Open discussion on rules for trading with scammers (Part 3)

[NobodyNose]

I would just like to pitch in some of my two cents with the points others have brought up.

 

Obvious Alts and Background Checking:
Now with NineDevil’s point about how nowadays, alts are used almost by everyone for everything. However, there are clear differences between an obvious alt and an obvious scammer alt. Lets assume, surface level, both alt profiles look the same, they have achievements, maybe a low level, and a basic profile picture. Now this should raise red flags, but if you take literally 10-15 minutes to do some basic background checking, I’m sure there will be some stark differences from the scammer alt to the normal alt. A private inventory, all achievements but barely any hours, or items traded from an empty backpack or a marked backpack. Unlike many big traders say, background checking is not some complex task, if someone like me, whos traded since last June/July can play catch the scammer. 
 

Bots

If I understand correctly, the first rule change was mainly set in place due to bots being innocent victims of scammer dumps. Now my first thought was to exempt bots from scammer dumps, as places like stn get those all the time. However, there would definitely be some bad actors using their “bots” to purchase scammed items. I am a big fan of Zed’s idea of getting a system that can track dirty items. Then, just like how some bots can catch duped items being offered to them, they could also catch these dirty items. This system ensures that bad actors can’t use bots to say “I couldn’t tell it was a random dump” and maybe work off of a warning based system from there.

 

Backpack Banned Tags

For this one I don’t have much to say. A lot of what I was going to say has been already said by SirDapper which was mainly how SteamRep tags are becoming less frequent and more irrelevant compared to backpack bans. We should treat Backpack bans like Steamrep bans. So like dapper said, trading with a suspected alt/scammer banned on backpack is like a SteamRep scammer tag, while trading with someone banned for other shady things like buying from scammers should have a yellow mark, like a Steamrep Caution. 
 

What Mods should/could do

I think that current backpack rules still need improvement, thus the creation of this thread. However, a lot of this trading with scammer fiasco started because people were not being banned/warned for the most obvious of trades. Now due to sin’s post, I am not calling out these bad actors. I feel that mods shouldn’t always abide by the rules because one way or the other, rules will always be flawed. Sometimes they should go out on a limb, use common sense and say “Hey, even though this guy bought from an alt, which we don’t normally ban for, this alt was just TOO obvious.” Now obviously, I know that this should not be the default or even secondary mode of handling a report, as common sense varies and can also be flawed. There should be more banning based off the rules, but when cases when someone technically didn’t break the rules, but what they did was immoral and their situation was too obvious, the rules might give out but common sense is still there.
 

Final Thoughts

Again, everything I said here is my two cents to this rule change and what issues and topics others have brought up. I understand what I said may arise to some issues and loopholes I may have overlooked, I’m happy to hear what others and mods have to say. At the end of the day, we are trading virtual pixels in a on-critical life support 17 year old game’s inflated economy, don’t take it too serious.

 

Peace

 

[Sir Spoon The Second]

regardless if we get old rules re-implemented, having a feature to make it easier to see if an item was in a scammers inv at one point without going into the item history NEEDS to be implemented

regardless if the tag goes away over time its still something that should be implemented and I personally am surprised its not a feature already

 

 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

This is a discussion about rules, not site features. We do not have a very active dev, and finishing next and fixing bugs are priorities before any additional features. The conversation about "marking" items is a diversion, since this is not something that can be reasonably implemented right now. Let's keep this to discussions of the rules please, which are changes we can implement easily. 

 

 

[TheLetterZed]

7 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

This is a discussion about rules, not site features. We do not have a very active dev, and finishing next and fixing bugs are priorities before any additional features. The conversation about "marking" items is a diversion, since this is not something that can be reasonably implemented right now. Let's keep this to discussions of the rules please, which are changes we can implement easily. 

 

I'm new to the forums and not sure what you have for forum tools, but if it helps I'm happy to migrate my post and the replies to its own separate thread to avoid derailing things. I won't discuss it any more in this thread, thanks for the guidance.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

55 minutes ago, TheLetterZed said:

I'm new to the forums and not sure what you have for forum tools, but if it helps I'm happy to migrate my post and the replies to its own separate thread to avoid derailing things. I won't discuss it any more in this thread, thanks for the guidance.

