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New Rules for Background Checks


Teeny Tiny Cat

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Introduction

 

I will again start with a disclaimer that these are the rules for backpack.tf and do not apply to any other site. The cutoff in item values for which we expect traders to complete a background check is 15 keys value on either side of the trade (so, for example, if you buy a 30 key hat for 14 keys you still need to do a background check). For trades under 15 keys in value, we do not require that you complete a background check. Feel free to post any questions or concerns below.

 

Changes

 

After a lot of discussion, some of which you can find here and here we have decided to make some fairly big changes to the old system.

 

The main one is that we are scrapping the concept of an "obvious alt" when it comes to banning for trading with scammers. While I stand by the spirit of it and the ability of traders to look at accounts and make judgement about red flags, the community broadly finds the criteria too subjective and difficult to work with. It also hinders bot trading a significant amount, and while I know many hate bots, many use them too. Overall, the red flags for an obvious alt are definitely something you should be aware of, but it no longer seems reasonable or practical to punish users for trading with accounts who may meet some criteria but are not banned alts. 

 

In the same vein, we have decided to stop penalising for trades with site-banned users, even if the ban is for a scam or scam-related offence. The rationale for this change is that now that we are Steamrep partners and can apply our own marks, any account with sufficient evidence against them to be banned for scamming would be given a mark too. If they are site banned for scamming only, that by definition implies a lower standard of evidence or an offence outside of Steamrep investigative policy, which exists for good reason. 

 

We are also going to modify ban durations a little to give mods some leeway to give shorter or longer bans to users based on the value of the trade. So you won't get the same length of ban for buying a 50 key hat as a 500 key hat.

 

Lastly, we will no longer be banning users for accessing gambling sites, even if scammers are also using those sites.

 

The rules

 

- All trades above 15 keys in value on either side of the trade must be background checked.

- If the account you would trade with is marked on Steamrep, you cannot complete the trade.

- If a trader accidentally fails to meet these expectations, they will receive a temporary ban, escalating with number of offences (see ban durations below).

- If a trader knowingly fails to meet these expectations and is found to intentionally trade with Steamrep-marked scammers, the ban will instantly be a permanent one. 

- If a trader is found to be regularly buying items from accounts banned on backpack.tf as a scammer, scammer alt, or scammer fence they may receive a ban even if those accounts are not marked on Steamrep.

- Brokering for a user who is site-banned for any reason will remain against the rules.

- Temp bans will "expire" after 1 year without a ban, so whether you're on your first or second offence if you go without a ban for 1+ year and then are reported again for the same thing, we will treat it as a new ban and start at first offence again. This does not apply to permanent bans.

- Ban evasion during any ban for trading with scammers will be permanent, as with any other site ban.

 

Ban durations:

 

- 1st offence: 3 days - 3 months

- 2nd offence: 1 month - 6 months

- 3rd offence: permanent (appeal-able after 1 year)

 

Reporting

 

All reports will need to include evidence of a two way trade or they may be closed by moderators. We simply do not have the time to be digging into accounts ourselves, if you are making a report you need to do the work first. Reports with single item histories are not acceptable.

 

Reporting traders who are regularly buying items from backpack.tf-banned scammers, scammer alts, or fences, will require the reporter to compile a body of evidence that demonstrates a clear pattern. This will then be assessed by mods. As with reporting single trades, a small number of item histories but no evidence of two way trades will not be sufficient for us to ban someone.

 

Summary

 

 We believe that these changes move strongly in the direction of lessening punishment for accidents while still allowing the site and mods to discourage people from going all out regularly trading with scammers. We welcome any feedback.

 

Trading with scammers bans under the old rules can now be appealed, but the above rules will still apply. If you'd like to ask a question about something specific in private, feel free to PM me or any of the report mods:

 

Teeny Tiny Cat 

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So some things I wanted to clarify as I'm unclear on somethings

 

"Obvious alt"

I'm a little unclear about this, does that mean there are no penalties trading with obvious alts (e.g. lvl 0 with 0 hours) if they're not marked? I only ask as I have always been interested in getting a bot but the Obvious alt thing has always scared me into getting one

 

"Trading with backpack site ban users" 

I just wanted to verify on bans on BP VS marketplace. If a user is banned on MP for charge-back fraud, is this enough to warrant not trading with them because of the association with backpack and chargeback being 100% 'markable' by SteamRep?

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12 minutes ago, ǍгᴄᴀɴД.t✖t said:

So some things I wanted to clarify as I'm unclear on somethings

 

"Obvious alt"

I'm a little unclear about this, does that mean there are no penalties trading with obvious alts (e.g. lvl 0 with 0 hours) if they're not marked? I only ask as I have always been interested in getting a bot but the Obvious alt thing has always scared me into getting one

 

"Trading with backpack site ban users" 

I just wanted to verify on bans on BP VS marketplace. If a user is banned on MP for charge-back fraud, is this enough to warrant not trading with them because of the association with backpack and chargeback being 100% 'markable' by SteamRep?

