Warn users that user they are looking at has impersonators

[Lexi]

Earlier today I was added by an impersonator who claimed to be a high tier trader, and linked to "his rep thread". I did not click it but instead manually typed it in. It showed the high tier trader's repution obviously, then going back to the steam profile I looked him up and of course they were different people. What I'm suggesting is when you look at someones repuation thread if they are known to have impersonators warn people of this. There are many users who wouldn't think to look up the user themself, unless it gave such a warning. This suggestion doesn't keep established traders much safer but I imagine it would keep newer players and newer traders less likely getting scammed. 

[Torb]

8 hours ago, Lexi said:

Earlier today I was added by an impersonator who claimed to be a high tier trader, and linked to "his rep thread". I did not click it but instead manually typed it in. It showed the high tier trader's repution obviously, then going back to the steam profile I looked him up and of course they were different people. What I'm suggesting is when you look at someones repuation thread if they are known to have impersonators warn people of this. There are many users who wouldn't think to look up the user themself, unless it gave such a warning. This suggestion doesn't keep established traders much safer but I imagine it would keep newer players and newer traders less likely getting scammed. 

But anybody can be impersonated, so this doesn't really serve a point. Hundreds of traders put a message on their steam profile saying "i dont have alts, i dont use opskins, i dont use steam admins ect yada yada yada" and people still fall for it when the warnings in plain sight. What makes you think this will work any better?

[Bahamo]

8 hours ago, Lexi said:

Earlier today I was added by an impersonator who claimed to be a high tier trader, and linked to "his rep thread". I did not click it but instead manually typed it in. It showed the high tier trader's repution obviously, then going back to the steam profile I looked him up and of course they were different people. What I'm suggesting is when you look at someones repuation thread if they are known to have impersonators warn people of this. There are many users who wouldn't think to look up the user themself, unless it gave such a warning. This suggestion doesn't keep established traders much safer but I imagine it would keep newer players and newer traders less likely getting scammed. 

I like this idea i think its really good. The real challenge tho is implementation :3

 

Very hard but definitely not imposible.

I wonder what they'll do.

[Diamond jozu]

not too useful.anyone can be impersonated.impersonation scam is too common.it cant be stopped

[Torb]

2 hours ago, Bahamo said:

I like this idea i think its really good. The real challenge tho is implementation :3

 

Very hard but definitely not imposible.

I wonder what they'll do.

The sollution to this issue is to use some common sense and block the impersonators. You can put as many warnings as you want but people will still get scammed

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

This is actually something we've discussed adding, will bring it up again.

[Bahamo]

 

5 hours ago, Torb | Elite Spell Trader™ said:

The sollution to this issue is to use some common sense and block the impersonators. You can put as many warnings as you want but people will still get scammed

Oh yeah block them right. Block ALL impersonators yeah that would be soooooooooooo easy

 

Also youre puting a tag on the REAL profile so that when impersonators links their profile it will show up that "THIS PROFILE HAS IMPERSONATORS" and then maybe promt a dialogue box to "click their profile picture to make sure its the right person." Because clicking on the profile pic would bring them to the REAL guys steam profile.

[Diamond jozu]

well it isnt a bad idea.steamrep doesnt do much.it only gives warning to people who has got the special green tag or is a mod of steamrep or is a valve employee.strangely enough, they dont even give the warning message to Steam community Moderators or even list a note that they are the real deal.

 

however a recent incident happened that involved the real deal of a big-time trader.he did broker and paypal scam.lets see what will the admins think about it.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

This has now been added.

[Lava]

On 7/21/2018 at 10:41 AM, Diamond jozu said:

well it isnt a bad idea.steamrep doesnt do much.it only gives warning to people who has got the special green tag or is a mod of steamrep or is a valve employee.strangely enough, they dont even give the warning message to Steam community Moderators or even list a note that they are the real deal.

 

Just a small note on this. We spoke with some Steam moderators about this, as well as issuing them publicly visible tags similar to what Valve employees have, but were asked not to.

 

On 7/21/2018 at 10:41 AM, Diamond jozu said:

however a recent incident happened that involved the real deal of a big-time trader.he did broker and paypal scam.lets see what will the admins think about it.

 

By and large, this happens more often than you would expect. It's also the reason we currently don't flag anyone who isn't trusted for impersonation - we're concerned that members of the community will take it as an endorsement and trust someone more than they should, so we only enable the flag for community admins. This is less of an issue for backpack.tf, and high value or high profile traders are also more likely to be impersonated using backpack.tf profile links than SteamRep links because of the "top backpacks" list and total cash value estimator, while SteamRep makes no comment on prices and would display "no special reputation" for them as always. So it would make sense for backpack.tf to add a flag to some profiles SteamRep will not, just as SteamRep will add it to profiles backpack.tf won't.

 

We will likely discuss allowing the flag to be added under additional circumstances in the future though. Not necessarily on request by individual traders, but in specific situations where we think it'll be a benefit to the community. There's an internal thread discussion an adjustment, but I can make no promises on it, and cannot elaborate at this time.

[Diamond jozu]

On 7/25/2018 at 12:41 AM, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

This has now been added.

this feature will it be added to only people who has massive impersonators or other traders/youtubers/admins/mods who could potentially get several impersonators?

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

41 minutes ago, Diamond jozu said:

this feature will it be added to only people who has massive impersonators or other traders/youtubers/admins/mods who could potentially get several impersonators?

 

Only people who are frequently impersonated.