 

It's more that it's not a worthwhile discussion when it's not something that we have the capacity to do anything about any time soon, so energy would be better spent giving feedback on the rules and potential changes. Like you're welcome to have that discussion anyway if you want, but it'd be a pure hypothetical wishlist at this point, whereas rule changes we can actually implement.

[SirDapper]

I think if we cannot implement a system as such, why not increase the strictness of the rules? Instead of giving users who buy from obvious scammers leeway until a more developed system is put in place, why not revert the rules until they can be properly developed?

Though I digress, the old rules were flawed for being too strict, and the new rules are flawed for being too open. The solution should be adding to the new stipulation to make it more strict.
A big problem I see are items that are scammed 1/1s or items of the rarer variety. To refer back to the Moist situation, many of the users who bought those items, knew they belonged to Moist as they were that unique. However, due to the current rules, they knew they could purchase them, and so they did. 

Scammed Rare Items
To refer back to a thing I brought up, why not make a clause that punishes users who buy high-ticket rare items from scammers? Items that are 1/1s or are just generally rarer high-ticket goods. These are items, in my opinion, users should be held responsible to double check when they receive them in a trade offer. A user should be able to conduct their own research on these types of trades without claiming ignorance. 

B/Os for Scammed Goods
There should also be some action taken on b/o for items known to be owned by by scammers, there are many out there, and the one that comes to mind again is the Blizz storm co-pilot. This is an open invitation for scammers to dump their items, users who place buy orders as such should have them removed. This also tackles bots/stn. They should not offer prices for scammed rare goods, specifically scammed 1/1s. 

 

Edge Cases
If an item is scammed and instantly dumped to a bot b/o / website, without it being known to be scammed, the bot owner should not face repercussions. If the owner openly acknowledges the item to be scammed and accepts it, they should be punished accordingly.

Scammers Vs Marked

This rule needs to be changed. There's no reason why you can only punish users who trade with someone who is steamrep marked. We can all agree their way of handling scam cases is archaic and not friendly for the modern era. I believe users who are banned from BP.TF for being a scammer, or an alt of a scammer, should face the same repercussion system that trading with a Steam rep marked user. The reason for the ban is distinguished on their profile, if it mentions scamming, it should be treated as such. There's zero reason why a user has to be banned in two places for anything to be done about buying off them, especially if they are banned on both and can just move everything to an alt. Please look into this change, I would find it hard if many people disagreed with me. Additionally, fencing and other "nonoffensive" reasons should not warrant the same punishment, only scammers and their alts.

[NobodyNose]

13 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

B/Os for Scammed Goods
There should also be some action taken on b/o for items known to be owned by by scammers, there are many out there, and the one that comes to mind again is the Blizz storm co-pilot. This is an open invitation for scammers to dump their items, users who place buy orders as such should have them removed. This also tackles bots/stn. They should not offer prices for scammed rare goods, specifically scammed 1/1s. 

This part, I somewhat disagree. Many bots are almost fully automated and put buy orders on a lot of hats. Making it a burden for bot owners to keep up with the latest scammed items and manually removing listings completely counteracts the reason they make a bot in the first place. However, thanks to next.backpack, I feel that if we make some slight modifications to this proposal, this could be effective. Using next, we can see the listing history. If an item is scammed, and fresh listings are made by bots or humans, those listings and people who make then should be punished. However, if there were existing buy orders from a bot before the item was scammed, those bots/people shouldn’t become needless victims.

[SirDapper]

22 minutes ago, NobodyNose said:

Making it a burden for bot owners to keep up with the latest scammed items and manually removing listings completely counteracts the reason they make a bot in the first place

Whenever a high ticket item gets scammed, it becomes instant buzz within the community, maybe a 1-2 day grace period is given, but after that, they have no excuse for b/o to be up for said item. Again to a previous example, Blizzstorm Co-Pilot - https://next.backpack.tf/classifieds?itemName=Co-Pilot&quality=5&particle=30 there are zero, and I repeat, zero reasons why b/o's should exist for this, additionally, stn offers a fair sum of keys for it too https://stntrading.eu/item/tf2/Unusual+Blizzardy+Storm+Co-Pilot. This item was scammed over 2 years ago, so why are buy orders being made 16 days ago??

