Have you ever been scamed?
Bad people? Scammers are clever guys ripping off poor ones like you. If you got scammed, you know that you did a mistake and maybe you'll learn something in future.
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Yep, really. Statistically thread like this happens at least once per day, if not more often, and I can't believe how stupid some people actually are.
People are trying to scam me every once in a while, using better or worse methods. I never ever got scammed, and I'm trading quite a lot, also with people without rep.
I'm tired of seeing such thread over and over again, complaining how bad the world is, how bad the people are and finding million of other reasons instead of simply claiming that they were stupid for a moment and somebody made use of it.
Also, 99.9% of such threads are calling out threads, and this one is not an exception, OP removed calling out part.
If people weren't stupid, scamming wouldn't actually be worthy because of lack of people to scam, so it'd instantly disappear. The more stupid people are, the more scam attempts there will be.
But of course, you can feel sorry for the guy that he agreed on being robbed and is now complaining on the steamgifts about that. Not my business.
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You don't have to say it like that.. Its kind of rude and honestly makes you sound like an ass :/ I understand that a lot of us can be pretty stupid (I should know) but you could have comforted him instead of just asserting that he is dumb.
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The clever guy is the one who can admit that he acted like a dumb one.
I did many dumb things, and I probably could be considered stupid at given moment, and I'm not afraid to admit it, because people are learning on their mistakes.
But I'm not calling out people who made me dumb, neither make threads about such things.
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Well you could have first off not have even posted in this thread if you don't like seeing it, you don't moderate what is posted so just ignore it, its pretty easy. Secondly, Thank you for calling me clever lol. Also, it technically is usually morally wrong to lie and cheat and steal etc so technically this scammer and scammers in general are bad people.
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I don't moderate, but thread is made for discussion, and I decided to write what I think of discussed thread, instead of saying that I feel bad for a guy getting scammed (because I don't). There are enough of such guys below.
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Yeah that's true, you don't have to feel bad and you can post what you want to discuss but you could have definitely been less rude about it then. You could have said "Hey man, don't worry about it just keep going on" instead of calling him an idiot for falling for it when he is obviously already upset about it.
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I believe in positive cricism and the fact that if the guy aims to take any lesson out of it, he'll appreciate that I said what I think, and not what is proper in terms of being nice.
Sometimes you need to ignore good manners and say what you think about the situation, so perhaps the guy will learn something out of it. Only thanks to that I managed to achieve the knowledge I have today, because there were people who clearly gave me opinion about what I'm doing, even if it wasn't nice at first place. Perhaps we have just different view about that.
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Of course he learned his lesson, he just lost probably a shit ton of games, you really don't need to help him learn his lesson because he most certainly learned it. Coming from someone who lost probably 30 dollars from a scammer I can say it is quite scarring and most definitely is unforgettable. I agree that we definitely have different views on it though and since its done we can just leave it at that I guess.
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You're confusing trust and stupidity, and you're doing so solely to be derisive.
I continue to put myself at risk in trades by attempting to trade first whenever possible- and no matter how accomplished the other trader, scams are always going to be a risk.
And i don't regret that.
As apparently I'm too stupid for your company, I'll make my leave here.
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I don't know if you didn't understand anything what I said or simply made comment out of context.
If a guy is claiming to be somebody else, and you didn't check it carefully, it's being stupid. (90% of scams here?)
If a guy is claiming to give you something in a trade, and doesn't have any trade history neither reputation, and you trusted him, it can either be stupidity, or taking a risk, depending how you see that case.
You could also ignore both above cases and trade only with trusted traders, but that's going on easy mode.
OP didn't say how he got scammed, so I assumed 90% case of impersonating.
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Why would you not just clarify 'impersonation scams'?
That's sloppy, on your part.
And generally, I'd say recklessness, inexperience, and stupidity would all be valid factors there, not just the last one.
Not doing your research is definitely less of a trust scenario, but at the same time, everyone is inexperienced at some point, you have to account for that set of scammed users as well.
If you get repeat impersonation scammed, or scammed on anything major (regardless of scam type), then yeah, it does usually tend to fall on you for not vetting the interaction extra-thoroughly.
The problem here is your tone, non-directed phrasing, and casual use of stupidity as the sole variable involved. Your sentiment itself, now that you've clarified it, doesn't seem necessarily flawed.
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Oh no boohoo you're tired of seeing these threads. Cry me a river. How does OP's stupidity nullify a scammer being bad? With your logic, no one is a bad person because the victim put themselves into a situation with their own stupidity.