 

There are no penalties for trading with obvious alts.

 

Marketplace bans are unrelated to backpack.tf bans. I would still encourage everyone to check rep.tf and avoid trading with any account banned as a scammer anywhere just for your own safety, but you're not going to get banned for trading someone who marketplace have banned for chargeback fraud.

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2 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

In the same vein, we have decided to stop penalising for trades with site-banned users, even if the ban is for a scam or scam-related offence. The rationale for this change is that now that we are Steamrep partners and can apply our own marks, any account with sufficient evidence against them to be banned for scamming would be given a mark too. If they are site banned for scamming only, that by definition implies a lower standard of evidence or an offence outside of Steamrep investigative policy, which exists for good reason. 

 

So trading with scammers is allowed now? Because THIS

2 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

- If the account you would trade with is marked on Steamrep, you cannot complete the trade.

doesn't really make sense to me.

Saying you stopped penalising users for trading with scammers, but then again you cannot complete the trade?

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5 minutes ago, rndmchrs said:

Saying you stopped penalising users for trading with scammers, but then again you cannot complete the trade?

what i think is you can trade people marked for scamming on backpack.tf but not on steamrep.

e.g
you cant trade this person:
ffaefcb39ad981f5d56e855ffdcd9410.png
https://gyazo.com/ffaefcb39ad981f5d56e855ffdcd9410

 

but you can trade this person:

43d7faf69de160c712268ad0ddbba0dd.png
https://gyazo.com/43d7faf69de160c712268ad0ddbba0dd

Correct me if im saying anything wrong

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Yes, you cannot trade Steamrep-marked scammers. 

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1 hour ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

There are no penalties for trading with obvious alts.

Unless you're doing this on a regular basis, yes?

 

4 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

If a trader is found to be regularly buying items from accounts banned on backpack.tf as a scammer, scammer alt, or scammer fence they may receive a ban even if those accounts are not marked on Steamrep.

 

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Wow. This is a big change. Not sure if will go right but I see this really gives trading more freedom. So im preety happy with this change :)

 

My question is the users who got previously banned for trading with alts or gambling with scammers, will their bans be lifted? Or will it stay for them?

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52 minutes ago, DuskShadow said:

Unless you're doing this on a regular basis, yes?

 

No, that only applies to accounts that are banned on backpack.tf for scamming or related offences.

 

33 minutes ago, Mister WorldCast said:

My question is the users who got previously banned for trading with alts or gambling with scammers, will their bans be lifted? Or will it stay for them?

 

They will need to appeal.

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and this is how trading dies

 

saving the butts of people who can't use common sense

 

why bother with any rules? if an alt absolves you of responsibility, the scum will simply make a new 'sales' account every single week

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Just now, LaughingLollipop said:

if an alt absolves you of responsibility, the scum will simply make a new 'sales' account every single week

 

They already do. Rules have to serve practical purposes, no point applying them just for the sake of symbolism.

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Just now, Diamond jozu said:

what about when im trading a 14 key item(on my side) with a scammer who has an unpriced item?

 

We'll make a judgment about the value of the unpriced item.

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Inquiry about the gambling clause, looking for clarity on what 'gambling' is defined as

is there an odds/equivalent valuation requirement?

 

User A and B decide to have some 'gambling' fun

User A is a scammer that has Hat Alpha

User B is a normal person that has 50 Keys

 

Example 1

Random 1-1000000 rolled

If 1, User A gets a key

If 2-1000000, User B gets Hat Alpha

 

Random 1-1000000 rolled

If 1, User A gets a key

If 2-1000000. User A 40 keys

 

Example 2

Random 1-100 rolled

If 1-50, User A gets 30 keys for Hat Alpha

If 51-100, User A gets 33 keys for Hat Alpha

 

I've seen crabs that are fairly in line with that wager, more or less people just settling on a final price, is that legal?

 

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Just now, LaughingLollipop said:

I've seen crabs that are fairly in line with that wager, more or less people just settling on a final price, is that legal?

 

 

I have no idea how you'd prove that in a trade report, but no that's not really gambling, I'd consider that just a facade to hide a trade. You're making the deal either way, gambling on a couple keys of it doesn't mean anything.

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6 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

 

The main one is that we are scrapping the concept of an "obvious alt"......... the community broadly finds the criteria too subjective and difficult to work with. It also hinders bot trading a significant amount, and while I know many hate bots, many use them too.

