Open discussion on rules for trading with scammers (Part 2)

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

25 minutes ago, thedirtierthebetter said:

sure, it does in the long run imo... - without consequences for trades with scammers you increase the amount of trades with scammers, that means more or faster profit for scammers and this business becomes more attractive, so more users are tempted to turn into scammers and chances are getting higher to get scammed, not for me or you, but for new or dumb users

 

I disagree, it's extremely easy to offload scammed items, banning users who trade with scammers has little to no effect on that.

 

I'll also mention that anyone can get scammed, not only new or "dumb" users.

[thedirtierthebetter]

2 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

 

I disagree, it's extremely easy to offload scammed items, banning users who trade with scammers has little to no effect on that.

I'll also mention that anyone can get scammed, not only new or "dumb" users.

i didnt say its hard to offload scammed items, its just hard to sell them for the common selling point and that will be easier in the future if you change the rules, it means more profit for scammers, so more scammers in the community. but perhaps im totally wrong here and trading on bp.tf is just a very small part of tf2-trading in general, amount- and valuewise, and has way less influence on the whole trading-scene than i assume, lets hope so.

 

and sure, anyone can get scammed, but chances for sucessful scams on new and dumb players are way higher, so scammers target them way more often... - that means youll have to protect them more than others and removing rules that in my opinion protects them at least a bit more is the wrong way, even more wrong if this leads to maximizing profits of the whales at costs of the weak ones = new or dumb

 

but its ok, just my 50 cents on this topic

[ѕιи]

There's another common misconception in this discussion and it's interesting to see how you guys can think this.

 

Misconception: Removing the "trading with scammers" rule would mean that scammers could gain more money from the items they scammed by selling their scammed items to users here on our website (assuming the user pays more than the price an automated trading website would pay).

 

You all do realize that in order for this to be true, it would mean you're insinuating that most, if not all, of the traders in this community who trade items worth 15+ keys would do this exact thing once the rule is gone, right?

 

The existence of this rule has promoted the message of not helping scammers for so many years, and clearly this has proven to be effective considering most of you claim you would never trade with scammers even if this rule was removed. What people would do or who people would trade after the removal of this rule speaks more about them, if anything. If your only reason for not trading with scammers was because you were afraid of receiving a ban on our website quite frankly you need to look into your own character. The Team Fortress 2 community is very anti-scammer and always will be regardless of the existence of this rule.

[Pixxi0us]

5 hours ago, thedirtierthebetter said:

i didnt say its hard to offload scammed items, its just hard to sell them for the common selling point and that will be easier in the future if you change the rules, it means more profit for scammers, so more scammers in the community. but perhaps im totally wrong here and trading on bp.tf is just a very small part of tf2-trading in general, amount- and valuewise, and has way less influence on the whole trading-scene than i assume, lets hope so.

 

and sure, anyone can get scammed, but chances for sucessful scams on new and dumb players are way higher, so scammers target them way more often... - that means youll have to protect them more than others and removing rules that in my opinion protects them at least a bit more is the wrong way, even more wrong if this leads to maximizing profits of the whales at costs of the weak ones = new or dumb

 

but its ok, just my 50 cents on this topic

"its just hard to sell them for the common selling point and that will be easier in the future if you change the rules"

 

a quick aswer that can change your mind. 
You said you did read all the comments on this thread but clearly you didnt pay attention.
As been stated on pretty much all comments/suggestions here Its not harder for scammers to trade their items to people just because its agaisnt the rules.

I´ve been told by people in private that they just chat and make the agreement with scammers via steam chat and then buy the item trough marketplace (which doesnt require background check so the buyer doesnt get banned).

Was it hard for the scammer sell the items with the current rule? Definitely NOT. Not even saying all the other ways to do it. (SCM, Mannco.store, tradeit.gg, opskins, bitskins.)

[thedirtierthebetter]

1 hour ago, Pixxi0us said:

You said you did read all the comments on this thread but clearly you didnt pay attention.