It's disingenuous behavior and gives an excuse for traders to cover their tracks when buying scammed items. "Oh I got it dumped to my b/o, oh I got it dumped to my bot" It's just disguised dirty dealings, some could even say 「Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap」. Heck, give it a 1-week window before b/os should be policed, there are so many scammed goods this can be applied to. These users should be held responsible, they can only claim ignorance for so long.

[humann]

8 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

Whenever a high ticket item gets scammed, it becomes instant buzz within the community, maybe a 1-2 day grace period is given, but after that, they have no excuse for b/o to be up for said item. Again to a previous example, Blizzstorm Co-Pilot - https://next.backpack.tf/classifieds?itemName=Co-Pilot&quality=5&particle=30 there are zero, and I repeat, zero reasons why b/o's should exist for this, additionally, stn offers a fair sum of keys for it to. This item was scammed over 2 years ago, so why are buy orders being made 16 days ago??

It's disingenuous behavior and gives an excuse for traders to cover their tracks when buying scammed items. "Oh I got it dumped to my b/o, oh I got it dumped to my bot" It's just disguised dirty dealings, some could even say 「Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap」. Heck, give it a 1-week window before b/os should be policed, there are so many scammed goods this can be applied to. These users should be held responsible, they can only claim ignorance for so long.'

It makes absolutely no sense; do you expect every single trader to check for ALL the scammed items to avoid that item? how would they do that? would backpack report mods have to make a list of all the recently scammed items? what if the item was recently scammed and was not on the list? what about all the people using bots to create buy orders? how often do you expect for traders to check on that list? before making a buy order they would have to go on that list to check if the item is there? what for all the 1/1 items that are not 1/1 because 1 is a private bp from a collector?

[SirDapper]

1 minute ago, humann said:

It makes absolutely no sense; do you expect every single trader to check for ALL the scammed items to avoid that item?

Items they are making b/os for, yes.
 

1 minute ago, humann said:

how would they do that?

It's pretty obvious when an item is scammed, premium works to tell but I understand not everyone has premium, so maybe bp should block b/os on those items.

 

2 minutes ago, humann said:

would backpack report mods have to make a list of all the recently scammed items?

They don't have to make a list, if someone reports an item belonging to a scammer/scammer alt, they can just go verify (pretty easily) and block b/os. This is more up to the community to report, hell, they can even report existing listings to bring attention to it.

 

3 minutes ago, humann said:

what if the item was recently scammed and was not on the list?

Give them a 1 week grace period, whenever a large scam occurs we hear about it within the hour, this gives more than enough time to remove b/os / block bots.

 

4 minutes ago, humann said:

what about all the people using bots to create buy orders?

Don't create b/os for those items? Even so, if we route to point number 3, if an item is identified as scammed, just block b/os on it. I'm not saying punish those who make them, just block them from being made.

 

6 minutes ago, humann said:

how often do you expect for traders to check on that list?

What list? If an item is scammed it should be easily known, this isn't some grand list, just blocking b/os on scammer-owned 1/1s

 

8 minutes ago, humann said:

what for all the 1/1 items that are not 1/1 because 1 is a private bp from a collector?

So? it's their choice to private their item, if it doesn't have b/os it's not the end of the world. Private generally also means not trading, so if it's not counted as part of the economy it should be treated as such. 

[humann]

25 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

It's pretty obvious when an item is scammed, premium works to tell but I understand not everyone has premium, so maybe bp should block b/os on those items.

This will give all the reports mode a ton of more work. What would happen with quicksale.store, stn and other trading sites that are actively buying stolen goods?, those sites are where most of the scammed items end up right now, not in a random trader bp but in one of those sites

28 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

So? it's their choice to private their item, if it doesn't have b/os it's not the end of the world. Private generally also means not trading, so if it's not counted as part of the economy it should be treated as such. 

A lot of times they end up selling to buy orders anyways

 

 

I do think that a ban for being a scammer or an scammer alt on bp should be treated in the same way a SR ban is treated, but in this current moment most scammed items end up in bot sites

[humann]

Just now, humann said:

This will give all the reports mode a ton of more work.

and the dev would have to add another feature to block the buy orders

[NobodyNose]

1 hour ago, SirDapper said:

additionally, stn offers a fair sum of keys for it too https://stntrading.eu/item/tf2/Unusual+Blizzardy+Storm+Co-Pilot. This item was scammed over 2 years ago, so why are buy orders being made 16 days ago??

