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UPDATED Oct 2020 [GUIDE] All in 1 Guide - Trading Basics + Scrap to Unusual + All Kinds of Scams & How to avoid them


SmokE

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EDIT: - Oct 4 2020
Updates on

- Types of scams

- how to avoid getting scammed

- website links

- discord links
- corrected typos
- removed outdated stuff

 

Before I start there are few things I wanna say and be clear about.

1. I love helping everyone and so this was a guide (a shorter version) I  made for my friends from the TF2 community in my region on my discord server, The screenshots shown in this guide is like a few months old from when I made this guide so I did not bother to strike off the names as those trade won't be existing now.

2. Everything that I have said below is a collection of data I gathered online and from my own experience in trading. (not everything are my own words but I strongly agree with everything said below) 

3. There are many other guides out there for trading you are free to follow/check that as well. By no means this is a perfect guide or the best one out there. 

4. There will be very basic things mentioned here which most of you may already know but that is for the people who are very new to trading.
 

What is TRADING on steam?

 

Trading is a system that lets people exchange items with other people. This system allows players to swap weapons, cosmetics, tools and more with other players within Steam itself

On August 9, 2011, the trade beta updates were added to the public Steam client and on September 6, 2011. With Steam trading, people were able to trade their in-game items for other in-game items with other people.

 

Team Fortress 2 Trading

 

Item trading is the backbone of the economy in Team Fortress 2. Weapons, hats, and metal are all traded frequently and have their own individual values.

1. Weapons and hats will be given to the player via the drop system,

2. Items can also be obtained via the crafting system. There are specific recipes for almost every item which can be found in the in-game crafting section

 

Currency

 

Since you can't directly trade money to other players

Metal is the most basic currency in Team Fortress 2.

Keys which can only be obtained by either buying them from the store or trading metal for it

Earbuds are next which can be obtained by trading keys and metal

These 3 items are the basic currency used in TF2 for trading
There are many keys in TF2 but Mann Co. Supply Crate Key is the currency key keep this in mind.

 

Types of Metal

There are mainly 3 types of metal in Team Fortress 2

  • Scrap Metal, Is obtained by Smelting two class weapons together (Can be done In-game)
  • Reclaimed Metal, Is obtained by Smelting three scrap metals together (Can be done In-game)
  • Refined Metal, Is obtained by Smelting three reclaimed metal (can be done In-game)

 

1 Refined Metal = 9 Scrap Metal or

1 Refined Metal = 3 Reclaimed Metal

1 Reclaimed Metal = 3 Scrap Metal

1 Reclaimed Metal in mathematical terms - 0.33

1 Scrap Metal in mathematical terms - 0.11

0.99 is counted as 1 in TF2


ITEM QUALITIES

 

Quality is a property of items, which is represented in-game by the color of the item's name and (in most cases) by a title prefixed to the item's name. An item can have only one quality, which is determined when the item is created and remains unchanged
There are 12 different qualities of items in TF2, But only 8 of them are more common and traded most.


Normal · Unique · Vintage · Genuine · Strange · Collector's · Decorated · Unusual · Haunted · Community · Self-Made · Valve


From the list above  

Unique · Vintage · Genuine · Strange · Collector's · Decorated · Unusual and Haunted

are the most commonly traded items


Shortlisting this, even more, it will be Unique Strange and Unusual  The highest traded items


Unique

quality is the item quality assigned to items which can be found through random drops during gameplay

Vintage

is an item quality used most commonly to designate previously Unique items obtained prior to the Mann-Co Update, where it was introduced.

Genuine

item quality was originally introduced alongside the RIFT promotion as a way to allow items obtained through participation in a cross-game promotion or an in-game event to be distinguished from the same items gained via other methods - such as through the random drops or via crafting.

Strange

quality is an item quality available for weapons and cosmetics that track the stats (kills and points) of that item.

Haunted

is an item quality designated for Halloween-themed items. Many, but not all, Halloween items have a Haunted version.

Collector's

is an item quality that is given to items obtained by completing special Chemistry Sets
Decorated

is an item quality assigned to weapons with special grade factors, varying levels of exterior wear, and possibly a Strange counter and/or Unusual effect.

Unusual

quality is an item quality used on cosmetic items, taunts, and weapons. Unusual items have special attached particle effects.

 

How To Start Trading

 

It's actually hard to start with nothing at all, so its best to have a very small investment to start with. I would recommend 2 keys (which is what I started with)
This is a section about slow profit that you don’t need much metal to do, making it perfect for new traders getting started and learning the basics of TF2 trading. This section is nothing I would recommend doing a long time just because it’s just so slow profit. It's just to kick off your trading with very low investment

 

5 Things you need to check/have before you start

 

  1. Get TF2 premium
  2. Get the Steam app (for trade confirmation) - much better and safer than email confirmations
  3. Activate Steam guard
  4. Set your profile to public
  5. Have your Trade offer URL

 

As mentioned earlier its best to have some kind of investment when you start trading for the first time, so buy 2 keys and convert 1 key into metal (refined, reclaimed and scrap) and save your other key.

How do I do that? Just go here - https://scrap.tf/keys and sell 1 key. 


