Umm, first make sure they aren't impersonators just using a legitimate trader's rep as their own.
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Ok, as long as you've let support know about it already, you've done everything you're allowed to on the site. Unfortunately, trying to openly warn others about an individual makes more trouble for yourself with the mods.
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Are you sure they're not impersonators?
When someone links to their rep page here, make sure you use the link on that page right under the profile pic to load their Steam profile. Then check to make sure it is exactly the same as the profile that originally contacted you.
Sorry, ninja'd.
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Yes, iam sure. I have gotten scammers that try to do that too, but i always make sure.
Just a bit ago for example, i had a user here with like 70 rep and ask for all my games in exchange for whatever, i checked steamrep.. and hes banned.
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Nop, on the SteamRep it said he had a alternate account too which was private and trade banned. Maybe he kept one account clean for higher scams
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I guess you could report him to SG support for having multiple accounts then, at least.
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well, you can't trust anyone :3
always be suspicious.
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I know (and reported) 1 high SG trade rep user that scammed myselves and at the minimum 5 other SG users. So OP does not imagine a urban (SG) legend....
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Well, iam not that familiar with trading.
But watching ppl saying that they got scammed (by ppl who tried to scam me before) really sucks since you cant call out ppl or give rep without finishing a trade..
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What I did is taken screenshots of the trade and made a SG support ticket so SG support can see that I'm not making things up or trying to hurt a SG user for anything other than scamming. Also the 5 SG users I speak of were scammed in the very same way and manner as myselves.
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I took screenshots of our convo and explained what happened and his Steamrep ban. Hopefully it helps someone if they are able to do something
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I mean, every system is susceptible to abuse. There are people who trade rep, so that contributes to the problem, but once in a while there are people who use their good rep to abuse others, even if they earned it legitimately. It happens, but hopefully not super often.
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I've done a lot of trading here and never had any problems. But I have also been quite cautious and avoided a bunch of traders that looked suspicious. I've seen individuals requesting +rep in return for entering giveaways here or chances to win games elsewhere - and getting it. And so I often started checking a sample of the users leaving +rep to make sure they also looked legit...
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I try to be as cautious as possible too. But theres others who arent.. i just wanted to know if there was something i could do to warn future "victims"
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I know the feelings but there's is the SG no call out rule and when you try to warn others about a scammer here on SG you break that rule. But you can post it on your Steam activity to warn your Steam friends without breaking SG rules.
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It can get worse, if you look at for example (but there are others) the Steam IndieGala group there are people actively posting on the main page things like: +rep for +rep add me and there are even people asking 100 or more gems for a +rep while there are others that have 10 or more kind of +rep formats in English and Russian.
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Anyone who is familiar with me knows that I get my spare cash for gaming from art commissions. And as well as the stuff I post here and on other sites that are known to people here I also do some more 'specific' requests. And on a site that I get certain requests I have often seen people saying they will drop Steam keys if they get a certain amount of +rep. And they have often gotten a LOT of +rep in a short space of time.
I'm not saying the system is broken - there are many great and trustworthy traders here. Just that people should be aware and cautious.
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As a trader i can say that reps are sometimes "bunched up" following the release of certain bundles/ bundle games that attract a lot of interest of other traders/game enthousiasts/game collectors. Also I have seen that the SG reps have more value to a trader than posting reps on a users Steam profile. I agree that there will always be people that try to cheat the system.
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Rep here is more reliable than rep on Steam because you can't delete negative rep yourself here.
So even if someone forges a high rep then start scamming people, once they will get a few negative feedbacks, no one in their right mind will trade with them.
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Yes, that's exactely what a great SG trader I know said to me in another SG discussion :-)
TL DR: SG rep is far more valuable and secure than Steam rep.
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By SteamRep i meant the site, not rep on steam. (Just in case :D)
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It's absolutely true - and also as people can get banned for multiple accounts here that should be another factor in reliable +repping.
But I've still seen people trading for easy +rep here plenty of places and getting it as there are no checks that a trade has actually taken place. And I've seen people profiting from building good rep here cheaply and then scamming a large number of people for popular titles in a short space of time.
