How much evidence is really needed to get a SHARK banned?

[Frostbane]

So recently a guy on my friends list decided to quit his trading journey because he got sharked. The shark tricked my friend into thinking uncraft flip flops and regular flip flops were worth the same. When I visited the shark's bp.tf profile, I saw around 4-5  negative trust ratings all relating to the same shark/scam method. These reports were days apart from each other so this guy was doing it pretty regularly. I was wondering how come this guy wasn't banned already. I decided to visit random dates on this users bp.tf graph/bp and noticed he owned a total of 5-6 different uncraft flip flops but only 1 at a time. After he trades one away he buys another one. The number of flip flops he had traded closely matched the number of negative reps he received for sharking. In one of the negative reps there was even a screenshot of the shark stating his uncraft flip flops were worth 14 keys, which is what a regular flip flop is worth. 

I decided to put in a report as I noticed the user bought another pair of uncraft flip flops and figured he was ready to shark again. This time he also had a regular pair of flip flops in his inventory, both the same colour, and both listed for 18 keys. I'm guessing this was done to mislead his victims if they weren't careful enough. Visiting his bp.tf page they may not notice 1 of the flip flops were uncraft as they were both showing the same price of 18 keys. Why else would anyone get 2 pair of flip flops in the same colour and list them at the same price, when 1 is a regular one and the other is uncraft. If it was any random person, maybe they deserves the benefit of the doubt. But this guy had 4-5 reports for the same incident, owned multiple pairs of the item at different times (which match the number of negative reps), and there's also a screenshot of him suggesting his uncraft flip flops were worth 14 keys (the same price as a regular one), shouldn't that count as enough evidence?
 

The reason I ask is because I reported the person about a week or so ago, but the report got declined because there wasn't enough evidence and the report had to come from one of the victims. Since I made the report there have been at least 2 new negative reps for the same sharking method and some of the older ones got deleted. The mod in charge of my case was very professional and had gone through the guys bp history and discovered multiple "unbalanced trades" where the shark makes a significant profit with his uncraft flip flop trades. Despite this, he was unable to ban the person because there wasn't enough evidence and the report didn't come from the victim. I guided my friend to take screenshots of their conversation through steam's chat logs but 98% of the chat happened in a trading server and the actual trade window itself so it wasn't logged. It seems to me like this shark really knows what he's doing.

It's pretty obvious he's a shark but what else do we need to get this guy banned? I'm not sure if it's okay or not to share the person's profile here so i'm gonna refrain from doing it for now. 

Sorry for the bad grammar/english xD 

[BlastFM]

Afaik the only people that actually got banned for sharking are jhehj and a guy whose name involves demo and his stickies. Normally sharking is not a bannable offense, but they've sharked a lot. And by that, i mean 

A METRIC SHIT TON

[Adolf Storms]

Yup. You need a tonne! R3spawn has been reported with a lot, and a lot of negative trust. Trusts were removed and still isn't banned. According to the mods it needs a lot of prior convictions to make it obvious even to a total moron that they're a shark. Guessing from the length of time and amounts that R3spawn was reported for that you'd need quite the extensive history to get them banned. Like over 10 times and over 100's of keys worth. Retarded amounts.

 

but hey, they'll ban for a week over trades made a year ago 1 time to a marked player (I'm currently suffering that :p) . makes no sense.

[humann]

No, you don't need a ton of reports or a lot of time to get a player banned for sharking. Demo got banned for only 1 report. and the report explained that the user was:

"Using a combination of deceit and pressure to trick a user into trading his hat for far less than its value."

 

With a ton of evidence of the trader doing unbalanced trades will give the trader a tag explaining that the user do unbalanced trades, and that's completely different from a ban.

 

If you trade with scammers you deserv that ban lol

[BlueSpider]

From my understanding quite a bit. Who knows anymore though, so much inconsistency over the years has led to great confusion on this topic and others surrounding it. I remember years ago when Wayne clearly sharked quite a few people with 0 repercussions, while TheVenomWithin sharked 1 thing and immediately got perma banned (not saying he didn't deserve it). I'm still convinced Venom only got banned because of how he reacted to the situation, while someone like Wayne just kind of ignores the situation and pleads innocence, which is a super shitty situation all around the board.

 

Honestly it's pretty easy to evade getting banned when you shark stuff. 90% of the time the other player won't keep a record/screenshots of the chat and stuff like that since the player doesn't know any better to begin with.  It's an unfortunate consequence of trading, there will always be people who take advantage of the system and work in a somewhat grey area of the market (shouldn't even be considered grey, but at this point it is).

 

Back to the topic, I think you've done all you can. You could try getting a hold and checking histories of items to try and contact some other victims of him and work on a wall of proof. But unfortunately it probably would not do a thing. I'd try to avoid posting his name as I'm pretty sure that might be against forum rules and will only probably make you look bad. At least you tried to help out another user though, a lot of people wouldn't care and just sit there and do nothing, so kudos to you.

 

-Blue