Saying that sites like STN and Quicksell.store should also block buy orders for those items is a really stupid idea. While STN staff team is close with backpack staff, saying that they should change how their site operates because the rules of the Backpack monopoly is a horrible idea. I think being concerned with buy orders is not the biggest concern here, lets not open a hole nother can of worms. 

[SirDapper]

1 hour ago, NobodyNose said:

lets not open a hole nother can of worms. 

Why should we treat these website owners differently? If they are openly opting to buy from scammers shouldn't they be bp banned? 

 

Where does the line start and stop for users that deserve to be punished? 

[SirDapper]

1 hour ago, humann said:

those sites are where most of the scammed items end up right now

Ban the owners off bp if they can't comply with this, why have we as a community become to open to scammers dumping items? 

1 hour ago, humann said:

and the dev would have to add another feature to block the buy order

1 hour ago, humann said:

This will give all the reports mode a ton of more work

Seeing a reported listing and removing I can imagine doesn't take too much time. Listing's get reported all the time. 

 

Plus if it isn't a feature I can imagine it'd be quite low maintenance to add. If not again, report listing, listing gets looked into and removed accordingly. 

1 hour ago, humann said:

A lot of times they end up selling to buy orders anyways

Then maybe it's a good thing there is no b/o for them to dump to. If they have something that rediculously rare in their inventory they could list it on market and get a sizeable offer.

[NobodyNose]

56 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

Why should we treat these website owners differently? If they are openly opting to buy from scammers shouldn't they be bp banned? 

Ok the part you quoted was me talking about the whole block buy order thing. While yes that maybe a part of it, the main issue here is that a. backpack doesn’t ban if you trade with a banned scammer and b. the obvious alt issue. Thats mainly why I said lets not tackle that problem now.

 

However, now to these sites. All I’m saying is that Backpack’s rules shouldn’t be pushed onto non .tf sites. While yes, STN and other sites blocking buy orders is something they should do, mods can’t just force it onto them because why not. It is up to the STN team if they want to do this or not. Yes they should, but nobody can just force it. 

[NineDevil]

The things I read here are insane. One wants to public display IPs or their connected accounts, let alone ignore GDPR or that you most likely gonna face consequences in the EU. Besides banning for only IP is dumb nowadays.

 

The other one wants to shoot on anyone who can be deemd as an alt because obv alts = scammers. (Logic???)

 

Let alone ignore the fact that sites like dmarket, cs.deals, buff, bitskin give 0 fs about SR bans not even mentioning bptf where people literally believe you send them a scam website. Not even including other smaller websites that as well don't care about SR/BPTF.

 

And the most insane thing here is. That people talk like this who got banned here for trading with confirmed scammers from SR LOL. The irony.

 

"We should do it due security". What security!?!? You are responsible on your own for your account and not bptf!? And as human already said; most of the items end up in bots from gladiator or on third party websites. What rule you guys wanna add on top of that? Ban people who buy from csdeals? Ban peopel for buying on mannco? Or wait, what about we ban anyone who trades? Because if no one is able to trade then obviously no one can trade with scammers. That will show them! 

 

 

You guys should seriously step down and think what you guys demanding/requesting here because this is insanity.  

[SirDapper]

Cont. from discord conversation with Teeny Tiny Cat on the topic of reverting the rules.

okay so, you mentioned Mannco owners are banned, and still operates, that's fine

In the original thread, you stated that in part, the obvious alt change was made to accommodate bots. This change has backfired and has allowed bad actors to run rampant. If the rules were reverted, the bot owners should be responsible for taking more control over their bots. The 15-key rule allows bots to move a majority of in-game items without any issues, as anything sub 15 keys wouldn't matter. However, if they openly accept scammed items over 15 keys, this is when action should be taken against their accounts. 