There’s like thousands of different ways to trade and make a profit, and I will show you a few ways to help you get started. I’ll be talking about a few basic methods of trading. [ This is what I started doing when I started Trading long ago ]


Buy and Sell Popular Items
How do I know which are popular items?
Taunts, Tools, and craft hats. These Items sell a lot everyday and its good profit


Tools include items like Backpack Expanders, Name tags, Tour of Duty Ticket etc (basically consumable items of small value)
Taunts are also a good start for new Traders with a limited budget. Buy and sell these items for a small profit. Go for items and aim to buy & sell a lot of items to get your profit going, don’t try and buy ridiculously low or sell to high, then you’ll never get to buy/sell any items. Banking these items can be hard with all the competition from other traders, especially traders using bots. If you want to grab a trading bot of your own there’s actually free option available, trade.tf they have bots available for free. (To know more about these bots DM me) or just buy a bot.tf bot.
- Look for people that are selling a bunch of cosmetics/taunts/tools on TF2outpost, make an offer for all their items at a discount, don’t go crazy and offer way below what they're asking for, instead aim for a small profit when buying in bulk, make it worth it for both parties.
- Look for people that are selling items at discount on backpcak.tf

 

1.png.cbf2932f8aaf906936ef0105a0404998.png

Here is an example of an Item. You can see those guys are selling it for much less than bots (Yes he is offline but if you can get the item from them you can make a profit of 1-4 scrap or by selling it) either to the bots that are buying it or by listing it for sale

NOTE: In backpack.tf 

  • Every item You see on the left side with Green arrow is SELL ORDER
  • Every Item You see on the right side with Blue arrow is BUY ORDER

In the above-shown example, you can see that bots are buying this item for 2.88 refined and there are people selling it for 2.55 onward
Just mentioning this because I have seen a lot of people getting confused with this.

 

2.png.5eea6db72105098bfd611b7c361a49af.png

This is another example or way to make easy profit. Some bots will be having outdated prices (The owners may be just too lazy to update it? idk but this happens a lot). As u see in the screenshot every bot is selling this item for 4.33 ref and buying it for 4.11 ref but one bot has a buy order at 5.33 ref. Just buy from the selling bot and sell it to the buying bot for easy profit. (This is kind of cheeky but hey it's not something rule-breaking as they there is a legit buy order which has an old outdated price.)
Keep in mind bots might have stock limit set (so reload the page after a trade and check if the bot is still buying that item.

 

Trade.tf has a feature which scans all the big trading sites for good deals, this can be a great place to find a few items you can make a profit on. In order to use the service you need to have their premium membership, it’s free and all you have to do is to add “trade.tf” into your Steam name. If the site says an item is on sale for like 60% off, it’s probably too good to be true, the service isn’t flawlessly and you always need to double check everything before making a deal. It also has a bot that can help you with trading which is also free for premium members. Do check it out, and if you are confused or have any questions please DM me


When you have made a decent profit from trading craft hats taunts and tools its time to step things up a bit and find better deals and items that give more profit. These items need more investment or will cost more than these small items so make sure to at least have 5 keys and some refined when you start doing this.
Items Include - 
Unique Killstreak items, Strange Killstreak Items, Vintage items, Genuine items, Strange Cosmetics etc


As you trade more and more you will get an idea how this works and how to get more profit from which items from your own experience. 
Once you have about 10-15 keys then you can start with Unusual Trading (although 8 keys are enough to start unusual trading its best to have some extra keys as backup)

 

Unusual Trading

 

This section is purely based on my personal experience in Unusual Trading. I am not that good of an unusual trader and there are people who are 100x better than me also there are many other guides out there for unusual trading you are free to follow/check that as well. 

This guide is for people that want to get started with unusual trading or for any trader that want to learn new ways of making a profit with unusual's.

When it comes to unusual trading you need to know all the unusual effects in the game and its value, and in this section, I’ll show you how you can do unusual trading with just a basic knowledge of the TF2 economy.
I’ll try to cover everything you need to know to get started with unusual trading but that being said this is by no means a perfect unusual trading guide which I have already said above

 

To start with unusual trading you’ll need around 8-15 keys, the more the better of course but that’s the minimum (The more the better)
The second thing you need to know is that you have to be familiar with all the unusual effects in the game.
There are currently 105 unusual effects in the game and you can see all these effects here in the link below.

 

https://backpack.tf/effects

 

Here you’ll find all the effects listed in order of the effect’s average price for hats with the effect in question. Effects with a high average are seen as good looking (in-game) and exclusive, generally speaking.
This doesn’t mean an effect is more popular/easier to sell because it has a higher price, a higher price unusual effect can be harder to sell because people don’t have/don’t want to spend that kind of money on a hat. Meaning the higher the value of a hat the lesser chance you have to get pure (Its not impossible to get pure for very high-value items but the chances are less as only collectors or people who buy the hat to use would pay the full price in pure) A cheaper unusual effect can be more in demand just because it’s more affordable.

 

When it comes to the question, what effects should you buy? I don’t have a good answer for you, any effect could be a good investment for the right price. 
But I will recommend do not buy effects like Bubbling, Dead Presidents, Massed Flies, Nuts n Bolts, Overclocked, Memory Leak, Confetti, Codex (I would also include power surge and Electrostatic here but that depends on the hats) and I would also recommend against Unusual Taunts as all of the taunts started dropping in price like rocks

 Why? Because These effects that have a tiny visual impact in the game, Meaning from a distance you can barely see those effects and they can almost look like regular hats in-game
- From my personal experience, these effects are disliked the most and hardest to sell. But if you do happen to find good deals on this effect feel free to go for it.

