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backpack.tf trust doesn't make sense in the slightest


family goy

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hypothetical:

>0 trust

>do cash/key trades with high repped trader

>they leave positive trust on your backpack.tf trust ratings

>use that cash/keys to do more cash/key trades with other high repped trader

>repeat process until gain 50+ trust points

>put listing for cash/key trade with too good of a price

>some greedy yet clueless person buys into it and gets scammed out of how ever many keys

 

how exactly is backpack.tf trust supposed to be a worthy indication of anything? since when has a stranger entrusting others, made THEM trustworthy? the only time trust ratings make sense to me is when someone does something like keep a promise of a spycrab, broker successfully for someone else and not run away... you know... things that actually require the person to be trusted rather than trusting

 

insight if you have it please

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I think the thing to understand is you never know when someone is going to rogue and start scamming on cash trades - there is never going to be a stranger on the internet you can 100% trust. Whenever you do a cash trade (or any other deal involving things outside the steam trade window) there's always a risk of one person taking the other's stuff and running.

 

That said, the trust system is to keep a track record of how many times someone has completed risk trades successfully and honestly. If someone has 50+ trusts it's fair to suggest they're more trustable than the guy with 0, but it's your responsibility to check who is leaving the +trusts and what for. Yes it's an abusable system with people making alts or just doing a handful of small trades so they can more easily scam someone. That's why there's moderators.

 

TL;DR you can't trust anyone but having this system is much better than having nothing.

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Having rep means that you have at least put some effort into doing cash trading or whatever and that alone puts off a lot of scammers. Yes there are some people who build rep and dip off with someones shit, but for the most part it's not super common.

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This is how it has worked since rep threads first became a thing on SourceOP and probably how it will always work since nothing else makes sense.

 

Person A sells 50 keys to person B, both exchange rep. Person A is trustworthy for sending the keys, person B is trustworthy for sending the money and not charging back after. It's not like trust ratings and rep threads are the be-all-end-all factor of whether a trade happens or who goes first. Account age, inventory value, stance in the community and the nature of the trades they received the trust ratings for make the difference (I'd rather deal with the guy who has 30 trusts for buying several hundred keys each than 500 trust for buying one key each).

 

At the end of the day the trust system is to be treated like rep threads back in 2011. Evaluate and confirm the positive and negative entries, report the false ones and then assess whether you trust this person enough to commit to the trade.

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probably the easiest/best thing you can look at to gauge rep, other than actually reading the person's mind to see if they will scam you

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While the system isn't perfect, usually most people that tend to pull this kind of tactic as you mention will only have reputation dating back to a few months at most, and for smaller increments of keys to gain reputation quickly. It's a huge red flag for any cash traders, and also why the unsaid rule of making a person with less trust go first exists. Doing a full background check on when their steam profile was created, if anybody knows them around the community, or just using a certain payment system like Zelle which makes chargebacks near impossible can help to mitigate it. 

 

But yea, at the end of the day, like Alecto said, you're always taking an inherent risk on a cash trade, no matter how safe it seems to both users. 

 

 

 

 

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It's about the volume of transactions, and the amount of currency they can be trusted with. 

Someone is unlikely to run with $5,000 USD if they have past transactions in which someone trusted them with $15,000 USD, because if they were going to exit scam it likely would've been with the $15,000 transaction. 

If someone has over $200,000 dollars in small (20 key), similarly sized transactions, someone would think it's probably unlikely they would scam you out of your 20 keys as a buyer, because they have close to 300 +reps with other users on backpack trust for the same thing.

If something seems too good to be true it probably is. People buying with cash are almost always looking for an investment with a return. If someone is a buyer that is looking to keep your item, they usually won't offer you an exceptional offer for that item in cash.

If they do, it's probably best to be suspicious. 

 

Most buyers and sellers of expensive items know that keys carry none of the risks that cash transactions have associated with them, and will use keys because of that (keys are also just the most commonly traded item).

 

For a transaction that would require more than 3,000 keys (max inventory slots) it doesn't really make sense to split the transaction into multiple trades, due to the fact trust is required and either party could run after half of the transaction has been completed. Since there is already a risk involved, it makes sense for cash to be used in transactions that exceed the 3,000 key threshold (the owner of the item also doesn't have to divvy up 3,000-6,000 keys in smaller cash transactions, which is an additional benefit).

 

What you're referring to does happen, but it's quite few and far between. One person has been suspected of creating new accounts and farming massive cash reps, following an exit scam, and leaving to do it again. 

If you're doing a cash trade, try to do a bit of research, and make sure it's with an already established trader. Not someone who has just farmed a ton of rep recently.

 

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As others have said, looking at the volume of trusts instead of the content of the trusts is a mistake. Trusts for high volume trades, or from other reputable traders, are what I'd be looking for.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Bob the Unsymmetrical said:

What do you suggest then?

id rather conserve my time and not list my compiled suggestions because theres too many things that can be improved further but all i will say is that bptf wont remain in the future

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Just now, Scidja said:

id rather conserve my time and not list my compiled suggestions because theres too many things that can be improved further but all i will say is that bptf wont remain in the future

is this man plotting the downfall of bp.tf????

