a simple background check then that's negligence on their part. You don't have to invest your time.

2. Regardless of that, you can try to make the community better as a whole. If you're going to do that you have to be time-efficient. Taking an inefficient road just seems a waste of your own time.

 

And I I believe I get your point: you're trying to point out that you always have to help others. I agree. I just wouldn't be able to take such a time-inefficient road that you're proposing with which you can barely have any impact at all. You have opportunity costs. The time that you invested in inefficiently trying to avoid others getting scammed you could have spent more wisely. By your logic you're trying to say better to have a small impact than no impact at all. Which sounds fine, but you're not calculating in opportunity costs then.

 

You come off as very narrow-minded and negligent here. Impersonators add as many people as they can, but don't have a very sizable friends list. Doing it first time for each of your impersonators' friends will take a few hours; after that it won't take more than a few minutes to leave a comment on each of the user's profile, since there'd only be a few more added over the next few days. And yes, if people misuse your reputation for scams, you partly do have a responsibility in it. No, we won't owe them any items or too much of our times. But instead of jacking off to random shit on internet and wasting time on nothing productive, least you can do is spare a couple mins here and there when you can - to do some good.

                     And opportunity costs? You're saying spending just about 5-10 mins once in a while to do some good will impact your "busy" schedule? If you've got the time to fool around on forums and jerk off to random memes on internet, surely you'd think a few minutes on actually making a difference would be doable. Noone is obliged to help anyone. But we do help others, because that's who we are - humans. You own upto your negative impacts and do your best to make it right - that's what a man does. Just because you're on the internet doesn't mean you're not you. It's inefficient, but not on a very grand scale. For every user being impersonated, if they go through their impersonators' friends list respectively, it's not all that much of a hassle. If you really can't spare the time, being the super busy person you are, but impersonation troubles you as much as it does to me, you could invest in a bot. I can spare the time once in a while, even though I get very busy at times with work, college and whatnot. I don't expect you to understand what i'm saying, but seeing all the harm your name does to others, the guilt sticks around and builds up. A few of the victims have been adding me and i've been trying to help them by assisting them issue reports to Steam Support. But due to lack of Support's response, they are quitting Steam altogether for good. Maybe it's just me, but i'd rather do what I can than just sit around complaining about how hard and inefficient it is.