Ask A SteamRep Staff Member

1. Nobody promised anything to you, so do not make that up out of nowhere.
2. Activation key trades are DISCOURAGED by SR admins. We do not support them in general, unless VERY obvious.
3. And yes, that means that your case was not obvious enough.
4. Investigation policy has changed due high load on admins for reports, which you got linked in that report.
5. The admin was being as efficient as possible, linked to the topic where the main reason is explained why it was rejected... You think admins have time to talc powder your baby ass and tie up your diaper? Stay classy, right. Maybe if you had done your homework on trading, you would not have ran into a problem.

Here's your homework: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/expanded-faq-recommended.7263/page-2#post-144369

Hey there Staffs of Admins/Moderators,

I'm going to ask a quick question :

If i , for example, got scammed by wanting to buy some keys for TF2 and payment has been sent to the Scammer, can i legitimately chargeback the money i pay to him ?

Thanks and sorry in advance. Cheers !

We deal with thousands of reports. Replying with a link is not meant to be 'blunt and dismissive', it's meant to use our time as efficently as possible so that we may address other reports. I'm sorry that you feel we made empty promises, however, Valve is the only one with the resources to investigate and administrate the usage of game keys, we aren't able to verify or track the use of keys, like they can and they'd be best suited for your report. I recommend you report him both on his profile and you can even open up a Steam Support ticket.

Hope this helps.

IF the individual did not provide their items for the money you agreed upon, you are able to legitimately chargeback the money, as you are recovering what you 'lost'.

Oh and another quick question :

If i don't have any administrative experience whatsoever , for example, once more, can i apply to be as a moderator and accepted by SR by any chances ?

While Admin experience isn't necessary, it definitely can help. However, there are a number of other criteria, found here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/steamrep-moderator-application-updated.13213/

I am only judging the service by the treatment I have personally received and responding to what I feel is a show disrespect towards me. I have not been helped, nevertheless my words were were not intended to disparage Steamrep volunteers in general. My past communications with staff have shown nothing but patience, respect and gratitude until this incident. Why not consider what the experience has been like from my perspective?

You say it is against your policy to handle key trading reports, yet when I submitted my report over 6 months ago I was given zero indication that this was the case, and provided all the necessary information to prove my claim. Rather than being strung along with promises to have my report looked at (note I did not say accepted), someone could have simply told me then and there it would be summarily rejected. Instead I've waited for months, seeing newer reports being addressed, only to be dismissed with a blunt, "dealt with", instead of an apology. I would have accepted the reasoning of the backlog had the response been a little more diplomatic and acknowledged my justifiable frustration.

I had already been to Steam who evidently accepted the proof I provided as enough reason to put the scammer on probation, so I don't really accept that I hadn't given sufficient evidence for proving I was scammed. I understand that trading keys on steamtrades is not officially encouraged, but since I had keys that I wasn't able to trade within Steam it was the option available to me.

1. Actually I was told multiple times over a period of months by a moderator (srju) that he would have an admin look over my report, our conversations were civil and polite but it never happened. So I did not make this up out of nowhere.

2. My report was obvious enough for Valve to put the scammer on probation, I provided receipts, screengrabs, chatlog and there were corroborating reports against the same scammer. I don't know how much more obvious I could have made it. I did not have the option to trade the keys within Steam itself, so I used steamtrades and chat as it was the only option.

3. I disagree, for reasons already stated. Furthermore, given the short shrift my report was given by the admin, I don't see any sign that it was seriously considered on its own merits since the reason given was the backlog, not lack of evidence.

4. My report was submitted 6 months ago, if it was going to be rejected for being about key trades it would have been nice for someone to let me know way back then. Or perhaps even have processed it since I later noticed 'accepted' reports newer than mine.

5. Given the frustrating way I had been treated, the admin's words were blunt and showed no appreciation for my experience. A short, sincere apology followed by the link to the new policy would have not been ideal but I would have accepted that and dropped it then and there.

Thanks btw for the link to the "homework" I should have done, posted in November, 5 months *after* my report went into review status.

on
2: Valve actually CAN check the serials in their backend, what happened with them, etc, and therefore has more information. We of SR cannot, for reasons I already linked in my previous reply.
4: I've replied such reasons for not trading game keys through topics for a long time, only added it to the general faq back then. *shrug*

We know we have a huge backlog, and we're trying to deal with it, but as Eoj said, we are volunteers with most of us having full time jobs.

I actually did read your response, but I didn't see the need to reply since, a) I still feel that the admin's response was blunt/dismissive, for reasons I've already explained in details and b) your advice to submit a report to Valve was redundant since I already said in both my recent replies in this thread that I had already done this and they had put the scammer (temporarily) on probation. However he is now free to scam away since there is currently no permanently visible tie online to his criminal actions. In this instance, steamrep was the only recourse I had remaining for some measure of justice and more importantly to prevent others from being scammed by the same person.

I do appreciate that you have at least offered a partial apology, perhaps had someone lead with this I would not have had cause to vent my frustration.

I have considered this from the very outset, which is why I've showed patience and respect for this fact in my dealings with one of your moderators over this issue over a number of months. It's great that people are doing this work, I'm just frustrated that it hasn't helped my situation at all.

I'm certain that most of you do try hard, but if the way I was initially treated on this thread was someone's best then there is ample room for improvement.

Anyway, I've said my piece and I'm putting this behind me now.

Are you guys ever gonna bring anybody else on to help with the "backlogged" reports you have. Or are they just gonna sit as they have. THe only post I see admins making is the defensive ones when someone calls you out for this. Plenty of people within the community have the capacity to help and handle these reports yet you guys wont consider anything. If SteamRep is over and done with, JUST SAY SO. Stop filling the community with these false hopes that things are gonna happen when they arent. Btw to the 5 moderators and admins that will reply to this, you could be replying to a report instead....

1. While "help" is out there, we have the problem of filtering the good ones from the bad, we can't have scammer alts being a "helper". And yes, multiple attempts have been done by such, for various reasons.
2. Bringing in help from the community is a very slow process unfortunately. Any applicant will be screened by us.

Dude yall dont have 6 months to screen someone. Also how many of yall know perfectly capable people yet havent asked. Its becoming a problem. People know they arent getting marks and its starting to show within the community.

I was a recent addition, and also, regarding to your comment that we could be replying to reports in stead, if we didn't reply to this, you'd just make further claims. This thread exists to address concerns, many of the Mods have been trying to do more and more reports to cut down the backlog.

I have a question:
I wrote a report in imroper format and it got accepted by Helen - http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198028110039-unifly-76561197977461900.51857/#post-151942. I checked SR and saw that those 2 users who scammed me got banned by SR admin. And my question is: Are their alt accs going to be banned to or not? Also, another thread that i made is still ready to review http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/...eam-fortress-2-items-76561197977461900.51865/ and i`d like to know what is going to happen next and if I`m getting my items(duped) back or not?

Is there a way to contact Valve about my scam? I mean i was offered money so It`s similar to hijacking. I mean maybe they will consider duping items i traded.
P.s. Thank you for your reply

Hijacking is the process where they gain control over your account, ie: login to your account and trade the items away to a secondary account of theirs.

being scammed is in no way a "hijack", and would not gain you your items back via Valve.
What you can gain is that valve would Trade Ban the account(s) for scamming. you will have to report the scam to Steam Support for that.

Have a good day,
I can ask you where is possible to post,i can be an middle man?Or make thread with application?
Thanks

Not here.

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