 

How to know the Value of an Unusual

 

For checking out an unusual’s price your best bet is to head over to Backpack.tf and check what the suggested value is, either head over to the inventory of the user having the hat/taunt on Backpack.tf and find your unusual there, "click on it" then choose stats and you’ll come to unusual's stats page where you can see the price and other stats about your unusual. You can also use the search on Backpack.tf to find the value of a hat.


Sometimes a 15 key unusual might have a seller 12 keys so its best not to pay more than 12 for the hat because you cannot sell it for more than 12 as there is already a seller. (just an example)
Sometimes an unusual priced at 15 keys might have an Open price suggestion at 12 keys. Do not blindly trust it, open it and check the given proof and see if its valid (IF the given proof on the suggestion is valid then there is a high chance for it to get accepted and drop in price)
-- If the price suggestion is relatively new you can check it out and see what past sales have gone for. Both suggestions that are approved and not approved can be worth checking out to know about past sales on that hat. You’ll find the price suggestions at the bottom of an unusual’s stats page.
-- Check the Marketplace.tf price and find out if it’s been sold for cash recently.
-- What’s the price on the Steam market
-- Compare the price with other unusual's that have the same effect or the same hat but with other effects. Preferably one with a more up to date price suggestion.
-- Search for the hat on TF2Outpost and see if there are any sellers there.

 

Duplicated Unusual

 

What are Duplicated or Duped Unusuals?


Long before valve Implemented Steam Guard Auth, a lot of Trade Scams used to happen. Which was the main reason why valve introduced Steam guard. So basically when you click on accept trade in the trade window on steam The trade used to happen there was no secure confirmations.
When solid proof for the scam was submitted valve used to give back the item that got scammed to the victim with "The Same Item ID". These items are the duplicate/duped items. They look the same in-game they do not have any special or different attributes from the Stolen/Scammed item.
The only problem with these duplicated items is that they will have less resale value.


How to know if an Unusual is Duplicate/Duped?


Go to the inventory of the seller on backpack.tf and locate the unusual, click it and then choose History. Here on this page, you’ll see most of the past owners of this unusual and if the hat is duplicated you’ll see a small text in blue that says Duplicated in the right top corner. Checking the history before buying any unusual is also a good thing, this lets you see if there are any banned users mostly scammers (They will have their name in red and crossed over) in the recent history.
-- If an Item has many scammer names on the item History then its most likely the value of the item will be low, Meaning most people wouldn't wanna have a hat that was owned by a lot of scammers in the past.

 

Example of a Duplicated Unusual

3.png.27941959aeb2340cc82ec39ec92690d4.png

 

Example of a Clean Unusual

 7d3fcbda650853485dc9aac53d5ed741.png.69b3d3f5782aa7ff8f1a601d1863aa17.png  

 

You can see in the top right of the item history it will be written Duplicated. Always make sure to check this before buying an unusual

 

Places to find good unusual Deals

 

Backpack.tf is by far the most active places for TF2 unusual trading. And if you feel like you need additional options you can check out the rest of the sites on the list later.

 

Backpack.tf is great for finding unusual's or selling your own hats. Each unusual has its own page where you can find buyers and sellers for it, and also it’s price suggestion and any past price suggestion, and other basic info about the hat. If you have Backpack.tf premium you can search for deals on cheap unusual's and sort the results after the % discount the deal has
It’s nothing I would recommend new traders though, considering it cost keys each month for premium.

 

Scrap.tf's Unusual bot is a trading bot that buys and sells unusual's, if you’re going to sell your hat to the bot you should expect to lose profit doing so, the bot’s rates are not in favour of sellers, instead it can be a good place to get rid of your unusual's if you see no other option and you can’t get a hat sold. 
The potential for a good deal is much better when it comes to buying hats from the bot, it requires a lot of price checking and luck though.
 

Scrap.tf Auctions is another section on Scrap.tf, where people put their items up for auction and people, can bid with their items to win the auction, it’s pretty straightforward and there’s plenty of unusual's being posted here. If you have the patience and dedication browsing through all the over-priced auction it can be worth it, but the good deals are quite rare in my experience.


Unusual Trading servers
Open the game Find the server browser and you can find the following.

 

Skial trading servers
https://www.skial.com/servers/ 
Note: Skial has a lot of servers find the trading ones and join 


Vatican City Unusual trade server

http://www.the-vaticancity.com/ 


Neon Heights trade servers

http://www.neonheightsservers.com/


Fire Powered Unusual trade servers

https://firepoweredgaming.com/forums/page/servers

 

These 4 are the best unusual trade servers in the game with Vatican City being the best of them all (My personal favorite)
Here, on these servers, you can find a lot of people looking to buy and sell unusual's

 

Quick Sells and how to find them

 

What are quick sells?


Quick selling is basically selling an item at 60-70% of the item's actual value or lower.