I can't believe how stupid your comment is. If anyone is stupid its you.
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Bad is a murderer killing you while you're asleep, because you didn't have any control over that situation, so you're not responsible for being killed.
If a guy comes to me, and say "Hello, I'm BongoGT, can you give me your items?" and I say "sure, because your steam nickname is BongoGT and you have the same avatar" then it's my own dumb move for falling into the trap, and I'm the one responsible for that situation, scammer was just a clever guy who made use of my stupidness.
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I never said that scammers were good, or that I agree with what they're doing, because I'm not. They are bunch of scumbags who decided to rip off stupid people instead of doing something productive.
But I can't say that they're not clever, apparently they're smarter than dumb people falling into their traps, so...
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Every scammer and cheat I have ever met, has been distinctly NOT clever, but simply opportunistic.
Being willing to do something most people wouldn't consider, is hardly clever-
Else you're considering all serial killers to be geniuses.
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Well, it can be shocking for you, but indeed I do consider serial killers being clever, sigh.
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Corrupt bullying/murderous police? Abusive parents? Abusive partners? Rapists?
You're ignoring the actual point to make a rather awkward statement, that's not helping your perspective any.
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I don't need to help my perspective, because it's my damn opinion and I could as well say that I believe in rainbow unicorns.
I do consider serial killers clever if they keep killing people without getting caught, doing a perfect crime is almost impossible, yet some people achieved to do one, e.g. you can google Elisa Lam case, one of a many which are closed (in terms of investigation) and the actual person behind it is still alive.
If you can't see that a perfect crime, such as killing multiple people without getting caught requires clever mind, even sometimes requires being a genius, then we have nothing to discuss further. Go help yourself.
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Lowlifes, definitely.
I don't know about not being clever, you have to give it to some of the,, they think of the craziest things just to rip you off.
Still, bunch of scumbags.
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So taking advantage of someone makes you a good person? or at least it doesn't make you a bad person. Is Madoff your idol?
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Stop implying things I never said in the first place. I called scammers clever, and not good people.
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"Bad people? Scammers are clever guys ripping off poor ones like you."
You question them being bad people. I'm not implying anything.
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They're not bad, and they're not good either. Those are people taking advantage of more stupid ones, I'm not here to judge if they're bad or not.
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They're taking advantage of people. Stupid or not, for their own gain. You can't justify that morally...
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It's like you are trying to justifice the scams, and it makes me think that you are a scammer.
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Of course, look at my profile, all of my 2500 games are coming from scammed people. I got rich, didn't I?
One doesn't need to be a scammer to not agree with a victim. Personally I have nothing against you, I simply think that you acted dumb, with which you can agree or not.
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so poor scammer, he just stole something to other person and that's good. I agree with this kind of actitude and i hope everybody be a scammer. is that what you want?
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They're not bad, and they're not good either. Those are people taking advantage of more stupid ones, I'm not here to judge if they're bad or not.
Actually, you can judge them by their thoughts as well as their actions, if you so choose. In order to scam someone you obviously have to harbor the intent to lie (by impersonation or other means) and steal from them. Then you have to act on that intent, which is bad.
I never said that scammers were good, or that I agree with what they're doing, because I'm not. They are bunch of scumbags who decided to rip off stupid people instead of doing something productive.
So, scumbags are not bad? OK.
Bad is a murderer killing you while you're asleep, because you didn't have any control over that situation, so you're not responsible for being killed.
You seem to have a very subjective and narrow definition of “bad." The bad character or actions of an individual are not dependent on whether the victim was aware, unaware, or naive.
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+1.
Well said. You leave your front door wide open, who is to blame? You or the guy who takes advantage of it? Both in equal measure in my opinion.
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I would say the person taking advantage of it by a margin of approximately 100%, give or take a few thousandths. If I left my front door wide open, does that automatically give you license to come into my house? No, not even legally; in some jurisdictions, I actually have the legal authority to shoot you if you do!
Perhaps you aren't aware, but an invitation is defined by the consent of the inviter, not the circumstances of the invitation. That is true when leaving one's door open (that is not an invitation to enter), leaving one's possessions in open view (that is not an invitation to take them), and even dressing seductively (that is not an invitation for sex). Or do you seriously think that the victim of a home intrusion should be blamed equally, including being held equally complicit for having their home intruded upon, with the intruder? Or blame the victim of a robbery equally to their robber? Or the victim of a rape equally to their rapist?
