Rules for Background Checks

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

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

 

Due to the decision to shut down steamrep, and the eventual removal of the API in the future, we have no choice but to resume banning for trades with backpack.tf site-banned scammers. For now, we will also continue to ban for trades with steamrep-marked scammers. We will continue taking input on this as time goes on and further changes may occur, but for now the rules are below.

 

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 the account you would trade with is banned on backpack.tf for anything related to scamming or fencing, 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 or backpack.tf-banned scammers, the ban will instantly be a permanent one. 

- We have a list of red flags for potential scammer alts here, if you trade with accounts with these flags you are doing so at your own risk and if they later end up banned as scammer alts/fences you may receive a ban.

- 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. There is a general guide for reporting here.

 

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 

OverduePixels

Zeus

Abstract

Steve 

Toughsox (appeals)

 

Oh also SHARKING IS SCAMMINGso yes you will get banned if you trade someone banned for sharking.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

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.

[Tejojo]

what happend if i have a buy order for a item under 15 keys  , and the person who send me a offer is a scammer ?, can i get ban for idk , give him 14 keys for a item?

[Zeus_Junior]

5 minutes ago, Tejojo said:

what happend if i have a buy order for a item under 15 keys  , and the person who send me a offer is a scammer ?, can i get ban for idk , give him 14 keys for a item?

 

This should answer your question:

  

Quote

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.

 

[Tejojo]

i see so i can trade with scammers items with bp price under 15 keys

 

[Zeus_Junior]

10 hours ago, Tejojo said:

i see so i can trade with scammers items with bp price under 15 keys

No, you dont have to do a background check when both sides of the trade are <15 keys.

If you trade a scammer accidentally its fine under that price.

 

Trading scammers when one of the sides is >15 keys is bannable

Trading scammers while knowing they are a scammer, is a permanent ban

[phnx]

How can moderators determine whether an user "knowingly fails" or "accidentally fails" to background check a scammer?

Only quite unsure about this part of the post.

[Zeus_Junior]

8 hours ago, phnx said:

How can moderators determine whether an user "knowingly fails" or "accidentally fails" to background check a scammer?

Only quite unsure about this part of the post.

We rarely ban someone for knowingly doing this. But theres multiple ways this can happen

If there are multiple trades with that same scammer, its unlikely they didn't look them up once.

If they've been friends for like a year, also unlikely they didn't know.

They simply confess they knew / there is evidence that shows they knew.

[Trading]

 What would happen if someone traded a lot with a scammer but didn't know they were a scammer?

Quote

We rarely ban someone for knowingly doing this. But theres multiple ways this can happen

If there are multiple trades with that same scammer, its unlikely they didn't look them up once.

If they've been friends for like a year, also unlikely they didn't know.

They simply confess they knew / there is evidence that shows they knew.

•  

 Or when someone traded a lot with a scammer and know he is a scammer but didn't know its not good to trade with him ?

[Zeus_Junior]

4 hours ago, Trading said:

 What would happen if someone traded a lot with a scammer but didn't know they were a scammer?

 

Or when someone traded a lot with a scammer and know he is a scammer but didn't know its not good to trade with him ?

Size or amount of trades determine the ban length.

Not knowing the rules does not grant you immunity to a ban. Same rules apply

[Zeus_Junior]

Clarification on classifieds rule 6 and the recent marketplace.tf seller change.

 

After the rule change for whitelisted sellers on marketplace.tf some people were confused what this would mean for classifieds rule 6, this post is only to clarify any confusion about that rule.

If you have a valid reason to decline a trade from a user then you're allowed to do so. That is how the rule always was. Declining a trade from a marketplace banned user because you'd get removed from the whitelist is a valid reason.

[ReCodedBeans]

How do these rules interact with old VAC bans, as there's a good number of people who have gotten VAC bans long ago (like in the scale of over 5 years, a good few over a whole decade ago) but could be deemed trustworthy now.
Just VAC banned accounts don't seem to change steamrep's mark from within backpack.tf, but it does have a note in steamrep specific to vac bans.
and rep.tf mark's it in yellow, as opposed to the red shown in other parts of the background check documentation

so my main question is, assuming no other issues, no evidence of scams or anything, is it fine to trade with someone with a years old vac ban?

[Apo]

1 hour ago, ReCodedBeans said:

How do these rules interact with old VAC bans, as there's a good number of people who have gotten VAC bans long ago (like in the scale of over 5 years, a good few over a whole decade ago) but could be deemed trustworthy now.
Just VAC banned accounts don't seem to change steamrep's mark from within backpack.tf, but it does have a note in steamrep specific to vac bans.
and rep.tf mark's it in yellow, as opposed to the red shown in other parts of the background check documentation

so my main question is, assuming no other issues, no evidence of scams or anything, is it fine to trade with someone with a years old vac ban?

if ur worried about getting marked or something for trading with a vac-banned profile, that won't happen

if ur worried about trusting them, look at other trust factors

for example, check my bp profile and see if you trust me, idk

[Zeus_Junior]

On 9/24/2023 at 10:58 PM, ReCodedBeans said:

is it fine to trade with someone with a years old vac ban?