 

Some people will quick sell their items/unusual for Pure, These are the kind of deals you should mostly be looking for to make profit

  • Go to Backpack.tf and their classifieds section where all the items that are being sold on the site is listed. You’ll find that section of the site by hovering over the Trading tab in the top menu then clicking the Classifieds listings. Then you want to click on deals (only if you have premium if not ignore the deals) and sort the search result so that only Unusuals show up in your search, click on the “…” near the magnifying glass in the search, then choose “Unusual” under the Quality tab, the search will be sorted by cheapest first by default, leave it like that. (or just use this link to get a Classifieds search for unusual's)
  • What we’re going to get is a search filled with listings on Unusuals being sold on the site, you’ll see plenty of hats being sold at a few keys discount, just be sure that you check the price of the unusual before buying it, as we talked about previously in the guide, not all Backpack.tf price suggestions are accurate so you always need to check to see if it’s an accurate price. Keep browsing the listings until you find a good deal in your price range worth investing in.
  • A lot of sellers that are quick selling (selling their unusual at a discount) are looking to get TF2 keys as payment (often mentioned as “pure”)
  • Another way to get quick sells is to make buy orders for unusual's on backpack.tf at cheap quick sell prices and you will get offers from people who are looking to quicksell, The same can be one on TF2 outpost also making an advertisement on Outpost about Buying Quicksell.
  • Again the same can be done on Trade servers. Join an Unusual trade server and start advertising you are buying quick sells for pure on chat or voice. (But please do not spam)

 

These are not the only ways to find quick sells there are many other ways but these are the specific ones I used and as I said at the start this guide is based on my personal experience from trading and I was successful. 

 

Selling the unusual's you buy

 

This list can be good to go over if you find yourself stuck with an item that you just can’t sell, I’m usually pretty patient but after having my sell listings up for a long time and not getting it sold it’s can be a good time to try some different to get the item sold.

  • Selling for pure can be difficult to do with some items, if the hat you’re trying to sell isn’t in demand most traders would want a discount on the hat when paying in pure. Simply lowering your price could help getting your hat sold for keys.
  • Selling your unusual's for other unusual's

           - Head over to Backpack.tf and TF2Outpost and start looking for unusual's that are for sale that you would want to trade your unusual for, be prepared to overpay with your offer though, or you can try and add some keys to make your deal more appealing. (also known as a mixed offer).

  • - If you get unusual offers on your hat make sure to check if that offered hat is clean 1st and then its value if you feel its profit (after checking hat effect price everything) go for it. Else add the trader and negotiate a deal with him.
  • - You can also try and trade your unusual for CSGO items, this requires some basic knowledge of both the TF2 & CSGO market though and I would say based on my experience you’ll have an easier time trading your CSGO items for TF2 items than the other way around. The CSGO economy is much bigger and a lot of the CSGO skins are quite stable, making the, CSGO economy much more appealing for some traders.

 

Some Tips from me. 

I’ll explain how I make profit trading with unusual's, I’ll try and be as transparent as possible so that you can easily get a hang of it. This is by no means the only way to trade with unusual's, it’s just how I like to do it.

  • Trade with low tier unusual's to start with, there are cheap unusual's in the game that are not the most desirable hats in the game but there’s always a pretty good demand for these unusual's. Instead of buying & selling one expensive unusual I rather trade with 10 cheap unusual's, the profit per trade will most likely be much less but the risk that my hats will lose value or that I’m going to make a bad trade is not that likely.
  • Another benefit of dealing with cheap unusual's is that I don’t need to have a knowledge about all the different effects and prices in the TF2 economy, I know how much keys I paid an unusual for and how much I want to sell it for, it’s a very straight-forward way of trading. Do not deal with Unpriced hats if you are not sure. Just ignore it and move on. Unless you have fairly good knowledge about Unusual trading and all the effects its best you stay away from unpriced hats
  • I always buy hats under the backpack.tf value and I sell them for a relatively low profit, again lower than backpack.tf price. That’s the basic idea of it all, Buy quick sells and quick sell it, For example, a 15 key unusual I might try to get it for 10 or 11 and then sell it for 12 or 13
  • I use Backpack.tf and TF2Outpost to find people to trade with, I start off by making classifieds listings asking to buy unusual's on these two sites, I usually wait for sellers to come to me with their deals, but you’ll get a better result if you’re actively looking for sellers/good deals and send them your offers

From time to time I get a hat that I can’t sell, I have no problem sitting on a hat for a long time but after a couple of weeks I usually would want to sell it and get rid of it, I have a few options then,

  1. I either just lower the asking price a bit and try to undercut the other sellers for my hat.
  2. I can also head over to Marketplace.tf and sell it for cash, I usually list it with a slight discount just to get it sold faster.
  3. My last option is that I sell it on the Steam market, these prices are surprisingly high on the market, the downsides is that 15% sales fee that eats up a lot of profit, these two option usually requires plenty of patience before I get them sold.

 

Trading Website

Backpack.tf
https://backpack.tf/


Trade.tf
This site has Good deals page where the site scans the major trading sites for good deals. But there’s also a part of the site that’s called the Trading market, here people can use the sites inbuilt trading bot feature to make trades for them. The bot is free to use for anyone, you just tell the bot what items you want to sell and for how much, then the bot will do the trading for you.
http://www.trade.tf/


Bazaar.tf
This is a similar trading site like TF2outpost where you can list your items for sale and find others listings. The site isn’t as popular or active but the site has a bunch of nice features making it worth checking out nonetheless, for example you can get your own trading bot on the site for some sweet automated trading. And it’s very easy to navigate through listings and deals.
http://bazaar.tf/


Scrap.tf
To put it simple scrap.tf is an automated banking site that changes the way you trade This is an automated trading website that helps everyone in Team Fortress 2 get items they want fast and easy.
https://scrap.tf/


STN
STNtrading is a similar site to Scrap.tf where you can trade with the sites bots to fast and easy sell or buy items. It’s not as big as it’s competitor but the prices that they pay for your items is usually better than on Scrap.tf. Keep in mind that if you would instead sell/buy your items with another trader instead of these two banking sites you’d most likely get a better deal, but using these sites is fast and convenient.
https://stntrading.eu/