I'm certainly not criticising this site which I feel does the best it can with the resources available. Just the more people know the better prepared they are...
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Just look at these groups, it's a lot worse than you think lol.
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OMG foe, I thought this just was going on at the main pages of Steam groups like the IG and BS groups but those groups are dedicated groups that only serve the purpose of cheating the system....
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Yeah just imagine the ones in foreign languages that I don't even know how to find where they can coordinate more secretly. :/
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LOL and the Administrators of this groups are SteamRep Scammers. Classic
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Wow.
Well now I know to start checking for these kind of groups too.
I know there isn't a lot of people in them, but still good to do for a quick check.
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Could just go through and manually blcok everyone in those groups if you trade a lot and save some time. Nice of them to congregate.
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Wish there was a tool to add all those members to my block list.
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Saw some of them myself, it should fall under feedback misuse but I'm not sure, and that's why I never reported them.
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Some 'high rep' can be used to complete such actions. During my stay on this site, I've spent a nice chunk of my time over on the trade section than these discussion threads.. I can say I seen my share of weirdness when it comes to scammers and such.
There are some people i seen work up around 200 rep within a month or two. trading cards/bundle stuffs. Then when they feel 'comfy' of this, scamming will become uber easy. I once seen a person have over 400 rep the obtained over a couple of months, then they decided to go fraudulent crazy on buying gifts / even HB bundles? A week or so passed by, then i believe they aquiredd abouts 120+ of NEGATIVE rep after peoples games started to get Revoked
Always keep an eye out for how long they have been a member here, it adds a little bit more security and safeness.
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Yeah, that might be the case. I just checked his trades and its mostly cheap stuff like cards or gems and hes been here for 4 months.
I think ppl shouldnt be allowed to rep on card trades..
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Seeing this, I personally (just talking about myselves) only trade games for games I don't own because I find that SG is a site about games and also It makes my "life" as a trader more easy when not dealing with lots of alternative currency like cards, gems, refs, and different keys.
Edit; sorry I meant refined metal off course, refs
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Thats not the issue with that, iam not saying everyone trading cards is a scammer.
Cards arent a big issue, you can trade for them relatively easy and safe. However i dont think rep should be given for it since its way too easy to abuse it. Ppl can simply trade like 100 cards, get 100 rep and scam other players with the "i have higher rep" thing.
To make trading a bit safer(yes, there would still be loopholes) it would be better if rep was given only on game trades. Especially considering all the rep trades and scams ppl do.
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Games, as in Games. Whatever the currency involved be it cards paypal or keys.
If someone decides to sell a game for cards, thats fine.. the responsability is on the ppl involved, But theres a game and a payment involved.
However, cards for cards, or cards for gems.. theres no payment involved. Cards arent a game, its a "cheap currency" to get bundles, and trading a currency for a currency. Its like saying "you give me 10c and i give you 10c". Why not just say rep for rep at that point? THIS is what doesnt deserve rep.
Or do you disagree on that?
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Well, the example i mentioned above was like that, it was all cards and gems only, thats why i said that :D
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There is only one type of rep that actually matters(Assuming it's real rep) and that's going 2nd in a trade for items outside of a steam trade window. Because that's the time when someone had the option of scamming but chose not to.
Any trade that happens entirely inside a trade window is meaningless in terms of rep because there was no option for either party to cheat. Any trade where you go 2nd any rep you get is meaningless because you were not the one in a position to scam.
Of course this all assumes that the rep is actually real and it doesn't account for people selling games and doing chargebacks.
But really, +rep is meaningless. On your steam profile AND on steamtrades equally. Completely meaningless, don't use it as a barometer for determining if someone is trustworthy, seriously, anyone can give anyone +rep and there is no way to check if the two actually did a trade.
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Thats why i always try to do some research on who iam trading with and if i find no proof of them being trustworthy.. i wont go first.