As been stated on pretty much all comments/suggestions here Its not harder for scammers to trade their items to people just because its agaisnt the rules.

already answered that in my first sentence: i never said "its hard to offload scammed items".

if you and the majority here really think scammed items are usually selling for full price i just disagree, profit beats moral, the extremly lowered price is the reason for not many, but still too many users trading with scammers imo

[Pixxi0us]

6 minutes ago, thedirtierthebetter said:

scammed items are usually selling for full price i just disagree, profit beats moral, the extremly lowered price is the reason for not many, but still too many users trading with scammers imo

That just depends on the item itself, ive seen everything already, including scammed items being sold for full bp price (case those rare effects with outdated prices).

Anyway we are going off topic-.

[thedirtierthebetter]

1 hour ago, ѕιи said:

You all do realize that in order for this to be true, it would mean you're insinuating that most, if not all, of the traders in this community who trade items worth 15+ keys would do this exact thing once the rule is gone, right?

i dont think that most of the traders will do, but a few and mainly new, perhaps younger users... - why should they even care if they see the few ruthless ones snatching great deals and theres no consequence or punishment for them

[ѕιи]

1 hour ago, thedirtierthebetter said:

i dont think that most of the traders will do, but a few and mainly new, perhaps younger users... - why should they even care if they see the few ruthless ones snatching great deals and theres no consequence or punishment for them

 

The removal of this rule does not apply when it comes to fencing/trading with scammers en masse. Anyone who does that will be banned regardless of the outcome of this discussion.

 

And obviously there will be a couple bad apples, but that should justify keeping this rule in place... why?

[thedirtierthebetter]

7 hours ago, ѕιи said:

The removal of this rule does not apply when it comes to fencing/trading with scammers en masse. Anyone who does that will be banned regardless of the outcome of this discussion.

 

yeah, thats what i thought over 6 pages, but well, like tiny says, everything is now debatable, trading unknowingly and knowingly:

 

22 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

Both/either. It's a discussion thread.

 

idc bout unknowingly trading with a scammer, everyone can make mistakes and people are able to learn, my problem would be users that constantly knowingly buy scammed stuff and if this will still be a bannable offense its all fine for me.

 

just one more thing: if the whole community is very anti-scammer why its so easy for scammers, like many users stated here including me, to offload scammed items?

guess that the bigger part of the community has high enough moral standards, anyway im not sure how big the bigger part is, i doubt we are talking bout 80-90%...

 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

It's easy because there are multiple cashout sites that allow people to list without verification, so scammers can easily trade their items to an alt and then put those items on the site. Users purchasing from the site don't know where their items are coming from. If the whole community is as anti-scam as you claim, why do you think stopping banning for trading scammers would matter? Those users will just continue not trading with scammers, no?

[thedirtierthebetter]

21 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

It's easy because there are multiple cashout sites that allow people to list without verification, so scammers can easily trade their items to an alt and then put those items on the site. Users purchasing from the site don't know where their items are coming from. If the whole community is as anti-scam as you claim, why do you think stopping banning for trading scammers would matter? Those users will just continue not trading with scammers, no?

 

i doubt that nearly the whole community is very anti-scam, sin stated that, just said that the bigger part is anti-scam... - and sure, buying stuff on intransparent sites like mp.tf, where you dont know where items come from, is not a sign of anti-scam and i predict even more wild west-manners if the most important site allows knowingly trading with scammers, guess its a signal for more profit, less moral for some users and im not sure for how many, thats all

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

24 minutes ago, thedirtierthebetter said:

 

i doubt that nearly the whole community is very anti-scam, sin stated that, just said that the bigger part is anti-scam... - and sure, buying stuff on intransparent sites like mp.tf, where you dont know where items come from, is not a sign of anti-scam and i predict even more wild west-manners if the most important site allows knowingly trading with scammers, guess its a signal for more profit, less moral for some users and im not sure for how many, thats all

 

Marketplace is not one of the sites I was referring to, they now require verification to sell any items.