Spirit.tf
This is a TF2 Trading website which is also automated like scrap.tf but works in a different way.
https://spirit.tf/


Mannco Trade
Owned by https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198054758757 & his team
https://mannco.trade/

 

Quicsell.Store

Owned by https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198337734785 & his team quicksell.store is a new tf2 trading site. 

https://quicksell.store/

 

TF2 Store

https://tf2.store/

Owned by https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198153088409 & his team

 
Sfuminator.tf
This is is one of the best sites to buy and sell craft hats (my personal favorite for craft hats)
http://sfuminator.tf/


Ocu.tf
This is a very old website basically you sell your items for their items simple and easy (UI is a bit weird and slow)
https://ocu.tf/


TF2 Warehouse
Another Trading website for tf2 (not much popular now) feel free to check it out
https://www.tf2wh.com/


TF2mart
One of my personal favorite tf2 trading website after backpcak.tf. This website was developed by a Russian guy. The currency / trading in the website is a bit tricky to understand. If you do check it out and did not understand Do text me and I will help you
http://tf2mart.net/

 

Rain.tf
Another TF2 trading website

https://rain.tf/


Dispenser.tf

This is a great website to buy / sell  steam games for TF2 keys
https://dispenser.tf/

Vault.tf
The best place to buy and sell Weapon KITS and Fabricators.
http://vault.tf/

 

Tradeit.gg
You can trade multiple items here

https://tradeit.gg/

 

r/tf2trade
This is the subreddit that’s all about trading TF2 items, here you can list your items or reply and make offers on other peoples trades. Mostly unusual trades are going on in this subreddit but you can make listings for any kind of TF2 trade, just make sure you read the rules before posting, so you format your post correctly and stuff like that, you know how picky Reddit can be about those things.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tf2trade/

 

 TF2 Cashing out websites

 

Marketplace.tf

Always the best (run by the same owners as that of bacpack.tf and scrap.tf)

https://marketplace.tf/

 

Bitskins

https://bitskins.com/

 

Mannco.store

https://mannco.store/

 

CS Deals

has a tf2 section

https://cs.deals/


TF2 Trading Bot websites

Tired of trading manually? - check out these trading bot websites. I have also linked their discord links below

Bot.tf (paid)

https://bot.tf/

 

Tf2automatic (free)

https://tf2automatic.com/

 

Scrippy.tf (Paid)

https://scrippy.tf/

Discord Links

 

backpack.tf
https://discord.gg/j7cMkGF

 

marketplace.tf
https://discord.gg/kr8MU2C


scrap.tf
https://discord.gg/PEXZzZ4


STN

https://discord.gg/NYaUV9Z

 

manco.trade

https://discord.gg/Z5CPczg

 

Bot.tf

https://discord.gg/3cMFRfW

 

TF2automatic

https://discord.gg/93wH4T2

 

Scrippy

https://discord.gg/Gcy7KQf

 

Quicksell.store

https://discord.gg/qyT6K3f

 

Spell Trading Discord

https://discord.gg/RhfxSDS
Best place to discuss and find offers for your items that have spells. You will also find a lot of people who are selling spelled items here and you will find almost every big spell collectors here.

 

Types of Scams and Scammers

 

In Simple Terms Scamming means Tricking or Fooling someone into stealing their valued items and running with it.

There are many different types of scams in TF2. Some you heard of, some you may have fell for, and some you never thought existed. Don't worry! By the end of this section, you will know most (if not all) of the scams in TF2 and how to avoid them

 

1. Trusted Friend / Middleman Scam

A classic scam, that almost everyone knows nowadays. The scammer and his victim both agree on a trade, usually including steam wallet codes or something similar. To make sure everyone gets what he was promised, the scammer suggests taking a middleman or asks his victim to choose a trusted friend as a middleman. One other reason for using a middleman will be - The scammer will say the item is duped and glitched and wants to check if the item after being traded will be seen in the second inventory.
The following scenarios could occur

  • The scammer chooses a friend as a middleman. He has a legit looking profile but is teaming up with the scammer
  • The scammer suggests a popular, well known and legit middleman. His friend or 2nd account will try impersonating this middleman [They can also say we can use a Steam or Valve admin as a middleman]
  • After the victim chooses a middleman, the friend or 2nd account of the scammer will impersonate the profile of the chosen middleman.

Note: There is no such thing as a steam or valve admin, "They are called valve employees and they will never take part in a trade or add you ever".  So if someone says this BS know that its a scammer.

 

2. Paypal / Steam wallet code Scam

A very common method amongst scammers. The scammer will try to convince his victim that he will overpay for his item, in steam wallet codes or via PayPal.

The following scenarios could occur:

  • The victim doesn´t receive a working steam wallet code
  • The victim goes first and never receives the money via PayPal
  • The scammer goes first via PayPal but can charge the money back after he received the item
  • The Scammer will impersonate a high tier and trusted trader and try to get your Item saying they will pay later. 

- So make sure to check who you are trading with all the time.
Needlessly to say its a very unsafe method to cash out, never trade for codes of any kind, or PayPal money.
There is a guide for PayPal scam on the forums go through that before doing any PayPal trades if you are unsure what to do. 

 

3. Impersonators

A very common scam among the CSGO and TF2 community. The scammer, pretending to be a big trader, will add you and tell you that he is interested in buying your items and will give you links to the real person's profile. Keep in mind No big traders will ever add you for any of your items (Cases are very rare). Simple way to know if  the guy who added you is legit or not is by checking their steam inventory, If its set to private or if you see "My inventory Link" written on their profile then be 100% sure its a scammer, anything they say to justify the reason for having inventory private or another inventory link on their profile is BS.