Theres too many idiots around too trust everyone, but theres some naivee ppl who trust them unfortunely :/
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i guess you have to be careful.. idk what is your average value of trade, but i dont trade for expensive stuff so the risk is very low to get scammed, and even if, is lose like 1 sack of gems/1 tf2 key max. The higher the value of the trade, the higher is the risk to meet scammers.. for high value trades i wouldnt trust anyone. Once an impersonator tried to scamm a dozen of people with my nick and avatar, he had success with 3-4 of them and one of them shocked me because he said he lost a >300$ tf2 item.. man.. i wouldnt do such trade with a stranger
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The last one wasnt even sneaky. he just straight up said "i want all your games"... i was like.. Oh..okay.. heres another one :D
It just sucks that they can get rep from cheap card trades and use it to scam others
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wow, shameless for real :| heh, sadly trading is always a risk, thats a fact
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Perhaps SteamGifts should sync with SteamRep, maybe once a week or something, and anyone with a red shield should be banned from posting in the trades section?
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That could help, but i think that would be too much work for support to implement
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It'd actually be <10 lines of code most likely.
Just calling to the SteamRep API http://steamrep.com/api.php with a user index, it'd flag red users, then execute a ban command on all the flagged users. Set it in cronjob for once every week and...profit?
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Oh.. not too familar with coding :D
That could help alot of new players, because even tho they can just check Steamrep.. alot of ppl dont even know about it.
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Banning people blindly because some third-party sevice said so is the most stupid thing you could've implemented.
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"banned from posting in the trades section", not whole SG. Third party or not, if one got him/herself banned on steamrep, that's quite something, that doesn't just happen randomly. And they only talked about the transition to be automated, not the banning process. That's like if you say that one's not trustworthy and I trust YOUR judgement, then I also can skip dealing with the person. In this case SG and Steamrep are two big, trustworthy trading platforms on the level of admins.
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I don't think the website can limit postings to a certain section yet. It's either all access or can't access anything at all, which makes sense because I don't want scammers to enter giveaways, as they already have dubious morals.
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SR and SG being reliable? A site where anyone can accuse anyone for anything? A site where people judge if somebody is trustworthy or not based on some could-be-photoshopped screenshots? A site where somebody can +rep or -rep you for anything? Where even people being scammed by an impersonator can -rep innocent guy?
We have other definition of being reliable then. And out of your curiosity, I don't have bad rep on any of those sites.
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He wasnt talking about the sites themselves or their flaws.. but the ppl who run it. They wouldnt ban without proof, fake screenshots can be disproved. The fake -rep and such are the users, not the admins.
If we go by your logic, scammers basicly get a free pass.
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If we go by your logic, innocent people are getting hurt because some retard can't tell if a guy is impersonator or not.
TBH I prefer that retards get hurt rather than innocent people. Reputation today is used only by scammers to know who to impersonate, and to blindly tell other users that he is trustworthy.
No, there is no best solution or best system. Blindly following a reputation which can be built/ruined by everyone is even worse solution than ignoring it all over.
That's why I never go first when I see that an user has less games than me, less steam level than me, and can't have any strong argument why I should trust him more than he should trust me. And I don't need a site which will tell me if "other people think he scammed someone, which may or may not be true". I could as well ask my ArchiBoT for result of RandomBoolean() to judge that.
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Iam assuming by retard you mean me.
This post isnt about impersonators, if ppl get scammed by an impersonator, thats their fault for not confirming. This is about HIGH REP people using that rep to scam others. NOT impersonators.
Sure it sucks that ppl -rep someone because of an impersonator, but thats not what this is about. And by my logic, bans wouldnt be as simple as you are probably thinking. No one would get banned over an impersonator, you should read more about the topic before coming to judgement.. Even foe said it below, bans arent are simple as ppl accusing others.
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I never called you retard, and I didn't mean to insult anyone. If somebody did something stupid such as failing for scam, well, he should already know that he acted like a retard and accept that fact.
Personally I don't care because I wouldn't be a target neither a customer of such system, so I'm fine with any decision, regardless if it's "yes do it" or "no, please don't". I'm just stating the fact that I think your idea is stupid, which you don't have to agree with.
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First of all, it wasnt my idea.
And the idea of a PROVED scammer getting banned is NOT wrong at all. Not even a bit.