Kanye West appears to leak Drake's home address as feud continues

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1 minute ago, Wxsp said:

is this man plotting the downfall of bp.tf????

Kanye West appears to leak Drake's home address as feud continues

lmao i wish i was 😆 however if i was going to plot something malicious towards bptf it would be aimed at the admins because i despise them and how they abuse their powers and punish people without proper evidence 

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1 hour ago, Pollen! said:

If someone is a buyer that is looking to keep your item, they usually won't offer you an exceptional offer for that item in cash.

If they do, it's probably best to be suspicious. 

 

This is true most of the time but there are situations where it's not the case. 

 

It really depends on what is being sold and who is buying it. For instance, as a collector if I was going to purchase a relatively expensive item for my collection and the person I was buying from was looking to cash out I would look to make a fair offer regardless of how I'm paying and give the option of doing a cash trade if we could agree upon a safe method for doing the exchange. It saves time for both the buyer and seller and also potentially gives the buyer a bit more of a cash return.

That being said, the "safe method of doing the exchange" very well might end up being something like going through mannco store.

 

Someone who's offering an exceptional cash offer and refuses to go through a trusted cash trading site or use a very trusted middle man would be very suspicious.

 

Point still stands though, looking at rep is only a small portion of what needs to be done to determine if someone can be trusted. You need to look at the entire picture, not just one corner.

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1 hour ago, Scidja said:

lmao i wish i was 😆 however if i was going to plot something malicious towards bptf it would be aimed at the admins because i despise them and how they abuse their powers and punish people without proper evidence 

sounds like a you problem bro 

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All these explanations above are not really helpful where it matters - on the trust page itself.

 

People get scammed using these BPTF trusts pages literally every month.

 

However BPTF admins refuse to do anything about this. It's not like they receive money from these PayPal scammers (doubt it), they simply do not care.

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2 hours ago, D.Alex said:

All these explanations above are not really helpful where it matters - on the trust page itself.

 

People get scammed using these BPTF trusts pages literally every month.

 

However BPTF admins refuse to do anything about this. It's not like they receive money from these PayPal scammers (doubt it), they simply do not care.

basically valve all over again only after money and eventually leaving the site to die 

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6 hours ago, D.Alex said:

All these explanations above are not really helpful where it matters - on the trust page itself.

 

People get scammed using these BPTF trusts pages literally every month.

 

However BPTF admins refuse to do anything about this. It's not like they receive money from these PayPal scammers (doubt it), they simply do not care.

What are your suggestions? Complaining about an issue that has existed since the existence of cash trading without a solution is a bit of a lazy call-out.

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Why would you trust someone who has 50 +reps that read "Sold me x keys they went first no issues" ? I'd blame the users who are getting scammed for not actually checking if the reps are valid. It is always your responsibility to know and background check who you are trading with especially when its a cash trade. The trust system has been like this since the launch of the site / this feature. People have been rep-ing each other after a cash trade. Its not possible to review years worth of trust and remove them now. We only check reps that get flagged as invalid. 

And then there are people who just always wants to complain about anything and everything about the site but still uses the site everyday. I'd ask all of them to bring forward their suggestions on how to bring change/improve. Fisk has been working on making a lot of changes to the site recently and is always open to ideas. 

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On 9/17/2021 at 3:43 PM, SmokE said:

Why would you trust someone who has 50 +reps that read "Sold me x keys they went first no issues" ? I'd blame the users who are getting scammed for not actually checking if the reps are valid. It is always your responsibility to know and background check who you are trading with especially when its a cash trade. The trust system has been like this since the launch of the site / this feature. People have been rep-ing each other after a cash trade. Its not possible to review years worth of trust and remove them now. We only check reps that get flagged as invalid. 

And then there are people who just always wants to complain about anything and everything about the site but still uses the site everyday. I'd ask all of them to bring forward their suggestions on how to bring change/improve. Fisk has been working on making a lot of changes to the site recently and is always open to ideas. 

Verifiable evidence is important. Should almost be a requirement for cash transaction reps staying up

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2 hours ago, Pollen! said:

Verifiable evidence is important. Should almost be a requirement for cash transaction reps staying up

 

I agree, but the main issue is that the trust system has existed for so long without the requirement of evidence that the only way to implement a rule like this would be to wipe out all the positive trust ratings on the site. For people with 50, 100, 300+ etc. trust ratings it would be a pretty big blow.

 

Furthermore, if we got rid of the trust system entirely not much would change. People would just use unofficial steam threads etc. like in the past. If a trust system is gonna exist regardless of if we remove ours or not, I personally would prefer it be in 1 easy place to view them all.

 

So for the sake of discussion: would people actually be interested in completely wiping out all positive trusts if there was a rule implemented to require evidence?

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1 hour ago, ѕιи said:

So for the sake of discussion: would people actually be interested in completely wiping out all positive trusts if there was a rule implemented to require evidence?

 

That's not a good idea, especially for those who spent years to build up their reputation to where it's at right now.

 

----

If a rule was implemented to require evidence in trusts, trust could be split into two categories (eg: old trust, new trust). The user would also get a disclaimer that this rule was added so that they would know before posting trusts.

 

That's just how I imagine it.

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