[A Y]

Hope the new verification would stop such thing happen again.

https://backpack.tf/issue/5caac7b86780724e3365a5b1

 

But I think it would be great to modify the current rule as it is not as effective anymore nowadays

[themechanest54]

Hello fellow traders today I ran into a scammer that I have never heard of before so I didn't know that they existed it all started with a simple key being put on the market little did I know that would be what was setting a scammer a little message in the back of their brain saying that I would be an easy target well they were right I am a fucking idiot who fell for something like code trading he kept saying steam money as to imply that it was only in steam but when he sent the trade I of course said and I quote "alright I trust you it goes against my instincts as a member of the tf2 community but ill trust you." I shouldn't have done the trade I was a fucking idiot I just want my items back at this point so that you know I haven't lost money but ya know valve won't pay attention to someone who whispers in the community of stars so I would just like for someone anyone to try and help me I don't want anything like items I just want help pulling this fucker down as fast as I can so that he can't transfer the items and then they'll be lost forever I just want so help here from the professional

[Brian]

I personally believe that the rule regarding banning people for trading with scammers needs to be removed, or, at the very least, needs a massive rework.

Keep in mind that everything I am saying is coming from a someone who used to scam.

 

While I agree it isn't helpful at all to let scammers profit off of scammed items, the rule itself is near useless in stopping scammers.

 

I have a lot of experience with scammers - I've talked to scammers, scammed, and been scammed, and I have to say that the rule is nearly pointless. I have talked to probably hundreds of scammers before, each of which agree with what I say. Marking people for trading with scammers does little to nothing to stop scammers from trading/gaining profit. Scammers can make alt accounts, they can just act like the ban was from trading with a scammer, you get the idea. I've seen these excuses used successfully many times. Scammers can sell their items on the Steam Community Marketplace, or, in my situation, Marketplace.tf, they can use other websites (before TF2Outpost shut down, I knew several people who were banned on backpack.tf that scammed on there). Scammers can trade with less experienced traders/other scammers, you get the picture.

 

The rule against trading with scammers is, at the very most, an annoyance to actual marked scammers. If you're trading in game, a majority of people I've met on anything other than unusual trading servers (Vatican, Firepowered, etc) don't often check backpack.tf to see someone's profile and would rather just sell their item to someone and then move on with their life. In fact, I've met many on Vatican and Firepowered don't even check others backpack profiles often. Trading on Steam? Just send a trade offer, I've met people who don't use backpack.tf to check scammer's profiles. The only downside this rule has on marked scammers is that you can't trade with bots, which isn't an issue if you're an active trader, you will sometimes get denied trading on popular servers, and you can't make classified listings. It doesn't stop scammers from gaining profit a lot of the time and only serves as a slight annoyance.

 

I'm not saying scammers deserve to make profit off of scammed items, but if they want to, I know from experience that this rule serves little purpose in stopping this.

[Mickey Mouse]

8 minutes ago, Brian said:

I personally believe that the rule regarding banning people for trading with scammers needs to be removed, or, at the very least, needs a massive rework.

Keep in mind that everything I am saying is coming from a someone who used to scam.

 

While I agree it isn't helpful at all to let scammers profit off of scammed items, the rule itself is near useless in stopping scammers.

 

I have a lot of experience with scammers - I've talked to scammers, scammed, and been scammed, and I have to say that the rule is nearly pointless. I have talked to probably hundreds of scammers before, each of which agree with what I say. Marking people for trading with scammers does little to nothing to stop scammers from trading/gaining profit. Scammers can make alt accounts, they can just act like the ban was from trading with a scammer, you get the idea. I've seen these excuses used successfully many times. Scammers can sell their items on the Steam Community Marketplace, or, in my situation, Marketplace.tf, they can use other websites (before TF2Outpost shut down, I knew several people who were banned on backpack.tf that scammed on there). Scammers can trade with less experienced traders/other scammers, you get the picture.