Though you may think that the plaintiff should also be charged for the crime of the defendant, I prefer to hold the wrongdoer responsible for their wrongdoing rather than minimizing their accountability by blaming the wronged.
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First off, I never said it was legal, nor did I say it was an open invitation. Nowhere did I say a plaintiff should also be charged for a crime. I despise thieves and liars, but it also doesn't excuse the victim entirely, especially when they've not done everything possible to keep it from happening in the first place. If you're stupid enough to leave your front door open and not expect anyone to rob you, you're both naive and ignorant, and perhaps being robbed is precisely the lesson you need to not let it happen again. Enough crimes happen without the victim facilitating it.
Why do you shut and lock your doors? Why do you lock and alarm your vehicles? Why do you tell your children not to talk to strangers? Why do you not carry all your money on you? If you're not taking measures to keep something from happening, then yes, you're part of the problem and subsequently should take some responsibility for your ignorance and your carelessness.
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I never said that you said it was legal or an open invitation either. Your statement, however, implies that both the victim and the culprit deserve to be blamed for the actions of the culprit, therefore meaning that the plaintiff should be held culpable for the defendant's crimes. Or do you mean that the victim should only hold moral responsibility, but that this complicity should not translate into indictment? Regardless, my point is that it is unfair and unreasonable to hold the victim culpable for the crimes of the victimizer, as unfair and unreasonable as it would be to charge the plaintiff for the crime of the defendant.
I despise thieves and liars, but it also doesn't excuse the victim entirely, especially when they've not done everything possible to keep it from happening in the first place.
So a victim is only innocent if they do "everything possible to keep [the event] from happening in the first place"? Do you not see how preposterous this requisite is? With that reasoning, victims are innocent only if they optimally perform every possible countermeasure to prevent the action that would victimize them. In other words, victims are never (or almost never) innocent because they fail to satisfy this condition—the satisfaction of which could be precluded by mere ignorance or naïveté. This alone is patently absurd, not to mention the fact that there is no clear explanation of what exactly "everything possible" entails.
If you're stupid enough to leave your front door open and not expect anyone to rob you, you're both naive and ignorant, and perhaps being robbed is precisely the lesson you need to not let it happen again. Enough crimes happen without the victim facilitating it.
In other words, a person is stupid because the actions they performed give others the opportunity to violate them, their property, or that for which they are responsible? By that metric, simply leaving the house is "stupid" because it opens up the opportunity for one to be raped, murdered, or assaulted. If we were take this standard to its most extreme conclusions, then I suppose everyone is stupid because we have the audacity to leave our padded cells and fallout shelters to traverse the dangerous world called "outside".
Less extremely, it sounds to me like you're just trying to find a reason to blame the victim for being victimized. You are, quite literally, making excuses for the hypothetical robber by accusing the victim of facilitating their own robbery and berating them for qualities you assume them to have simply because they did not act in a way that you, someone with hindsight knowledge of the event, would have. Instead of trying to find reasons to shame and blame the victim, perhaps you could direct your attention to the transgressor—you know, the one that caused the person to become a victim?
Oh, but of course not! After all, victims are only victims because they allow themselves to be. It doesn't matter if they're too stupid, ignorant, or naïve to be otherwise; that's not an excuse for the crime of being a victim! And it is indeed a crime, for otherwise we'd have to assume the unthinkable: that the victim is innocent and the real crime was committed by the criminal.
Why do you shut and lock your doors? Why do you lock and alarm your vehicles? Why do you tell your children not to talk to strangers? Why do you not carry all your money on you?
They're precautions taken to prevent the occurrence of unwanted events, such as a robbery, automobile theft, or abduction. Even if none of those precautions were taken, that doesn't mean that the victim is to blame. Is a child to blame for being abducted because they are so "ignorant" and "naïve" as to get into a stranger's car? Or is the abductor to blame for making the decision to abduct and take advantage of the child's ignorance and naïveté? Is the robbed person to blame for a robbery because they simply left their door open? Or is the robber to blame for the robbery because they made the decision to rob and take advantage of the situation? Maybe your warped perversion of justice believes the former, but I consider making the decision to commit a crime far more blameworthy than being the victim of that decision.
If you're not taking measures to keep something from happening, then yes, you're part of the problem and subsequently should take some responsibility for your ignorance and your carelessness.
Alternatively, we could hold the wrongdoer accountable for the wrong they did, since the problem is ultimately the fact that the wrong was committed in the first place, which only occurred because someone decided to do it. Who made the decision to rob the house? The robber or the victim? Apparently, you think the latter. If you didn't, why else would you be blaming them? Because they're "asking for it"?
