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

[SirDapper]

7 hours ago, Julia said:

The current rules do ban traders for trading with marked scammers

I do want to reiterate, they really don't. 

It has become common practice for marked scammers to offload their items to a friend to fence or an alt so that buyers don't get banned. This is a glaring flaw and especially is seen in one account that has been mass fencing for marked users but is simply just bp banned. 

 

15 minutes ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

The only remotely viable solution that I can see is punishing for patterns of behaviour evidenced in reports, similar to the way unbalanced trades reports work, since that remains somewhat objective and doesn't penalise people who make the odd mistake.

This... Could be something, I think finding repeated patterns of buying items from suspicious sources could be a good way to strike down the bad actors that truly know what they're doing. 

 

However I do feel like something should be done to combat buying in bulk from scammers as well. Maybe instead of it being occurance based it's volume of items based. 

[AwesomeSause]

so basically like reading this and im tryna have an open mind both ways but it sounds like theres no point? idk tbh i dont see a definite piece of information for the need of this discussion

[Gaia]

4 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

Essentially what people seem to want here is rules that only apply to veteran traders, and that's just not practical or how rules work?

Cant tell if this is a question or not. 

You can create rules that apply to everyone but, in practice, only chose to enforce them among veteran traders. 

[NobodyNose]

I just don't understand how people get away scot-free from buying rare items like GE Noh Mercy, and Bonzo Hunter in Darkness, from some low-level fresh profile, and claim they couldn't tell it was a scammer alt, and mods just go "yea, that checks out, must've been a mistake buying 1000's of keys worth of items that all came from this one person that looked like they were scammed."

[SirDapper]

4 hours ago, AwesomeSause said:

so basically like reading this and im tryna have an open mind both ways but it sounds like theres no point?

The point is bad actors within the community should not get their cake and eat it too. Currently, they are allowed to buy scammed goods through a guise, then benefit from "cleaning" them alongside listing them for sale within bp.tf a trading site that gets a majority of traffic from traders. This practice is tiring to see happen again and again. 

A solution should be found to find some way to punish them for circumventing the rules in the way they have been. 

Let us remind ourselves why these rules exist, they exist to increase the difficulty of selling off scammed items. While yes, it won't directly stop them, it reduces their opportunity to profit if the high-tier traders that actively purchase from them scott-free have to think twice if it's worth the risk of being banned. Having the rules this loss almost actively encourages scamming, as these scammers know often they can get nearly full from their bounties, and no parties are affected in the long run. So there is a point to all this.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

5 hours ago, Goyman Sachs said:

Cant tell if this is a question or not. 

You can create rules that apply to everyone but, in practice, only chose to enforce them among veteran traders. 

 

Did you read the rest of the post? Because it explains why that doesn't really work out practically or make sense.

 

5 hours ago, NobodyNose said:

I just don't understand how people get away scot-free from buying rare items like GE Noh Mercy, and Bonzo Hunter in Darkness, from some low-level fresh profile, and claim they couldn't tell it was a scammer alt, and mods just go "yea, that checks out, must've been a mistake buying 1000's of keys worth of items that all came from this one person that looked like they were scammed."

 

The problem is not this situation, the problem is how to make a rule that applies to this situation AND all the other situations. All the traders who don't know what a scammer alt looks like, who don't know what hats were recently scammed, who don't know backpack.tf rules or even what backpack.tf is, etc.

[Gaia]

2 hours ago, Teeny Tiny Cat said:

The problem is not this situation, the problem is how to make a rule that applies to this situation AND all the other situations. All the traders who don't know what a scammer alt looks like, who don't know what hats were recently scammed, who don't know backpack.tf rules or even what backpack.tf is, etc.

And this is why I wholeheartedly believe that nothing will ever come of this thread. Classic Nirvana Fallacy.

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

36 minutes ago, Goyman Sachs said:

And this is why I wholeheartedly believe that nothing will ever come of this thread. Classic Nirvana Fallacy.

 

Several ideas that could potentially be positive have come of this thread.

[MisterBoot]

I think people should be banned for trading with backpack.tf banned people. This always never made sense to me.

This will help match mp policy where trading with some banned person is not allowed if you want to put on marketplacd, but you are allowed to trade with them and list on bp.tf.

 

Secondly, being banned on the site should be a punishment for your bad behaviour, however it seems like being banned allows you to become big fence and trade with whoever you want. As long as it doesn't hit steamrep you can continue, which makes bp.tf reporting kinda useless.

 

Thirdly the obvious alt rule would need to be updated to high value items only. Like 100+ those type of numbers should involve a proper background check. The high value should also focus it on more experienced traders. This rule is still vague and I would leave it more to the mods to rational decission when we see a repeat offender.

 

Lastly the argument about all the other sites is just dumb. I use bp.tf and mp.tf cause of their "clean trading" policy. Just cause others don't clean their ship, doesn't mean we shouldnt do it. Yes it is frustrating, but I think in the long run it will hopefully help to create a nice trading enviroment. 

 

I think its nice reevaluate the rules. Thx teeny cat for starting this 'horror' discussion 

[Mickey Mouse]

On 3/6/2024 at 4:34 PM, Mickey Mouse said:

 

 This account meets all but one of those criteria, but I wouldn't call it an "obvious alt"

 

Well, that aged poorly. I guess Valve disagreed with bot #143....

[AwesomeSause]

To be honest why bother if someone's banned on backpacktf? I'd be more concerned when I check their rep.tf or steam profile, doing my own investigation on different sites. I don't believe in any trade site supremacy and I most certainly don't take one site's opinion 100%.