 

The rule against trading with scammers is, at the very most, an annoyance to actual marked scammers. If you're trading in game, a majority of people I've met on anything other than unusual trading servers (Vatican, Firepowered, etc) don't often check backpack.tf to see someone's profile and would rather just sell their item to someone and then move on with their life. In fact, I've met many on Vatican and Firepowered don't even check others backpack profiles often. Trading on Steam? Just send a trade offer, I've met people who don't use backpack.tf to check scammer's profiles. The only downside this rule has on marked scammers is that you can't trade with bots, which isn't an issue if you're an active trader, you will sometimes get denied trading on popular servers, and you can't make classified listings. It doesn't stop scammers from gaining profit a lot of the time and only serves as a slight annoyance.

 

I'm not saying scammers deserve to make profit off of scammed items, but if they want to, I know from experience that this rule serves little purpose in stopping this.

correct me if i'm wrong but i believe it only applies if you KNOWINGLY SUPPORT A SCAMMER

 

so the "too lazy to check steamrep" thing shouldn't be a problem, and neither should buying items that indirectly were scammed.

[Brian]

19 hours ago, Naleksuh said:

correct me if i'm wrong but i believe it only applies if you KNOWINGLY SUPPORT A SCAMMER

 

so the "too lazy to check steamrep" thing shouldn't be a problem, and neither should buying items that indirectly were scammed.

I'm saying that people don't check enough, at least in my experience, for the rule to even matter in the first place.

edit: For the record, I've seen numerous people banned for unknowingly trading with scammers

[humann]

On 4/29/2019 at 2:33 AM, Brian said:

The rule against trading with scammers is, at the very most, an annoyance to actual marked scammers. If you're trading in game, a majority of people I've met on anything other than unusual trading servers (Vatican, Firepowered, etc) don't often check backpack.tf to see someone's profile and would rather just sell their item to someone and then move on with their life. In fact, I've met many on Vatican and Firepowered don't even check others backpack profiles often. Trading on Steam? Just send a trade offer, I've met people who don't use backpack.tf to check scammer's profiles. The only downside this rule has on marked scammers is that you can't trade with bots, which isn't an issue if you're an active trader, you will sometimes get denied trading on popular servers, and you can't make classified listings. It doesn't stop scammers from gaining profit a lot of the time and only serves as a slight annoyance.

It seems like you're not really experience about trading in trading servers, the first thing that anybody do is check the backpack ON backpack.tf of their trading partner.

Also what's your bp peak? because this rule is talking about over 15 keys trades and it seems like your bp peak is 100 keys which is ridiculous. If that's your peak, you have absolutely no clue about how much this rule affects a big scammer.

[mr. o.g.]

Remove all bans.  You guys should have never entered into this imo.

[Pixxi0us]

14 hours ago, mr. o.g. said:

Remove all bans.  You guys should have never entered into this imo.

Not all bans, keep the bans for knowingly trading scammers However, most of the times we cant prove if its knowingly or not. 

[Sniper Noob]

On 4/29/2019 at 2:41 AM, Naleksuh said:

correct me if i'm wrong but i believe it only applies if you KNOWINGLY SUPPORT A SCAMMER

 

so the "too lazy to check steamrep" thing shouldn't be a problem, and neither should buying items that indirectly were scammed.

 

My question then is this: What's to prevent people from knowingly trading with scammers if they can simply claim they didn't check? If that becomes the only restriction, then my guess is exactly 0 people will ever be banned for that, because they can just claim they didn't check. 

 

 

My other question for @Teeny Tiny Cat is about a hypothetical system where people would still be eligible for a ban if they were shown to be systematically and intentionally trading with scammers (similar to SteamRep's policy):

If single incidents of trading with scammers would no longer be bannable, do you feel there would still be a reasonable chance that anyone could be banned for systematically trading with scammers? My intuition is that continued reports about someone trading with scammers serves almost as a history of that person's offenses, so when they stack up the pattern becomes obvious. But if those reports never happen, is it realistic to think that you simply aren't going to have that evidence on hand and hardly anyone will ever be reported for that? I don't know what the numbers are like at SteamRep since the policy change was put in place, but I was hoping maybe now that you're staff there you might have some insight.