All in all, you're just defending "thieves and liars" in favor of blaming the victim. That's not just pathetic. It's "naïve and ignorant".
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You have entirely too much free time.
You'll excuse me if I have better things to do than dispute my opinions, integrity and morality with some random self-righteous no one on the internet. Please spare me any further judgmental tomes and go preach to someone else. If you can't handle my opinion, then ignore it, get over it, and move on. Thank you kindly. ;)
And no, I'm not wasting my time reading all of that. I've said exactly what I meant. Nothing more. Nothing less.
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In other words, you can't sustain a challenging discussion, so instead of responding substantively, you'll just ridicule and insult the other person for daring to criticize or question those flimsy, weak excuses for arguments. Not only does that reflect more on you than it does me, but it will hopefully be a helpful indicator to anyone reading this thread that they shouldn't bother wasting their time trying to argue with you, since you'll just weasel out and act like a child once you're backed into a logical corner.
Don't even bother expressing your "opinions" if you lack the ability to defend them. It'll save all of us some time (we all have better things to do than deal with your motivated reasoning), and you won't have to embarrass yourself like you just did when someone calls you out on your bullshit.
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OK pal, think what you will. Have a wonderful night. :)
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This is called "victim blaming."
It's quite telling when someone does it.
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It's like opening a door to your house for anonymous guy claiming that he's your lost brother, and being shocked when the guy robs your house.
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You can blame someone for being naive, but you cannot blame a naive person for being taken advantage of by an immoral person. In doing so, you are justifying the act of the immoral person (no matter how much you are claiming otherwise in this thread).
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If the person chose to get scammed through being naive, I can't see a reason why I should not blame him for acting dumb.
It's not his fault that scammer found him and tried to scam exactly him instead of somebody else, I agree.
But it was his fault that he felt into scammer's trap, because he could know better.
That's two different things.
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You're essentially blaming the victim, thereby deflecting accountability and agency from the actor to the victim because of the event's perceived preventability via the actions of the victim. Let me guess: in your opinion, it's also a girl's fault when someone else decides to rape her because of the some weak rationalization on the rapist's part (e.g., her dress, location, behavior, etc.)?
While it's appropriate to recognize that a given behavior, action, or decision was unwise or "stupid", this doesn't necessarily mean that the victim of a wrongful act is therefore to blame for their own victimization, especially when the action was committed by another agent—doubly so when the cause of the victim's poor decisions were founded in ignorance. This doesn't mean that victims are wholly innocent, but it does mean that the culpability of a given wrongdoing is proportional to the impact of the participant. Tell me, are you meting proportional blame when your go-to adjectives for the victim and the perpetrator are "stupid" and "clever", respectively?
So far, all I've seen you do is berate the OP for their victimhood and praise the alleged scammer for their purported ingenuity at taking advantage of others, despite knowing nothing about the circumstances of the encounter. Should we advise Steam to ban panilos, too, for having the temerity to speak up about getting scammed?
I don't like these pointless, routine threads of users complaining about being scammed and frequently outing the scammer, either, especially when the majority of those incidents are caused by a lack of prudence. I'm not going to turn into a victim blamer and scammer apologist as a result, though, especially when I know literally nothing about what happened. Apparently, you disagree.
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I wouldn't say all scammers are clever, but it depends more how easily is to scam the other person.
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It's taking advantage of people. It doesn't matter whether or not the victim is stupid, the "clever" scammer is still doing something unfair and unjust.
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Although I would not have worded it quite the way Archi did I do agree with taking self-responsibility. Most people fall for scams because of greed. We are all greedy at one time or another. It is the wise person who recognized when they are being greedy and stops to ask questions. Scammers are successful because our greed gets in the way of asking the most important question one can ask when being made an offer, "Is this too good to be true?"
I don't know the specifics of how OP got scammed so I am making a generalization here. Nevertheless, the point Archi is making if valid. When making trades or deals it is wise to take is slow, ask questions and be cautious. This is not something you should only do for Steam trades but something you should practice in all aspects of life. If you learn from this experience and take self-responsibility for your mistakes there is a good chance you will not be scammed a second time.
Venting about being scammed can be therapeutic but if the expectation is that someone else must do something so this doesn't happen to you again, then you've learned nothing and will likely be scammed again.
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Clever Guys? So say I trade with a guy with average REP and i give him my key and he just takes it and blocks me. Is he a "Clever Guy" and is it my damn fault for trading?