 

4. Youtuber Scam
The scammer pretends to be a famous YouTuber who apparently needs your item for a video. Needlessly to say, he won't return it. No famous YouTuber will ever ask you for any of your skins. Keep that in mind. This is just another form of Impersonating scam
Fairly simple and well-known. No matter who asks you, if it´s (seemingly) a Youtuber/streamer or even if it is a close friend - DO NOT GIVE AWAY YOUR ITEMS. This person could be an impersonator and even if you made sure that it is the actual person, this very person could always be greedy, or maybe just need the money. Anyway, it´s never a good idea to give away your skins for free, and if you actually want to borrow an item to a friend, make sure its someone to trust and at your own risk. I´ve heard of multiple people who got scammed by their "friends" over some point.

 

5. Bitskins bot scam 
This needs no special introduction or anything, Its the most common type of scam out there. The scammer adds the user and says he is willing to buy their item but before they buy they want to make sure if the item is marketable on bitskins and asks the victim to list their item in Bitskins and convince them to do it. While the victim is doing this the scammer sends a trade offer from their alt account named "Bitskins Bot 5" or something similar tricking the user into believing that the trade offer actually came from the Bitskins  website.

 

6. Fake Gamble Sites
This scam is a fairly new one. The scammer randomly adds his victim (usually through steam groups) and tells him he is the owner, moderator or co-owner of a new gambling site. Since he is apparently not allowed to play on there himself, he´ll promise his victim to let him win on the site in exchange for a profit participation. Since this site can mostly be manipulated by the scammer himself he´ll choose a winner for the next draw/round and tell his victim the name to proof that he can actually make anyone win. Once the victim deposits his skins on the site, they are either gone, or cant be withdrawn.

 

7. Phishing links
A very common method to spread a virus is via misleading links. In most cases, they look like links from popular websites (e.g. imgur, steam, youtube etc.) but differ in only 1 letter, Like the o can be a 0 in the link etc.Do not click any links from someone who you do not know in person, it can steal your login data and send it to them.

DO NOT CLICK ON ANY LINKS ON THE STEAM CHAT WINDOW


Read more here - https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/hijacking/

 

8. Quick Switching
One of the oldest scamming methods is called "Quickswitching". Back in the days where the mobile authenticator wasn´t a thing and many people disabled the email confirmation step, the scammer invited his victim to a trade and put in the desired item. A few seconds before the victim agrees to the trade, he exchanges the desired item for a similar looking, but different quality one. If done quickly, the victim only had a very slight time window to react. Luckily this trade doesn't work anymore since everyone has Steam guard confirmation step enabled. Yet there are some people who do not notice it and still get scammed.

 

9. Teamspeak Scam
An extended phishing link method. The scammer adds his victim, telling he and his team will take part of a tournament but they need one more player/backoff. As soon as the victim agrees to help out, the scammer sends him the Teamspeak IP, to start "training" a little. As soon as the victim tries to enter the Teamspeak server, a SERVER notification pops up, asking to upgrade to the latest ts3 version. These pop-ups are server notifications with phishing links, do not click on them. If a new Teamspeak version has been released, your Teamspeak client will tell you as soon as it starts, not as soon as you join a server.

 

10. Email confirmation Link 
A scam that used to be around a long time ago, when the trading scene just started to grow. The scammer asks his victim to copy paste him the E-mail confirmation/decline link. Although this scam method is - luckily - not around anymore, keep in mind not to give any unnecessary information to strangers. This information will either stay useless or may even harm you or others.

 

11. Misleading trade offer Scam

  • You get a Trade offer, In the trade offer, the note probably says something like this: "Upon the acceptance of this trade, you will receive $100 via PayPal." There are no items being offered to you. When you accept, there is no cash. and you lose the item
  • The scammer may change his name to "Screw TF2, Quitting TF2" The note would say something like "I'm leaving TF2, here's some free stuff!". Instead of him offering anything, it would show you offering him free stuff! When you accept it, you end up losing items
  • There are more ways for this to happen but hard to explain everything here (you get the idea) NEVER ACCEPT A TRADE OFFER THAT IS EMPTY ON ONE SIDE. If u come across a trade offer like that double and triple check before accepting.

 

12. Social Media Scam

Scammers will have groups relating to trading on various social media like facebook, and they will show you many fake reputation comments and screenshots to make you believe that they are a very reputed person. Do not fall for this. What happens here is that they will ask you to go first and send them the item and they will say "you will get your money in your paypal" after I have received the item. You believe them seeing all the fake rep send the item to them and they RUN
A simple thing to remember - never talk about a steam trade outside of steam client chat window. Any reputation they show you will mostly be fake. 

 

13. Festive / Festivized Scam

This is another common scam method, where a user will send a random trade offer with Festivized Item instead of festive. They will look same in game but they are different by item.

  • A festive item is unboxed, 
  • A festivzed item is applying a festivizer to a weapon

 

 

Here is a screenshot of a scam attempt. This is a festivized scattergun and not festive. 
 

image.png.90fc1943779705993c313df6e0a418de.png

 

https://backpack.tf/stats/Strange/Festive Scattergun/Tradable/Craftable <---------- Strange Festive Scattergun

https://backpack.tf/stats/Strange/Festivized Scattergun/Tradable/Craftable <----- Strange Festivized Scattergun


Check the item on both the links carefully and understand the difference in price. 
A festivized item will have it written in item description as Festivized in yellow color and a festive item will have the name as Festive Item name, make sure the name is not in between " " because then the item was renamed.