They can make a new account sure, but thats like saying "why arrest a criminal if hes just gonna do it again"
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If you arrest a criminal, he can't do illegal things again. And if he goes out of the prison after X years, there's strong chance that he won't do illegal things again. VAC/ban is permanent, without an appeal.
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Not to mention that I saw a TON of awful "+rep me here and you'll have a chance to win my crappy bundle game" or "-rep that guy because he scammed me [link]". You think that people won't rep a guy to have a chance to win something for free, just because it's unethical?
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Da fuck are you going on about?.. You should read before replying..
Did i ever say thats right? Thats the whole fucking point. Rep shouldnt be given out so easily and scammers should get banned (with proof)
You're just going off ranting based on idiot users. The ones who would deal with bans and such would be admins.
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Yes, I read it. And I repeat once again, I can now run a (fake) GTA V giveaway for +rep and I can get +6000 rep in one week. That's why rep is pointless and should not be blindly followed.
Admins have better things to do than spending their limited time on saving users from their stupidity, and banning a guy who will make new account, get +rep the same way I posted above, and repeat the process. Nobody is getting paid for doing so here, why should one bother?
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Steamrep is a site made exactly for that, so yes admins can spend their time dealing with that. If SG did work out a "sync" with them, it would simple show they have been banned with more then enough proof on steamrep.
The +/- rep is unrelated to that.
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On SteamRep, your default rep is white. Anyone can give you a yellow rep -- that's not what we're talking about. Red rep means that staff and community came to a consensus on the individual after scrutinization.
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Do you really think that process of marking user as red is fast? Do you really think that scammer marked so by SR will still try to scam people from the same account? Do we live in other worlds?
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No. It's purposefully not. That way people aren't innocently flagged.
No. Scammers will always scam.
Yes. I'm just trying to do something about it whereas you're complaining about paranoid delusions of not trusting the people that tell you who to trust.
Feel free to be the pessimist to my optimist.
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I'm not pessimist, I'm realist. Being a scammer actually requires more knowledge and social engineering skills than most of the people here have. Solution mentioned by the OP is not the solution to the problem, it'll actually only create additional problems. For now support don't have to deal with scammers that much, apart from handling fake -rep. After implementing such auto banning, auto flagging or whatever you call it, support will get ton of tickets regarding users who do have scam status claiming that they're innocent. Of course we can ignore those users, but it acts like a VAC ban, user could get a VAC over 5 years ago, learned a lot since then, and is still "marked" just by being an idiot for short amount of time.
Anyway, as pointed above, I don't care that much anyway. If you can't see my point, probably I'm wasting my time because you won't see it anyway.
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You're really wasting your time since you cant even read properly.
- This topic is complety unrelated to your rants.
- This was not my suggestion.
- The suggestion isnt even an auto ban, its a ban handled by admins on a trustable site.
- If they get banned, they are banned. Its not a vac ban. They made the mistake and fucked someone over.
- Not punishing scammers is the stupiest thing ever.
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So even worse, your suggestion is to increase time spent by volunteers here to do pointless things such as fighting with users stupidity and banning scammers who will keep scamming regardless.
Yes, now I'm sure I'm wasting my time with explanation here.
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Yes, you are wasting you're time here. You follow no logic, just your "i only care about myself" reasoning.
" increase time spent by volunteers here to do pointless things such as fighting with users stupidity and banning scammers who will keep scamming regardless."
You should think more before typing or doing some research.
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If I cared only about myself, I wouldn't post here at all because I don't care about scammers at all.
I tried to explain to you why cg will never ever waste his precious time on implementing something ineffective like this, because I'm a developer myself and I know how such things are being done. Especially hobby projects.
But sure, you have your own point, I have my own. I won't prohibit you from posting. It's your choice how you spend your free time anyway.
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Its only ineffective because you have the wrong idea, and iam not gonna bother explaining further when you dont even bother to understand what this is about and just rant off about random scams. Being a developer has nothing to do with this.
Anyway, keep your point, ill keep mine. Have a good one.
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Do you think we simply shouldn't have a site that tries to make people aware of potential scammers? It seems to me that you simply don't like SR for whatever reason.