Yes, any VAC ban even. This has not changed 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

UPDATE: slight rule change regarding "obvious alts" (unbanned alts of scammers, fences, etc)

 

As discussed in this thread we've decided to include a provision in the rules for mod discretion for when users are buying items from obvious scammer alts. We are not bringing back the old rules in the same way, and as such we are not saying you cannot trade with accounts that meet this criteria. Instead, what we're doing is giving you some red flags of obvious scammer alt/fence accounts, and letting you know that if you choose to trade accounts like this you are doing so at your own risk and may suffer consequences if the account ends up banned as a scammer alt/fence. 

 

Red flags to look out for:

• brand new accounts with lots of items suddenly
• old accounts that had been inactive for years and suddenly have been level boosted, had achievements farmed, game hours idled, lots of items, etc
• old accounts with no, or only very recent, backpack history snapshots on the site
• accounts with sudden influx of items seemingly out of nowhere, especially if items come from banned scammer alts/fences
• accounts that meet the above and are quickselling lots of items for low prices

As stated above, we are not saying you cannot trade with accounts that meet any of the above criteria, simply that these are things to look out for that may indicate an account is an unbanned scammer alt/fence. If you choose to trade such an account and it's later banned as an alt/fence, you may also receive a ban for that choice. The decision will rest with mods, and they will use their discretion in each case. We are not looking to punish bots or users making innocent mistakes here, we are simply allowing a provision in the rules to ban users who buy from scammer alts intentionally because they know they can get away with doing so. 

 

This change is active effective immediately.

[Dr.Frog]

56 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

If you choose to trade such an account and it's later banned as an alt/fence, you may also receive a ban for that choice.

How long between trade and ban? Say you make a trade where everything looks legit and no issues but find out 2 months later it was a scammer's alt are you still at risk of ban? or is that by mods choice if they ban you or not.

[Breacher]

TLDR: Trading with suspicious accounts (new, inactive, no history, sudden items) is at your own risk. If the account gets banned later, you might get banned too. This is to stop people intentionally buying from scammers.
(is this correct?)

[Dr.Frog]

1 hour ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

1 hour ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

This change is active effective immediately.

Will this also affect people that have done it in the past? or from now on?

 

[Breacher]

Do these rules apply to mannco.store or other CS sites that have a TF2 section, where the seller has the ability to have an "private" profile? Wont most scammers still be able to offload items off via mannco.store or is that looked out on a repeat offender basis too?

[zelias]

9 minutes ago, Breacher said:

Do these rules apply to mannco.store or other CS sites that have a TF2 section, where the seller has the ability to have an "private" profile? Wont most scammers still be able to offload items off via mannco.store or is that looked out on a repeat offender basis too?

Doubt it, bptf mods can't check what happens on scammco.store since turkeytom made that tf2 drama video, so this rule would be basically impossible to enforce there.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

32 minutes ago, Dr.Frog said:

How long between trade and ban? Say you make a trade where everything looks legit and no issues but find out 2 months later it was a scammer's alt are you still at risk of ban? or is that by mods choice if they ban you or not.

 

Mods discretion. So yes there's a risk but no you won't necessarily get banned. I don't know how everything would look legit and then somehow look way less legit 2 months later, though, in the context of the red flags given?

 

28 minutes ago, Breacher said:

TLDR: Trading with suspicious accounts (new, inactive, no history, sudden items) is at your own risk. If the account gets banned later, you might get banned too. This is to stop people intentionally buying from scammers.
(is this correct?)

 

Yes.

 

18 minutes ago, Breacher said:

Do these rules apply to mannco.store or other CS sites that have a TF2 section, where the seller has the ability to have an "private" profile? Wont most scammers still be able to offload items off via mannco.store or is that looked out on a repeat offender basis too?

 

These rules apply to user trades, not websites.

[SirDapper]

Finally, 

 

I do think it could be nice to include a clause somewhere where it includes accounts that "drip feed" fenced items. It's happened a few times where scammers will only shoot out items one at a time to an alt to avoid suspicions. All the current red flags you gave seem to only cover bulk.

 

Other than that, finally some good changes. 

[ANOTHERBLORG]

Is someone being site-banned for trading with scammers considered to be something "related to scamming or fencing"? In other words, is this sort of thing contagious?

Edited August 15 by ANOTHERBLORG
Wording clarification

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

14 hours ago, ANOTHERBLORG said:

Is someone being site-banned for trading with scammers considered to be something "related to scamming or fencing"? In other words, is this sort of thing contagious?

 

No.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

Sharking is scamming.

Sharking is scamming.

SHARKING IS SCAMMING.

Hope that's clear.

 

But forreal, we cannot provide an exhaustive list of all wording for ban reasons that we consider scamming, there's just too much variety in terminology used over the decade+ this site has existed.

Use your brain and if you're unsure, ask in discord.