[Feature Request] Show "fenced" items that came from scammers, like duplicate items

[TheLetterZed]

In this thread, I mentioned a solution that could help with fraudulent trades:

 

On 3/5/2024 at 11:45 AM, TheLetterZed said:

I don't have a rules solution in mind. To quote Mark Rosewater from Magic: the Gathering, "Your audience is good at recognizing problems and bad at solving them." I don't feel equipped to propose a solution to this problem. 

 

My suggestion, and take it with a grain of salt, is to develop a site feature which marks items that were traded from a SteamRep scammer after they were banned. This should be marked as an attribute in the same way that duplicate items are marked.

 

However, I was told that idea couldn't be implemented since there's no active development:

  

On 3/7/2024 at 3:18 AM, 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. 

 

To avoid derailing that thread, I've moved all of my suggestions into this discussion post. The idea won't be implemented, but if anyone wants to discuss it, this is the place.

 

=== Original Proposal ===

 

It would be ideal if when viewing a profile, you could see how many items came from a scammer in the item history. Remember, I'm part of your audience and bad at suggesting solutions, but I dream of an interface that looks like this:

 

 

Having this background checking be part of the Backpack.tf UI shifts the burden of a background check from people doing the work to servers doing the work. Any suggestions I've seen around a specific minimum for a background check could be shifted into the logic of this component. (eg. this only shows when the price of scammed items is greater than $100 and/or the quantity of items is significant)

 

You'd have to be careful of the definition of a "fenced" item. I'm sure that plenty of items in prolific inventories once came from a scammer several trades ago. I would want a definition of fenced items to only include items traded from a scammer after they were banned (eg. user gets banned, trades to an alt, but those items are now forever marked as "fenced". Any items traded before the ban are not marked as "fenced".) You'd also have to be careful about fencing through the Steam Community Market, since a background check isn't easy before buying the item.

 

The developers of Backpack.tf certainly don't get a feature like this "for free" - I expect that checking item history is expensive and it isn't something you can check comprehensively every time you load an inventory. However, I know that this is already being done for "duplicate" items, where it gets a special icon and attribute:

 

 

Whatever mechanism is being used for checking duplicated items could also be considered for checking "fenced" items. Fenced/scammed items would be marked at the time the user first gets a SteamRep ban, so the expensive performance cost of checking and marking an entire inventory is only done once when the user is first banned.

 

Perhaps this system could interact with the trust system in some way. For example, an informative trust (not positive nor negative) is added to the user's trust ratings when they receive a fenced item. That way, you can see if a user is frequently trading fenced items.

 

Once this system is in place, it should be easy to perform a background check. Each item in that user's inventory would get a special icon that designates it as coming from a scammer. It should be very obvious that trading for these items is a bad idea: 

 

(Note that this is just me making the duplicate icon red on a random inventory with duplicate items and is not a comment on these specific items or this user. If this was a real feature, there would be a different icon.)

[NobodyNose]

Great idea zed, only problem is backpack only has one dev (much like the game itself), and right now Fisk is mainly working on next.backpack. Depending on how much of next is left, it may be a while until we see this feature.

[Sir Spoon The Second]

just gonna put my bit that I said about this in the rule discussion

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

 

now on to my other thoughts of it

 

we had talked about it possible getting the tag removed over time 

I do not feel like it shouldn't go away but the icon changes colours over time similar to how it shows for item history's on next for times it's moved inventory's

shows red for 90 days, yellow for 60 days, and green for 30 days

 

I think that it should always have the mark that its been in a scammers inventory

 

lets say if it the mark were to go away it must be 3 years since it was last in a scammers inventory

so for 3 years its red and when the 3 years are over it turns yellow or green meaning that its ok to trade as you won't get banned but that it does have said history

the time will start ticking once the item has been out of the inventory and at any point it goes back into a scammers inv and the timer starts once again once it leaves 

 

I see a few drawbacks from this is

 

what gets this mark, everything?

 

I believe items under a set threshold will still get the mark but its its for less time like 30-90+ days until it turns yellow/green showing that at one point it was in a scammers inventory but its now safe to trade

reason why I say this is because items like keys are traded all the time and are a lot easier to slip back into the trading seen then a item over 30 keys, these items over lets say 30 keys will have the 3 year mark

 

what if it goes into a privet inventory?

 

the reason why I say this is a scammer can just dump the item(s) in to a privet inventory for 3 years and then sell them on a not so obvious alt

the item(s) that where scammed MUST be in a public inventory for the timer to tick down and if at any point the item(s) are no longer in the backpack and can't be found/ owner makes there inventory privet

the timer pauses until the item goes back into a public inventory apposed to just resting the timer as sometimes people make there inventory's privet for a few days and or get a steam community ban and there inventory goes privet witch is kinda out of the users control so there is no point in restarting the timer

other times backpack can't update said inventory its in so the item can be off the radar for a few days to a few weeks maybe months so again no point in restarting the timer

on the topic of backpacks on updating, if its been lets say 5 months and said backpack updates for the first time in 5 months and the item is still shown there there backpack then its safe to assume the item was still in that person inventory so the 5 months is removed for them 3 year timer BUT if the item is not there then the 5 months are not removed and if or when it does pop up again, then the time that has passed including the 5 months does not get removed and the timer starts counting down from where it left off

these are out of the control of both backpack and the owners of said items

restarting the timer every time would make it so the red mark never goes away witch is something that I do not believe

 

what happens if the scammer gets banned and a lot of time has gone by since it was scammed?