Eh, I don't know if "the community finding the criteria too subjective" is a really good reason.... I can think of ways you could set objective criteria like is done in some of these other rule changes that would streamline this one more. And besides, if it "hinders bot trading", why should the rule change just because of the bots? Just stop using a bot, why should you be able to trade with what the staff recognize as obvious alts just because you use a bot? Then why doesn't everyone just make a bot and we can all trade with scammers, hooray!

 

Quote

Lastly, we will no longer be banning for gambling with scammers. 

What the hell is this one? I would love to hear some rationale behind this (as it is the only change, seemingly purposefully, without an explanation). So I can't trade with a marked scammer, but I can wager his scammed items against my own? Please tell me how that makes a lick of sense; is this just gonna be sweetstakes.tf all over again? What a terrible and random change.

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6 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

In the same vein, we have decided to stop penalising for trades with site-banned users, even if the ban is for a scam or scam-related offence.

Site-banned users? So if a user is banned solely on backpack.tf but not anywhere else then they are clean to trade with freely? 

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6 minutes ago, HarryG said:

Eh, I don't know if "the community finding the criteria too subjective" is a really good reason.... I can think of ways you could set objective criteria like is done in some of these other rule changes that would streamline this one more.

 

What the hell is this one? I would love to hear some rationale behind this (as it is the only change, seemingly purposefully, without an explanation). So I can't trade with a marked scammer, but I can wager his scammed items against my own? Please tell me how that makes a lick of sense; is this just gonna be sweetstakes.tf all over again? What a terrible and random change.

 

There were never any objective criteria in any of the rule changes, and numerous attempts to refine it and keep it useful have failed. It's subjective by nature, if you set specific boundaries then scammers will just make accounts that don't fit them. There was no purpose in keeping the rule, really, and the community was broadly in favour of removing it.

 

The rule itself never had much thought put into it, and it never really made sense. You don't have any idea who you're gambling with on most sites, so it was effectively just us taking a moral stance on gambling more than anything else, since the only way to avoid gambling scammers was to not gamble. The rules are meant to have a practical purpose, and that one didn't really. It's on Valve to crack down on gambling sites or those sites to stop allowing scammers to use them. It's a problem that's not on us to fix. I didn't put an explanation just cause I didn't really think it needed one. The addition of the rule was never really explained and it's not one people have brought up or seemed to care about much at all in the discussion threads.

 

Just now, 🍀Swazzy🍀 said:

Site-banned users? So if a user is banned solely on backpack.tf but not anywhere else then they are clean to trade with freely? 

 

We won't ban for the odd trade with site-banned users, but we will ban if we see a pattern of repeatedly trading scammers, scammer alts, or scammer fences, site banned or marked. It's all stated clearly in the OP.

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5 minutes ago, HarryG said:

What the hell is this one? I would love to hear some rationale behind this (as it is the only change, seemingly purposefully, without an explanation). So I can't trade with a marked scammer, but I can wager his scammed items against my own? Please tell me how that makes a lick of sense; is this just gonna be sweetstakes.tf all over again? What a terrible and random change.

Scammers don't get value out of their items if they lose them 😄

Though I wonder if this rule applies to gambling with backpack.tf scammers or steamrep marked scammers

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8 minutes ago, soz said:

Scammers don't get value out of their items if they lose them 😄

Though I wonder if this rule applies to gambling with backpack.tf scammers or steamrep marked scammers

Who knows, it's very unclear. Besides, my point was more that by gambling with a scammer, you've either given a scammer an item without anyone getting banned that they otherwise would be, or getting a scammer's item you otherwise wouldn't allowed to get without a ban. Which I think is dumb and a loophole.

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Before this update creating of new acc didn't guarantee a scammer selling of his items as buyers and their bots didn't accept trade offer from scammer alts  because of the threat of banning. Those who accepted were banned.

 

Now you let scammers easily sell everything they want at full price and to any buyer. WIth this update you ALLOWED trading with scammers in veiling form.

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9 minutes ago, Alex Mas said:

Before this update creating of new acc didn't guarantee a scammer selling of his items as buyers and their bots didn't accept trade offer from scammer alts  because of the threat of banning. Those who accepted were banned.

 

Now you let scammers easily sell everything they want at full price and to any buyer. WIth this update you ALLOWED trading with scammers in veiling form.

 

As discussed ad nauseum in the thread linked in OP, this was already happening routinely via private backpacks, non-obvious scammer alts, banking sites, and cashout sites. Our rules were doing nothing to stop it.

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I wonder that If there is a banned trader in a valuable item's history (It might be the record of a year ago.), but recent few traders are clean, in this case, Is that okay to trade with this item?

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