Recently, I submitted a report against a scammer. He was tagged, but to my surprise, one of the mods said I should be careful trading with "obvious scammer alts" and linked me here http://forums.steamrep.com/pages/faq/ On this page, it says: "Scammers frequently make new Steam accounts (or buy Steam accounts) to avoid bans placed on their main account. An obvious scammer alt is a trader who has a great deal of knowledge of the values of items and the Steam economy, yet has a very recent Steam account or very low hours played in TF2. Trading with these accounts is not permitted. The following clues help identify an obvious scammer alt: Low hours of TF2/DotA with a deep knowledge of item values New Steam start date, but eager to trade high value items Private backpack, and with no rep threads Quickselling fresh items that are less than a day old in their backpack Nearly empty game backpack except for a few high value items with very recent history" It then goes on to highlight some, in my opinion, insane penalties. Firstly, I understand why this rule is here, but it could easily get many legit traders in a lot of trouble with you guys. Traders who get tons of trade offers a day, often very high value, don't have time to comb through every single persons profile and interrogate the suspicious people, and they don't always have time to look up people they are trading with on a server. On top of this, a lot of these "obvious scammer" clues aren't too obvious. "Low hours of TF2/DotA with a deep knowledge of item values" -I've met plenty of legit traders in this situation. Some trade and don't play. "New Steam start date, but eager to trade high value items" -Could be a small indicator. "Private backpack, and with no rep threads" -I was a noob trader who did this at one point, and I still don't have any rep threads. "Quickselling fresh items that are less than a day old in their backpack" -I do this all the time. "Nearly empty game backpack except for a few high value items with very recent history" -Could be an indicator, I would agree. I'd also like to ask, why is this rule here if it can cause damage to legit traders? Yes, we must be aware, but I think its asking too much, specifically for high offer volume traders, and I would go on a limb here and say almost all legit traders. There has to be a safety net or something. If you KNOWINGLY, as in, go out of your way to trade with scammers, then you should be banhammered. Thoughts? I could be misinterpreting this somehow.
They are indicadores. There's one thing that you need to understand , you as a trader should check with who your trading with, no matter if you do 100000 a day or 1. We can argue about about the rules, but rules can't be different to serve the needs of a few. When I'm doing a trade with a person I check all of that and sometimes I don't think that I should trust that people and I don't trade with him. So the point is check all that and then if you still have doubts don't trade. There are some sites that help, like: rep.tf, outpost, backpack, SR (of course), google, etc... I'm open to suggestions, but if your asking- "should he give a break to big trades?" My answer is a NO!. Suggest rules and and what we should change! WE are open to ideas.
Mainly replying to this, but my thoughts on the matter; In my opinion people may have played games off steam or on other accounts or loads of other ways that mean they are not stupid, they may enjoy the game instantly and they may do big trades because they enjoy the game and the items. Now, if you go on a game and you want something and trade and someone with few hours but have the item you want, you will buy it as you want it. If you check his rep status and it is clean then why should you not trade him. Now why should it matter if this guy scammed someone the fact is you want that item, they are selling it and it is a game and he has no bad rep . If you get this massive steamrep tag saying oohoo don't trade with this guy because it may have been a scammed item or you got another penalty for it it just seems stupid. I think it is over the top as it seems that some people just get warnings/bans for stupid reasons After all this is a game and not a bank full with loads of people's money, yes you want the most for your item but if you really cared about them you wouldn't sell them for 'profit'. I must agree I find some of these things stupid. At the end of it, it is really an item a player wants, the other player sells and so you go for it, you don't know if it was scammed or not as long as his reputation was clear then why should you not trade with him. It just seems over the top.
I agree with you in many things. The one I cannot agree is "whats the problem if he scammed someone"- This is a game, but these items represent money, real money, some kids ask their parents to receive the money to buy items, etc... Some people that work spend some of his money in items, etc... There are sites that make tons of money selling items. To get to the point, most of the items represent money that someone spent or that someone can earn- we SR, FoG are to where to police your trades, but we cannot support people making profit with from scammer or giving them profit- I'm going to to give you an example: Imagine you buy a cell phone from a guy in the street, if the cell phone is stolen you can get in trouble (At least in Portugal and probably europe) - because the law does not support you knowingly buying stolen items, that guy selling the phone had no message in his head saying " I stole the phone" but it's obviou... My point is, don't criticise, suggest! Help us make better rules, we are not here to punish we are here to educate. I'm open to ideas, let's brain storm about it! PS: If you see any errors, please tell me. I just got home and I don't feel like checking every word Related: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/...it-for-the-trading-with-scammers-rule.108726/
It seems my post didn't go through >_< Tio, I strongly disagree with you. It isn't practical to have this rule in any sense. It's like going to a super market and reading every single nutrition label - a good thing to do, but not practical. I suggest you rework the rule or completely trash it. And you said to not criticize and to help, but criticism is a form of feedback.
Sure. But we need suggestions. We all know that sometimes that rule does not work. Give us a hand. What do you think we could change? I strongly disagree with not having that rules.
I can't think of anything off the top of my head...errr...maybe like "knowingly trading with scammers."?
Yes. But is it right to forgive 3, 4 ,20 mistakes? We do our best to do it, but sometimes people don't care about who they are trading with, thats why we warn first. (brainstorming)
There wouldn't be mistakes if the rule wasn't here, if that makes sense. We shouldn't have to comb through every single trade offer we get. I bet most people have traded with scammers or alts many times because almost no one checks. And yes, most traders don't care who they trading with. Why are we going to read the nutrition label on every single food we buy? It's a waste of time.