A Concise Guide on Avoiding Scams

GENERAL TIPS

NEVER download anything sent to you buy someone who you are not familiar with. A great many scams involve having someone download a program. THIS INCLUDES chrome extensions. DO NOT DOWNLOAD chrome extensions sent to you by people you just met.

Never trade with anyone who has a private backpack or profile.

Be aware that very new and very old steam profiles may be scammers. Scammers make new accounts frequently and buy old accounts to look legitimate.

Always check the number of hours a person has in the game they're trading in. A lot of scammers will not have the game installed, or have VERY few hours. If they DO have hours, this does not automatically mean they are legitimate, scammers are BUYING accounts with hours in a game specifically to fool people. Always do a full check on an account before trading with them.

A high steam level DOES NOT make someone reputable. Nor does having a valuable backpack.

DO NOT TRADE for wallet codes, CD keys, or games from unreputable people. These can be bought with stolen credit cards (which will get you trade banned) and are a COMMON SCAM.

As of recently (July 2016) gambling and betting sites have been issued orders from valve to shut down. DO NOT use any gambling or betting websites that you are linked to, even if they ARE legitimate, there is a possibility that your items will end up in a trade banned bot because valve took action.

SCAM TYPES

In paypal trading, NEVER send your item until the money is IN YOUR WALLET. If they send you a picture or a link, it's a SCAM. The money is only sent when you actually have it in your wallet. Scammers will use fake invoices to trick people into thinking the money is on its way. There is no such system on paypal.

STEAM WALLET funds can NOT be transferred without the PURCHASE OF AN ITEM on the market. DO NOT accept an offer claiming you will receive wallet funds.

If someone adds you saying they want an item, and another person adds you selling that item, IT IS A SCAM. This is called the glimmer drop method. The scammer pretends they want it, but when you buy it off the market (from the scammer) they make profit on you and leave. Rather than accepting the current sale price as an item's value, look at the GRAPH to see what it has sold for in the past. Generally, AVOID 'rare' Dota 2 items.

NEVER, for ANY REASON AT ALL trade your item for nothing. It doesn't matter what they say, they are scamming if they want you to trade them your item. Whether they say it's for "item verification" or to "check if it's duped," you should ALWAYS be receiving an item you want in a trade. This includes trading items to friends. Don't send your item to a friend, THEY COULD BE SCAMMED TOO!

ALWAYS check the trade before accepting. Sometimes people will put in a bunch of stuff and remove one of the valuable items. ALWAYS MAKE SURE that every item you want is there.

Similar to the previous scam, ALWAYS check item quality. If you're trading for an item of a specific quality, for example factory new, or burning flames, ALWAYS make sure it really is what you think it is.

NEVER trust a middleman, admin, or anyone else claiming to be reputable until you've checked their SteamREP page using the method detailed in this guide: http://steamrep.com/tips/pretrade

For simple item trades (items only on steam, no cash or codes) DO NOT involve other people. An item trade is between TWO people, anyone trying to get your friend involved or get THEIR friend involved is trying to scam you.

One of the most pervasive and dangerous scams at the moment is the item verification scam. There is no such thing as a glitched or broken item, never give your item to people claiming to be admins for any purpose other than for MIDDLEMANNING. And if you use a middleman, ALWAYS verify that they are a real middleman via the steamrep pretrade tips.

No Steam admin will EVER add you, period. DO NOT TRUST anyone claiming to have power over your account. You own your account, and you own your items. It is your responsibility to keep your items safe.

The purpose of this guide is to be as short and concise as it is, so please don't criticize it for being too short. I am looking for suggestions on how to make it as clear as possible.

I'm going to be linking this to people as I am added for middleman services, so the more sense it makes the better. I want even the most impatient of people to walk away able to protect themselves.

"Always check the number of hours in the game they're trading in. If they have less than 100 hours, they're probably a scammer."
I am not too happy with this as there are plenty of traders who got into other games such as CS GO just to trade. They will have a low amount of hours and still be legit. Vise Versa a scammer may have 6000 hours on a game and still be a scammer. Hours are really a bad indicator and if you decide to mention them, do not turn it into a numerical baseline.

I also think you should give item verification its own section as it is one of the most common and dangerous scams around right now, mainly targeting people who do not know about SteamREP and what we really do.

http://csgo-stats.com/

open a profile there, and understanding what you see will tell you if its real enough.

I'm not quite sure what searching a profile on that site would accomplish. I personally have basically no CS:GO stats, as I don't really play the game. While CS:GO is a major scene for the work I'm doing, it wouldn't help people in tf2, and a lot of scammers are using purchased accounts, which makes them seem pretty legitimate without knowing what to look for. I think this site could help but wouldn't be the ultimate benchmark for discerning scammers from traders.

Yes, this much is true. I was trading around a thousand keys with basically no hours in CS:GO. I speak in absolute terms in this guide because I feel that leaving exceptions open could confuse the people this guide is intended to help. I will go into a little further depth with the item verification when I get a chance though. I may remove the hours benchmark as it is trivial now that scammers are just purchasing accounts with hours.

Thank you both.

Edit: made a few changes to the OP, if you have any more suggestions, let me know.

There are those that put up 600 hours of the game "open" but 0 actually played, or fake scores with Steam Achievement Manager, with that you can see if such is the case. I've seen enough cases where they just farm the game hours for some form of legitimacy while there is none. (also there is apparently some trick to farm hours faster, as I've seen 1 week old accounts with like 1000 hours....)