By altering the rules in this light, the bot owners have to consciously decide if they want to risk a ban or not, say stn for example, chooses to ignore it and continue business as usual. They will be banned. Sure the ban doesn't stop their business, but the rules being changed back would prevent many other users from trading with obvious alts. I'm not saying, "let's ban all bot owners for the hell of it" I'm attempting to suggest that they will have to adapt to the rules changing, as opposed to the rules adapting to them.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

6 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

Cont. from discord conversation with Teeny Tiny Cat on the topic of reverting the rules.

okay so, you mentioned Mannco owners are banned, and still operates, that's fine

In the original thread, you stated that in part, the obvious alt change was made to accommodate bots. This change has backfired and has allowed bad actors to run rampant. If the rules were reverted, the bot owners should be responsible for taking more control over their bots. The 15-key rule allows bots to move a majority of in-game items without any issues, as anything sub 15 keys wouldn't matter. However, if they openly accept scammed items over 15 keys, this is when action should be taken against their accounts. 

By altering the rules in this light, the bot owners have to consciously decide if they want to risk a ban or not, say stn for example, chooses to ignore it and continue business as usual. They will be banned. Sure the ban doesn't stop their business, but the rules being changed back would prevent many other users from trading with obvious alts. I'm not saying, "let's ban all bot owners for the hell of it" I'm attempting to suggest that they will have to adapt to the rules changing, as opposed to the rules adapting to them.

 

The discussion around bots and bot owners in the previous open conversation was not around sites like STN, it was around individuals using bots, users who rent bots from sites like (at the time) bot.tf, etc. People who own large cashout sites was never the focus of that conversation, so I'm not really sure why you're talking about it now?

 

The issue with bots was that they quite literally cannot adapt to the rule change you're proposing. The concept of an "obvious alt" is by definition a subjective judgment call, and thus not something a bot can be programmed to accept/decline trades from in the way a site ban or a scammer tag can be blacklisted in the code. That's only one issue with the "obvious alt" concept, it's not the only reason, but it's not a small one.

[SirDapper]

2 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

That's only one issue with the "obvious alt" concept, it's not the only reason, but it's not a small one.

I'm aware, I'm just stating that it's a weak point (while small) in favor of not punishing trading with obvious alts. Users who place b/os on scammer items should understand the risk. I brought up stn since it was brought up a lot earlier in the tread.

[NobodyNose]

1 hour ago, NineDevil said:

The other one wants to shoot on anyone who can be deemd as an alt because obv alts = scammers. (Logic???)

Can’t tell if you’re talking about me but I was saying that needs to be a better definition of scammer alts and regular alts so clueless idiots or bots don’t get caught in the crossfire.

[wersady]

I think this whole discussion has gone off the rails a little bit. All we really need at the moment is a simple "If your trade is worth more than 15 keys, you need to check X, Y, and Z before accepting." X, Y, and Z can be simple things that don't take long and places like Gladiator and STN can check automatically without much headache for the owners. Backpack.tf already has built-in API methods that can report a user's trust rating and fetch a list of commonly impersonated users, so why don't we start with just requiring traders and bots to check that? Bots already have to check if a person is marked on SteamRep so adding 2 more checks shouldn't be a big deal for them. There's also no reason we can't come back to this in 6 months or so and reevaluate the rules again. If there's still a big issue, we can implement more rules. If it's getting in the way of people trading, we can remove them again. No need to go full gung ho and start adding massive new site features and excessive work for the mods.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

7 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

I'm aware, I'm just stating that it's a weak point (while small) in favor of not punishing trading with obvious alts. Users who place b/os on scammer items should understand the risk. I brought up stn since it was brought up a lot earlier in the tread.

 

I don't really understand what you're proposing. Most users who have buy orders have literally hundreds of them on every hat you can think of, how are they supposed to keep tabs on scammed items? And how does this relate to obvious alts?

[SirDapper]

10 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

how are they supposed to keep tabs on scammed items?

I mean in my opinion they should, as the responsibility goes on the buyer to background check above 15 keys.

 

11 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

And how does this relate to obvious alts?

I bring it up because bots influenced the change when I think they shouldn't have. This just may be somewhere we don't see eye to eye.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

11 minutes ago, SirDapper said:

I mean in my opinion they should, as the responsibility goes on the buyer to background check above 15 keys.

 

I didn't ask if they should, I said HOW should they?