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Dangers of Discord Trading (scam)


Aeonic

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Don’t do it. 

 

So a little background: I was added by a user who wanted to offer on a sunbeams law I owned. I was selling it for a real low price (500 pure). However, one catch - he wanted to discuss through discord. He claimed it was because it has a better overlay for overwatch, so I didn’t think anything of it. After discussing for a little while, we came to the agreement of about 200 in unusuals and 540 in PayPal, which I thought was alright. Because he appeared to have more rep on backpack, I went first and sent the trade offer. He immediately blocked me on both steam and discord, and here is where things get spicy. 
 
See, something I found out about discord (too late, I might add) is that causation cannot be proven with a discord profile. That essentially means there is no way to prove that the person who added you on steam and the person who you are talking to through discord are the same being. Time stamps may IMPLY that the discord profile and the steam profile are the same person, but how can you prove it? You really can’t, and scammers take advantage of this by discussing through third-party sites in order to distance themselves. 
 
Secondly, using discord can be problematic because the scammer can delete messages. I’m unsure if this is automatic due to a block or manual, but either way, messages can just up and vanish after a block, making it difficult to collect evidence of chat logs. Even if you do manage to get screenshots, it can’t act as evidence because, once again, you can’t concretely link a discord profile to a steam profile. 
 
Other things i learned from this experience:
 
  -  backpack rep can be cheesed. If you go to their backpack profile and see that they have a positive rep, first check to see if it’s their actual profile. Second, look at the time that that the reputation was given to the user. If most or all of the rep is recent (~1 day -3 months), then proceed with caution. 
 
  -  Insist on discussing through steam, it’s the only way to link a profile to a scam. If they ABSOLUTELY must talk through discord, have them send their tag to you. It still isn’t a perfect way to prove the two profiles are connected (which is why I highly recommend discussing through steam only), but it’s better then sending your tag to them. 
 
Testimony from Marty Birdman: https://imgur.com/gallery/Q20FLsD
 
Hopefully people can learn from my mistakes and play it safe when it comes to trading. Good luck in your future trading endeavors! ^^

 

Steam Chat with the user:

https://imgur.com/eOHNnVd

 

Discord Chat (before block)

Part 1: https://imgur.com/eEu3GlY

Part 2: https://imgur.com/HkiNcyw

Part 3: https://imgur.com/lznykax

Part 4: https://imgur.com/fyTkPPY

Part 5: https://imgur.com/5uEwR34

Discord Chat (after block)

https://imgur.com/P0BCqBP

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Is he not wanting to talk on steam? 

 

 

 

If not

 

 

 

don’t bother, that simple

 

 

 

hard f dude sorry ya lost shit

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sunbeams law :( .. atleast u learnt ur listen.. if u trade up again ull not fall for scams ever again .

good luck and my condolences

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Related 2018 thread: Scammer insists on using Discord, why?

 

Another recent case where Discord was used in the same way.

 

Have you tried leaving -trust on ben's profile with all this evidence that you have? I think it would be a fair thing for Mods to keep it unless ben is willing to come out with his version of the story explaining this (uneven) trade. 

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I see there are a couple questions as to why I did PayPal, and why I didn’t see through the scam. Firstly, I had looked at his backpack rep and it looked fine from an outward perspective, so I thought I could trust him. Secondly, I had been wanting to break into cash trading and build some rep, so I wasn’t thinking as rational as I could have. TLastly, it didn’t occur to me to do it through marketplace.tf - that’s on me. I won’t be doing high tier cash trades in the future, it just doesn’t seem worth it. Thanks for the support! 

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1 hour ago, CrazY Mike said:

How can you fall for this scam? Its so old but i guess un-experienced traders won't pay attention 😕 damn that sucks F

Inexperienced traders usually don't have a sunbeams law

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Quote

 If they ABSOLUTELY must talk through discord, have them send their tag to you. It still isn’t a perfect way to prove the two profiles are connected (which is why I highly recommend discussing through steam only), but it’s better then sending your tag to them. 

 

 

Just a heads up - if they do scam you, and you have talked thru discord, well, steamrep won't accept your reports. Even if they send the tag, still, they won't

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This is getting more interesting as .ben filed a report against Aeonic presenting his version of Steam chat which starts the same way as Aeonic's.

Then .ben say he doesn't need Discord after all and they continue in Steam chat eventually agreeing on the trade without Paypal part.

 

Don't look for this report though, someone (either .ben or admins) already made it private.

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1 hour ago, Zoinks said:

Aeonic had a much higher backpack value than you before he got scammed. He is way more experienced you.

Well If hes more experienced why did he fall for the scam? I knew at the start when someone added me asking for my discord its a scammer... Traders nowdays dont care to learn all scam methods

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Just now, CrazY Mike said:

Well If hes more experienced why did he fall for the scam? I knew at the start when someone added me asking for my discord its a scammer... Traders nowdays dont care to learn all scam methods

I am coming up on my 5th anniversary on steam, and I've been trading as long as I've had tf2 premium. I wouldn't say I'm god-tier in trading, but I think I know my stuff. ^^ 

Believe me, I try my best to be aware of any scam methods I come across and prepare accordingly. That doesn't mean I'm infallible, the thing about scams is that anybody can fall victim.

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3 hours ago, Aeonic said:

I am coming up on my 5th anniversary on steam, and I've been trading as long as I've had tf2 premium. I wouldn't say I'm god-tier in trading, but I think I know my stuff. ^^ 

Believe me, I try my best to be aware of any scam methods I come across and prepare accordingly. That doesn't mean I'm infallible, the thing about scams is that anybody can fall victim.

You cannot fall for a scam if you know what you're doing 😕 why would anyone trade for paypal money you can just do it safer way on  marketplace.tf paypal trades are never a good thing 

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Sunbeams law, for a real low price (500??xD)

 

I dont know how you fall in a most common PayPal scam, but big F anyway

nkkmXVyho4M.jpg

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If you agreed on the keys/unusuals that would be traded why did you not at least add them to the offer that you sent? Instead of just giving the hat away.... No one in there right mind would send an offer for a hat with nothing in return when you agreed keys/unusual would be inolved in the trade... so you were trusting them to send the keys/unusuals after in a seperate offer? Not sure i see the point or logic in that as you should of added them to the trade initially

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just like daniel dee,i thought you were suppose to get something in a trade since that was the agreement.also im not actually surprised with the scam.why is that?well..

 

i have seen many paypal scammers and this is exactly how they abuse the trust of backpack.tf. its not the site's fault.one of the common things i see is that some scammer are smart to deliberately get a trust from some trusted person which is usually 'naknak' so that when they get his trust,new people can be deceived easily.naknak should really stop going first to new accounts.im not saying its his fault but he should be cautious.

 

its not just naknak but even other traders as well.this list can go longer but here's the summary,

 

just sell it of marketplace.tf

 

sorry about your loss(fffffffffffffff) but hopefully you wont be deceived again

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52 minutes ago, Diamond jozu said:

just like daniel dee,i thought

DanielDee simply did not read the 1st post.

 

52 minutes ago, Diamond jozu said:

they abuse the trust of backpack.tf. its not the site's fault

Very debatable.

 

52 minutes ago, Diamond jozu said:

naknak should really stop going first to new accounts

He does not "go first". That's the beauty of it - he gets good deals on keys without any risk, scammers get his +trust. Win-win for everyone. Well, except scammed victims later, but who's perfect, right?

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On 3/14/2019 at 6:16 AM, cha0s said:

Inexperienced traders usually don't have a sunbeams law

Yet they fall for this scam method 😕

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