 

14. Duped item / Accidentally reported you / Item verificaiton
This is a very stupid scam attempt where the scammer tries to convince you that you have duplicated items and they will need to be checked by a steam admin and should be passed though a steam database bot, or the conversation will start like sorry I accidentally reported you for having duplicate items. This is a scam, there is no such thing as steam admin or steam databse bots. The steam admin will also threaten you to delete your steam account & show you fake edited screenshots of your account with a delete account button, Do not believe any of this.

Read more here - https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/about-item-checking-scam/

 

15. Steam API Key Scam

 

Credits to - https://marketplace.tf/blog/posts/YHLZOB

 

A new attack designed to bypass the Steam Mobile Authenticator. What's worse, the attack makes it appear as if legitimate traders and services have scammed users, when in fact these legitimate traders never received any trades at all.

Here's how the attack works:

  • The attacker manages to get the victim to enter their Steam username and password on a phishing website; additionally, they gain a single login code as part of the phish. Although they can now login and control your account, they do not have the ability to confirm trades.
  • Sometime after gaining access to your account, the attacker poses as a trade asking the victim to trade their items to a trade service, such as Marketplace.tf / Bitskins / Scrap.tf etc The user is instructed to click the deposit link directly from these legit websites, which leads them to the trade offer page of a legitimate site bot. The user sends a trade offer depositing their items to a real site bot. Nobody has been scammed yet and this is where the scam really kicks in
  • As soon as the user sends the trade offer to the real bot, the Scammers cancel the trade offer (remember, they have access to the victim's account, just not their mobile authenticator app) and send an identical trade offer to a different account that looks exactly like the intended recipient.
  • By the time the victim has loaded their Steam Mobile Authenticator confirmations page, the trade offers will already have been swapped. They will see a confirmation for a trade that looks exactly like the one they sent to the real recipient -- but it's the fake one. They confirm it, and their items are never seen again.
  • It's important to note that this process can be done for any trade offer your account sends after being hijacked -- any time you send an item to someone else, they could swap the trade offers and you would be none the wiser. 
  • Therefore, if your account has been hijacked, simply avoiding trading with bots or suspicious individuals is not adequate protection. Phishing sites can be extremely convincing and anyone can fall victim to them. After being hijacked, any trade offer you send can be hijacked

 

What to do if I get hijacked?

1. Change password immediately, and also change it anywhere else you have the same password set. The scammer will try to log into your email with it when he loses access.  

  • Changing password will force their current login session on your account to be terminated. They will lose access to your account, and you will be safe. Even if you don't think you've been hijacked you should consider changing your password every 6 months or once a year. Additionally, changing your password does not give you a temporary trade suspension, as many believe; rather, resetting your password through the "forgot password" menu temporarily suspends you from trading on Steam. Properly changing your password has no penalty.

2. De-authorize all other devices here: https://store.steampowered.com/twofactor/manage

3. Revoke any API keys set. Their only use, if you don't know what it is, is keeping control of your account. https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey

  • Many times, the account hijackers will set up an API key on your account in order to efficiently control it. Unless you specifically remember setting up your API key for a specific task, you do not need one. Even if you do need one, the attackers have almost definitely stolen it, so you should generate a new one to ensure they cannot use  it.

4. If this still doesn't resolve the issue, contact Steam Support at https://help.steampowered.com/

 

How to avoid all the above scams & Scammers

 

The scammer's goal is simple. To steal your item and to do so he will say a lot of bullshit and blindside you with profit meaning offering more than what an item is valued. Never fall for such cheap tricks

  1. The first thing you have to realize while starting to trade is, there will always be people who will harm others in order to make some profit. People like those exist in masses because the internet gives them enough emotional distance to their victim. If you feel uncomfortable while doing a trade, don't do it, there´s no need to. It´s your item, so is it your decision. If someone seems fishy in any way, do not trust him.
  2. Having a higher steam level doesn't mean the user can be trusted, Even you can increase your steam level by spending money
  3.  +rep on the user's profile is easy to fake and should not be trusted. Since all comments can be deleted by the scammer, putting -rep on a profile is pointless.
  4.  Make sure their PayPal is verified before doing a PayPal trade.
  5. Check their recent game playtime. Many scammers use separate alt's for gaming and scamming.
  6. NEVER click links to steam profiles given to you by traders. These are often phishing sites and logging into them will result in your steam account being hijacked.
  7. Check their Steamrep profile to see if they are a scammer. Also check, to see the creation date of their profile. If their profile was made within the last month or so, be wary
  8. DO NOT talk about a steam trade outside the steam window such as Discord or any social media

 

https://steamrep.com/ or https://rep.tf/

Go to one of these websites and paste the user's profile URL on the website search and check (This is the easiest way to check if the user is a scammer or not)

 

I will also link some useful stuff here. 