I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you've never actually reported someone on SR as some of your comments are inaccurate.. Unless things have changed recently, it's not an easy process to get someone marked as a scammer even when you have blatant proof due to the fact they want to ensure they don't mark any innocent people.
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Yes, we do have one, it's called SteamRep, and we don't need to repeat the process here.
On every scamming attempt, in total, innocent people are spending more than an hour to make screenshots, post the thread, get the answers from community regarding situation, finally time of admins to judge if it's proper, and finally, sometimes, in rare cases, a ban will be done, and when it won't be done everybody wasted time for nothing.
And scammer will spend 2 minutes on making new account, 2 minutes on making a free GTA V thread for +rep, and will scam 10 more people before you actually make a thread about that.
Keep fighting. I always admired idealistic people.
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I think there may have been some sort of a misunderstanding as you're answering questions I never asked while ignoring what I did ask.
No need to reply though, it's clear that you're very set in your opinion. You believe that since we can't beat the scammers, we shouldn't waste our time trying to stop them.
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No, no. We should do something about that if what we're doing is effective at least in one small percent.
Fighting with scammers is like trying to stop the river.
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Fighting with scammers is like trying to stop the river.
Yeah, those are called dams.
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Never trust rep. Never ever trust rep. Not on someones steam profile and certainly not on a website like SG either.
I tried arguing against having any rep system at all when SGv2 was in beta but unfortunately, any solution beyond the facebook way of trust requires far more staff and staff time to be viable.
Just.. There are very, very few trading portals that have a +rep system that isn't systematically abused so I'd strongly recommend never ever ever ever trusting some randoms on the internet saying "This guy is totally legit" no matter where they say it or in what format.
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Yeah, never trust rep+. I've seen people offering keys of a game to people who write "rep+" on his profile.
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Haha, thanks for the offer :D
But dont worry, i wont get scammed so easily. I only made this threath to see if there was something i could do to warn others that are new to trading
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Once there was one high rep scammer on Steam Trades, he had over 110 rep and he scammed someone, he thought he could get away, but nope, the friend of the scammed guy made a thread about that on Steam Trades with proof, ppl started stalking the scammer and got him banned from here and marked as a scammer on Steam rep, but besides that guy I never saw anyone who has lots of rep in Steam gifts who tried to scam, there was cases of rip off, but not really scam.There was once a case of some guy who offered Never Alone that got revoked after from all buyers, but he didn't got that much rep.
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Well, the last one i dealt with (like 3h ago) had like 60 rep. Oh how fortunate that i have comments on my profile :P
Does this count as calling out?
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60 rep is not a high rep user, 100+ will be.
No, this is not calling out, since you didn't say his name.
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Yeah, on that guy you say it says he is a scammer, he is marked as scammer in Steamrep, I suggest you installing Steam Enhanced Addon, so you can see if ppl are marked as scammers or not and also see their SG link, without needing to search manually.
http://www.enhancedsteam.com/
Anyways you have 3 rep, lots of scammers will try to hunt you.
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Yeah, iam rather new to this sites trading, since i started posting here i get at least 5 daily scammers.
I always check if they are scammers, but i might try that out.
I mainly made this topic to see if there was a way to deal with them without calling them out or at least bring enough attention to it so some ppl be more carefull in trading and always check who they are dealing with, it sucks seeing ppl who got scammed by ppl who tried scamming you
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I just got a game removed that i bought a year ago from a user with 700+rep. Shit happens
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He/She could've gotten the game from someone else who was a scammer. I had this ordeal happen to me a year or so ago. Luckily Valve returned to me everything I traded for it
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Yap Yap. They will reverse it for ya. This is only with Steam gifts though. not retail keys
Below is a snapshot of my chat with steam support over the issue
And again, this trade was made with a very high rep person, however when the game was removed it had another users name. After doing research and stuffs, i found out that game and went though 5 diffy people before I got it and had it revoked
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So.. since i have started using the trades forum more often, i have been flooded by scammers adds, but that not really an issue.
My issue is that theres several high rep players here trying to scam others using their rep , some are even banned on SteamRep. Is it possible to do anything about that? Like include screenshots of an attempt to scam and report to support... or is getting scammed and give negative rep the only way to somewhat warn others?
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