[polar]

We're not the police. And it may or may not have any impact on scammers' ability to offload items. But sometimes you make a stand on what you believe to be the right thing to do. Do you build a community around people who are conscientious, diligent in their practices of doing things the right way, and believe in the value of honesty and carrying yourself with dignity and respect? Or do you say, screw it, free for all, free market for everyone - it's more work and may not hurt scammers so it's not worth it? 

 

I can understand and appreciate changing the rule if these reports are a burden on the staff and if we can't keep up with the work that goes into enforcing it. If that's the case, I'm all for doing away with it. But if that's not an issue, I believe in making a stand. 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

2 hours ago, Sniper Noob said:

 

My question then is this: What's to prevent people from knowingly trading with scammers if they can simply claim they didn't check? If that becomes the only restriction, then my guess is exactly 0 people will ever be banned for that, because they can just claim they didn't check. 

 

 

My other question for @Teeny Tiny Cat is about a hypothetical system where people would still be eligible for a ban if they were shown to be systematically and intentionally trading with scammers (similar to SteamRep's policy):

If single incidents of trading with scammers would no longer be bannable, do you feel there would still be a reasonable chance that anyone could be banned for systematically trading with scammers? My intuition is that continued reports about someone trading with scammers serves almost as a history of that person's offenses, so when they stack up the pattern becomes obvious. But if those reports never happen, is it realistic to think that you simply aren't going to have that evidence on hand and hardly anyone will ever be reported for that? I don't know what the numbers are like at SteamRep since the policy change was put in place, but I was hoping maybe now that you're staff there you might have some insight.

 

I don't recall ever seeing a single steamrep mark for fencing or mass trading with scammers. There may be one or two, but it is certainly not something that's happening with any regularity. Speaking in general, not as steamrep staff. I'd be open to that kind of system here, and I think it could potentially work a lot better than it does on steamrep, since we have more freedom in utilising discretion than anybody does over at steamrep. We also have a lot more active regular users to report things like that, since suggesters often notice those kinds of patterns when looking at a lot of item histories. It's certainly possible.

 

2 hours ago, polar said:

We're not the police. And it may or may not have any impact on scammers' ability to offload items. But sometimes you make a stand on what you believe to be the right thing to do. Do you build a community around people who are conscientious, diligent in their practices of doing things the right way, and believe in the value of honesty and carrying yourself with dignity and respect? Or do you say, screw it, free for all, free market for everyone - it's more work and may not hurt scammers so it's not worth it? 

 

I can understand and appreciate changing the rule if these reports are a burden on the staff and if we can't keep up with the work that goes into enforcing it. If that's the case, I'm all for doing away with it. But if that's not an issue, I believe in making a stand. 

 

It's a factor, not gonna lie. We get a huge amount of reports now and it just feels a bit pointless to me to spend so much mod time on these when it doesn't really have much of a practical impact on anything. Mod time is better spent on scam reports and community education, in my opinion. I'm open to ideas that narrow the rules rather than outright removing them though, since that could achieve the same aim while still maintaining the stance we want to. Sniper Noob's idea is an interesting one.

[Mister WorldCast]

In my opinion. A rule of thumb where it can be very strict and have a point system can have flaws. While it isnt perfect, it isn't broken. The problem is that it can influence more into doing so since as mentiondd again, a slap on a wrist is nothing. Not to mention the fact of people who are unaware of even the site still getting punished is a flaw. I do appreciate the idea but it does need a lot of work. I think a flexible system could be an idea but I could be wrong. But by time we can improve this. The point of the system is to stop people trading with scammers at the very most possible.

 

 

But lets remember this: If it isnt broken, dont try to fix it.

[Big Ol Bessie]

NO keep it the way it is. Da fuq y’all thinkin your gonna make it so much easier for scammers to wash there items and unload them. This rule is the only thing that is trying to stop the major scamming problem in our community and your thinking of removing it? Fuck that and fuck the scammers who ever trades with them should be warned/punished unless it’s through the scm market because you can not tell who your buying from there. 

 

So no no don’t change this rule fuck the scammers let’s not make it easier for them!