4-pack trade thing. (How to trade with collateral)

Alright here is my issue. I want to get space engineers, but I don't want to use up all my steam money to get it as there are other things on my wishlist. While learning about the game a guy offers me on the space engineer forum that he wants to get a 4 pack of SE and gift one of the copys of it to me for $14 in exchange. So i'm new to trading and I'm naturally paranoid so I'm a little skeptical.

The way he proposed doing it: (He refers to Notably Dangerous Festive Holy Mackerel as fish.)

That sounds pretty fishy, I wouldn't give him anything until I had received the game copy.

What's to say you won't have you buy his crate for $7 and then remove you and ignore you?

nope. Any "scheme" with partials making "trust" doesn't work. What DOES work:

- Use a MM to trade a item or items for paypal (say you buy his Bills hat and a key or 2 or w/e valuable).
- Then he buys with the money the game.
- You trade the game vs the bills + keys you bought.

I do not have a paypal account, can it be done with steam wallet money?

hmm, could, but it is problematic. for the above proposal is to get items up to value of the money spend. To make sure you buy the correct item you will have to overpay for such item to make other ppl not buy those items.
That means you lose money on it.

But yes, it is possible, but you will need to leave enough margin between that not somebody else buys it. If he runs, that margin is some he will be gaining for the collateral he gave you.

But I strongly advice you to only take items that are easily traded off. Not some hard to sell items you cannot sell for a long time and only with loss.

What about the middle man idea instead?

the middleman was only relevant with a paypal trade.

So here is some dialogue of what he proposed:

Also how do we get a middle man?

Issue resolved. I had too much doubt and called it off.

Not that I have too much experience in this field but...
There are three parties: Seller, Buyer, and the MM.
The Seller has a 4-pack of games worth (x) altogether and the game is worth (y) alone.
The Buyer trades the MM (x)+(y) worth of keys in collateral. *Note: (x) and (y) are separate items*
Seller trades 4-pack to Buyer.
If the Buyer runs with all four games: MM trades both (x) and (y) collateral to the Seller.
If the Buyer trades the other 3 games to the Seller: MM trades (y) to the Seller. MM trades (x) back to the Buyer.

If this is flawed/can be refined, please let me know.

Why would the buyer give the MM too much?

4 pack of game = x, yes?
1 game worth = y, yes?
x+y = 5 games worth.... for a 4 pack?

And then, why need a MM?

If seller has the 4 pack in possession, and can trade it, the full worth of x can be given for it by the buyer. Why make it more difficult then it is?

I vaguely recall that with 4 pack where the purchaser buys the 4-pack, and 1 gets bound to his account, 3 to gift to friends. If that is the case, why give MM 5x the value when only 3x the value can be distributed via gift/trade. But I never bought a 4 pack, so I'm not too familiar with the surrounding specifics of that.

So unless you tell exactly what the 4pack's rules of trading are with, your math is already wrong to start with 5x value instead of 4x or 3x value of the game.

You can think of it like trading for items that require gift wrap when you provide wrap, you give them the value of y and when you give them back the last 3 copies of the game they keep the value of one game (say 1 game is 3 keys, you give them 12 keys to open a 4-pack, after that's done you give them 3 gifts back and they give you 9 keys). The idea is that you don't lose anything if they decide to run off with your items, which also makes a middleman useless as no one will lose any wealth if someone decides to run off.

So if I understand it right: The 4-pack can be bought as a "package" and traded as such. It needs to be unpacked by one of the future owners cos 1 of the 4 will be bound to that account. The remaining 3 games can then be gifted or can be traded? If these 3 games can be traded at that point, there is no need for a MM.

Once in inventory it can be traded, and then activated by the person getting it.

The only "insurance" that MIGHT be needed then, is for the person that buys the 4 pack, to be able to be sure to sell off the items. In that case you may need a MM if you can't agree on just paying when trading for the games. You'd need to trade 3x the worth of the game to the MM. As the 4th game goes to the person buying the 4-pack, I do not see the need to pay for the 4th game. Basically:

- Parties: A buys 4 pack, MM = MM, B C and D wants to get the 3 games.
- B, C and D give their value in items to the MM
- MM confirms to everybody to have received the payment and what exactly he received.
- A buys 4 pack.
- A gives the 3 games to A, B and C
- A, B and C confirm to MM to have received the games.
- MM gives A the payments for it.

Not that hard to figure out once you know the specifics...

But the 4-packs aren't really intended for that then, its intended for IRL friends, which would then not be so difficult to arrange all the stuff.