 

if its under a year it gets the red mark

if its over a year it it gets the yellow/green mark 

if its over lets say 5 years then it doesn't get marked as said item probably wasn't scammed itself UNLESS there is proof said item was scammed and is over the set threshold then it just gets the yellow/green mark as the account in question could have been hacked/ exit scam

 

the most important thing of all about the scammer mark 

the red mark CAN NOT be appealed to go away

it only goes away with the user that got the item marked in the first place gets unbanned, if that happens

other then that the mark never goes way

 

that's about all I got to say about this, I want to hear feedback on what people think about this

 

[Lexi]

one major problem with this is if an item is duped all owners of the duped item will have to deal with this, not just the owner of the one who was scammed. A second issue is imagine you buy an unusual from a bot trade website not knowing it had this marking and now you have an item you're either effectively not allowed to trade or is incredibly illequid. if people want to check if an item might be sketchy they already can in the items history and look for red names. This also doesn't hurt scammers as they already get rid of their items incredibly fast and are already made their profit. Hurting random other traders isn't the answer. IMO we should be asking steam to have a 7 day or longer trade hold period like that of csgo so there's at least a chance scammers aren't able to liquidate before being trade banned. Having a trade hold would also open up the economy to better profit margins.

[AwesomeSause]

On 3/14/2024 at 4:40 AM, Sir Spoon The Second said:

just gonna put my bit that I said about this in the rule discussion

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

 

now on to my other thoughts of it

 

we had talked about it possible getting the tag removed over time 

I do not feel like it shouldn't go away but the icon changes colours over time similar to how it shows for item history's on next for times it's moved inventory's

shows red for 90 days, yellow for 60 days, and green for 30 days

 

I think that it should always have the mark that its been in a scammers inventory

 

lets say if it the mark were to go away it must be 3 years since it was last in a scammers inventory

so for 3 years its red and when the 3 years are over it turns yellow or green meaning that its ok to trade as you won't get banned but that it does have said history

the time will start ticking once the item has been out of the inventory and at any point it goes back into a scammers inv and the timer starts once again once it leaves 

 

I see a few drawbacks from this is

 

what gets this mark, everything?

 

I believe items under a set threshold will still get the mark but its its for less time like 30-90+ days until it turns yellow/green showing that at one point it was in a scammers inventory but its now safe to trade

reason why I say this is because items like keys are traded all the time and are a lot easier to slip back into the trading seen then a item over 30 keys, these items over lets say 30 keys will have the 3 year mark

 

what if it goes into a privet inventory?

 

the reason why I say this is a scammer can just dump the item(s) in to a privet inventory for 3 years and then sell them on a not so obvious alt

the item(s) that where scammed MUST be in a public inventory for the timer to tick down and if at any point the item(s) are no longer in the backpack and can't be found/ owner makes there inventory privet

the timer pauses until the item goes back into a public inventory apposed to just resting the timer as sometimes people make there inventory's privet for a few days and or get a steam community ban and there inventory goes privet witch is kinda out of the users control so there is no point in restarting the timer

other times backpack can't update said inventory its in so the item can be off the radar for a few days to a few weeks maybe months so again no point in restarting the timer

on the topic of backpacks on updating, if its been lets say 5 months and said backpack updates for the first time in 5 months and the item is still shown there there backpack then its safe to assume the item was still in that person inventory so the 5 months is removed for them 3 year timer BUT if the item is not there then the 5 months are not removed and if or when it does pop up again, then the time that has passed including the 5 months does not get removed and the timer starts counting down from where it left off

these are out of the control of both backpack and the owners of said items

restarting the timer every time would make it so the red mark never goes away witch is something that I do not believe

 

what happens if the scammer gets banned and a lot of time has gone by since it was scammed?

 

if its under a year it gets the red mark

if its over a year it it gets the yellow/green mark 

if its over lets say 5 years then it doesn't get marked as said item probably wasn't scammed itself UNLESS there is proof said item was scammed and is over the set threshold then it just gets the yellow/green mark as the account in question could have been hacked/ exit scam

 

the most important thing of all about the scammer mark 

the red mark CAN NOT be appealed to go away

it only goes away with the user that got the item marked in the first place gets unbanned, if that happens

other then that the mark never goes way

 

that's about all I got to say about this, I want to hear feedback on what people think about this

 

i know nothing at all about this kinda stuff but if it went into a private inventory could you have the app/extension/thingy track the last trade and then have a label like "in private inventory" until the same item with the ID gets traded again so like when a train goes into a super long tunnel u dont know where it is but its in the damned tunnel and you know that, but then it comes out and then u know EXACTLY where it is

[Sir Spoon The Second]

1 hour ago, AwesomeSause said:

i know nothing at all about this kinda stuff but if it went into a private inventory could you have the app/extension/thingy track the last trade and then have a label like "in private inventory" until the same item with the ID gets traded again so like when a train goes into a super long tunnel u dont know where it is but its in the damned tunnel and you know that, but then it comes out and then u know EXACTLY where it is

probably the main problem is coding this

I don't have much knowledge when it comes to coding so for all ik this feature as whole could be a nightmare to code

[AwesomeSause]

16 minutes ago, Sir Spoon The Second said:

probably the main problem is coding this

I don't have much knowledge when it comes to coding so for all ik this feature as whole could be a nightmare to code

ah fair idk either, plus on top of that you gotta hack open steam too i guess