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This does not make scammers any better. I'm totally agree with you, it's always a mistake of the one who got scammed, but I don't think victim blaming is the best idea.
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No matter how you try to spin it, stealing by using misleading tactics or preying upon trust or benefit of the doubt is still stealing.
Scammers are not necessarily clever, and people who get scammed are not necessarily 'poor ones' as you put it.
Effectively complimenting scammers and mocking the scammed in the face of someone who just got taken for a ride? That's a real douchey move, dude. I hope that this is an unfortunate effect of a language barrier.
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Be serious, Archi. You shouldn't congratulate scammers. Scammers are common thieves and they should be treated like thieves and they should be punished like thieves. -_-
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Don't worry buddy, I have been scammed pretty bad so I completely feel you
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An honest trustworthy middleman should be in the mix.
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They do have those kinds of bot websites that do that however being new to trading I can say for all of us that we don't really feel comfortable doing it. Plus I don't know how it works lol.
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Oh also don't forget to report their steam account for scamming you or else they got away scott free. I don't actually know how much it affects them but its got to teach them a lesson.
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You were careful I hope to report the profile correctly, and not from the link the scammer provided to you? In many cases scammers are impersonating another user and will give you a link to a good trader's steamrep page claiming it as theirs. The unfortunate consequence is that often perfectly legitimate traders get reported by those people scammed by a scammer.
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How do people keep falling for these scams anyways? We get this topic every week.
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You were probably just unlucky. When I got my rune armor trimmed, he gave it back after doing so.
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I've been scammed as well, once but that experience gave me good life lesson. So I guess I wasn't really mad.
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hope you didn't lose too much in the trade (if it was some bundle keys you can even laugh a bit later :3 ).
just ignore some people in here that think you are to blame.
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I have a steam past around 1 year and I joined here 5 months ago that roughly means I look in to trades when i have 4 months steam experience. I didn't know about steamrep or anything and kind of figured that steam comments are just for show. So i couldn't trust just anybody and i had to just take a risk so i did with someone. At that moment my mind set is ready to lose a game cause i didn't know how to trust this guy. Long story short, i couldn't trade cause he traded with someone else the game i want but Imo it's the mind set here you should now when you are using internet you can't be confident about certian things when you are inexperienced. Again imo i could say someone coming here and calling out that he/she was scammed is part of that confident. And you have a forum like this which taught me the ways of steam a lot. So i agree with JustArchi above but again i agree with the part he is a little harsh about it.
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Never been scammed because if it looks to good to be true it is
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In such cases I really don't mind the calling out part because I'm old enough to make up my own mind concerning calling out and because that SG support is overloaded with 30K+ tickets the scammers have the time between a victim that makes a support ticket and the time that support can react to that ticket too make more victims.
Also there's much worse being done on SG than some petty calling out like re-gifting, not activating gifts, SG trade scamming and dishonest CV boosting and farming.
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Last week a guy wrote me he wanted to trade with me ... just added me via steam ... he took 4 of my keys first ... because "you have no reputation" ... he gave me nothing in return ... than blocked me on steam ... thank you for nothing Dario!
And beside reporting that guy I can do nothing, right?
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Wait a second, does he live in Mar del Plata Argentina and does he have a yellow skull in his profile picture?
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Yes that's the guy ... i still have a link to his steam profile ... but unfortunatelly i forgot to screenshot the chat ... he seems like to have good reputation ... but he scammed me =(
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I can't believe we were scammed by the same guy. The worst thing is that i can see him playing quietliy with my objects in his inventory. Are the four cs go keys in his inventory the ones which he stole you?
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I had luck that i got an better offer for the good games ... so i only traded him 4 rather cheap games!
Its quite annoying that we can watch him play our games peacefully ... but i think shit happens ... I'm out of ideas ... I learned from it.
I'm putting way to much energy in beeing angry about him.
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Do you have the trade offer list still in your offers history? At least try to make a SteamRep ticket with it.
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Hey didn't comment my trade ... just added me on steam ... he probably knew exaclty how to scam on trade-newbies
I wrote a Steam and a Steamgifts report ... but in the way it happend ... it is hard to proove it =/
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An impersonator just tried to add me on Steam - one so fiendishly clever the likes of which the world has never seen, amusingly enough.
Would posting a screenshot of his profile count as calling out, I wonder? This guy doesn't even have a Steamgifts account, and his subtlety is really something worth sharing.
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That's it. I was scammed today
What do you think about scammers? Why are there bad people in our world?
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