Make them give the key first or use a middle man. If you're trading an item for and item you can't really get scammed since you see what you're getting and what you're giving in the steam trade thingy.
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This. Plus of course, if you trade for tf2 keys or gifts etc, there's practically no way you can get scammed unless you fail to double check the contents of your trade. The only chance for a problem is to get a game that will be revoked later, but there is luckily minor chance for that. Steam strictly ban everyone who revoke the payment for the games/gifts they buy, so there are not exactly a ton of people doing that. And even if you get a revoked gift that you received in a steam trade, you can contact support with definite proof and they should reimburse you whatever you paid.
In any way, if you stay clean, i.e. trading with trusted people only, you are fine. Use your common sense and figure out if the deal is legit, the guy is legit, if something on the back of your mind tells you it's a bad idea because it's too good to be true, it maybe is. Have in mind that if scammers see you are a noob they'll try all they can to scam you (most typical and banal - gimme game now, I'll give you yours later).
Save this site too - http://steamrep.com/
And well I guess you are good to go.
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Check their reputation on steamtrades and ONLY steamtrades. Don't let them tell you to just look at their steam comments and use that as feedback cause scammers fake that. As long as they're good rep on steamtrades.com, they're most certainly legit.
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I think the high rep scammers are just impersonators though.
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I've seen one case where a high rep guy did scam openly and hid himself. It was basically the first time I've seen this tho, and I've seen a lot on steam trading. Conclusion for that - always beware and have in mind something might go wrong. It usually doesn't, but you never know.
In any case, to protect yourself from impersonators - steamrep, nickname history, game/friends/playtime count, date joining steam and already levels, badges etc. If someone who is level 1, join date a month ago, game count 6 and playtime 10 hrs claims he is a good and trusted steam trader, believe me, he isn't.
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Thats ridiculous though. To look at it like this is just crazy. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of great traders with extremely high amounts of rep.
It's also incredibly easy to see if they are impersonating. Install Enhanced Steam and pull up their Steam profile in the browser its installed in. There are direct links to their ST and SG profiles if you have that installed, and that can't be faked. You can also usually tell an impersonator just by the amount of games on the account and if their profile is private or not.
I also request anyone who adds me out of the blue to provide their ST profile, and I check the link to their Steam profile before I enter into a trade.
It's not hard to protect yourself from scammers if you check details before giving anything.
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Yes, that means that want 6 TF2 or Dota2 keys for what they're offering. IMO purchasing with keys is a great way to save money.
My general rule is if I'm trading something outside of the Steam trading window (i.e. a key), the person who goes first is the one with the CD-key. If its a key for key deal, it goes based on amount of rep. The majority of people I've traded with have all seemed to follow this rule, but I will break the rule depending on how I feel about the person. It really depends on what's being traded.
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This. Game key always goes first. In the case of a swap of game keys, the lower rep goes first.
Check the rep of the person. Check the profile of the person that's chatting with you to trade. Make sure that the person (profile) on SteamTrades goes to the exact same profile as the one you're chatting with. Not similar, not close, EXACTLY the same profile. If they added you as a friend in Steam, go to their profile through SteamTrades and see if it links back to the one you're now friends with.
But ultimately, its a gamble.
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Seriously, there's no real way of doing a trade, like the Steam Application does. How do I know I just won't be giving him or her the keys and he/she will just delete me right after and not give me my key/item or whatever.
And also, it says like
Half Life 3 - 6 Keys
Meaning they want 6 keys for it? (HL3 is obviously just an example)
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