 

Help! Is this site a scam?

https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/scam-sites/


Pre-Trade check lists

https://steamrep.com/tips/pretrade

 

If you wish to trade via paypal - here is a useful guide you should read before you do your 1st paypal trade

Calculator.tf
A website used to convert the Key value to ref and vise versa - If you are confused with a decimal key value (1.56 keys for example) just use this website 😉

https://calculator.tf/

 

and finally also read this

https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/commonscams/

 

Well that sums up this guide

In short - This is what I did and what I followed and I am living proof for Scrap to Unusual can be done. Set a Goal for trading Do not simply trade without any goals, I had a dream which was to own The BEST Unusual (effect) in the game NEBULA
I never traded much in unusual's and I quit unusual trading after I got the unusual's and taunts I Wanted.

As a legend once said "when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it"

10$ is all I spent in TF2 and I have cashed out over 1000's of $  5$ to buy my 1st 2 keys and 5$ to buy my 1st 4 mvm tickets!

 

On 23rd March-2017 Just after 1 year of trading, I was able to reach my dream of getting my 1st own Nebula Unusual.
https://backpack.tf/item/4747269531 Nebula Phononaut

But I did not stop there I wanted to own an even better hat ( The Universal Translator )
4 months after getting the phononaut I was able to get my hands on Strange Nebula Universal Translator
https://backpack.tf/item/4800061296 (RIP now) 

 

My backpack on March 12 - 2016 Started off with 2 keys bought from the steam market https://backpack.tf/profiles/76561198078552523?time=1457769600

&

My Backpack on April 27 - 2016 Got an 8 Key Fab from mvm sold for 6 keys.These were my initial Investment in Trading https://backpack.tf/profiles/76561198078552523?time=1461715200

 

"Hope my way of trading was inspiring, For me to achieve this much in from just 2 keys is actually a big deal" Also, I hope you found some new websites here from the ones listed above. 

If you wanna get in touch with me Feel free to add me on steam (comment before adding)

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Zmok3/ or DM me on discord SmokeY#2955


There might be a lot of things that are not mentioned and there might be some sites or things I must have forgotten. Also, I am sure there will be a lot of typos if you spot anything do let me know ;) 

Thank you for reading and finally, any criticism appreciated!

 

- SmokeY

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5 hours ago, « SɱokEy » said:

TF2 Outpost
Just like backacpk.tf

Other than that this a brilliant guide and I'll surely link people who ask for trading tips, a long read but well worth it!

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4 minutes ago, Eazy Peazy Squeezy Lemons said:

Other than that this a brilliant guide and I'll surely link people who ask for trading tips, a long read but well worth it!

lol all the site desc is something that came up in my head at that point + some copy pastes :P and thank you!!

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On 3/20/2018 at 1:28 PM, Kimika-chan said:

Minor spelling unusuals like scarp to unusual but overall looks good

fixed and thank you :)

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  • 3 months later...
  • 3 months later...
On 10/25/2018 at 4:23 AM, MrSlimeZ said:

There is a new very tricky scamming method. Watch out for it, naïve people may fall to this trap. Here is the video: 

 

I have already mentioned this. 

 

On 3/19/2018 at 5:10 PM, « SɱokEy » said:

Note: There is no such thing as a steam or valve admin, "They are called valve employees and they will never take part in a trade or add you ever".  So if someone says this BS know that its a scammer.

 

;)

 

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  • 7 months later...

2 more scams you might need to add up.

 

1.the 'bitcoin miner' scam.

found here:

it may have been a such that this scam is coming back again.not today but even after that above fake game was deleted,there were more that came in to do this scam.might as well cover this topic up if in future should this occur again

 

 

2.the fake script gambling site.

 

usually happens when you are gambling at legit gambling sites.scammer will add you from that legit site and will tell you that he has a 'script' that can rig the legit site by seeing which one or who can win.they usually pick the  coinflip place(1 v 1 gamble).ofc its not true.now im not sure how the scam actually occur as i've not fallen for this scam but here's the theories that leads to the scam.

 

a)scammer will tell victim to deposit the items on coinflip.scammer will also ask the victim to tell them what is the items being deposited.once victim agrees,the scammer will use a fake bot and send this trade to the victim to leading 2 trades.one is real and 1 is fake.thats a 50-50 getting scammed or lucky(if victim is dumb)

 

b)the scammer will tell them to flip one of their items and once its deposited,the scammer himself will gamble against the victim(either use the current account or a fake in the hopes of winning.unsure if this is considered a scam but if the victim lose,scammer did lie so idk

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Please let me know if I have missed anything

 

Future updates

- Items with addons like parts & paints n how to value them

- Spelled item values & Trading

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  • SmokE pinned this topic
On 3/19/2018 at 8:40 AM, « SɱokEy » said:

14. Duped item / Accidentally reported you / Item verificaiton

Mispelled verification. 

 

Now I get why you think I'm a scammer lol

Maybe I reported your bot when it changed the price while trading. So I thought: "It's the old switcheroo".

 

Your guide is a pretty good introduction to trading, even in 2020. I have used these methods to trade and make profit. Now I know much more. Thank you!

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  • 2 months later...
  • Administrators

How to Create Modified Buy Order:

 

Click on the item of your wishing, for this example, I am choosing Unique Max's Severed Head.

AMzilvo.png

 

Click On the Pencil Icon. As shown here in the red Circle.

393OQBC.png

 

Choose any of the modification of your choosing, for this example I am choosing to create a Pink Unique Max's Severed Head Buy Order.

0cbNmyG.png

 

You can see that we can create lots of modification for an item such as Specific Killstreak, Sheen, even specific Level or Craft number of my choosing.

 

Click OK, done and then Place Listing and you should have listing like this which is modified of your choosing.

ovVEvyV.png

 

 

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  • 5 months later...

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