Suggestion: Middleman Bot

Would it be possible to have a bot that does what a regular mm does? If the two people disagree the bot just keeps the items until an admin resolves the issue?

We've been working on such for quite some time. So yeah, we like to.

Seems promising - although, how could a bot handle PayPal trades?

Exactly in the same way as it works when there is a human being involved as a middleman. Items will not be traded to the buyer until the seller confirms that the payment was delivered.

Middleman does NOT touch real world currency.

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So I guess the Seller sends a chat command to the Bot, which then trades the Buyer once the Transaction is trough?
Otherwise there is no way to detect when a payment went trough (or you don't have access to it).

It does not have to be a chat command. Look at all those bots in the community that invite you and initiate a trade after you ask them to do such via website etc.

I am aware of that, but if you host the bot itself (without website), you have to know when to trade the item to the buyer (seller -> bot is easy).

hmm, bot inviting is not a good idea, for the limitations on invites nowadays on steam accounts. So traders would need to invite the bot. Maybe a better way is using Trade Offers:

• Both traders on a web page, logged into with steam.
• Bot get told to do nothing until told so.
• Bot tells seller that while the bot monitors the transaction, it cannot prevent a chargeback.
• Bot asks buyer: Is the funds readily available on the agreed payment option?
  • If yes, the bot tells the traders to fill in with a backpack link what the agreement is: items, amount of money etc.
  • If No, the bot tells the buyer to top up their account prior to starting to trade ===> exit
• Seller gets the trade offer link from the bot, to make a trade offer to the bot for the agreed upon items.
• Once trade offer is send, and the bot's side is empty (or maybe a crate), the bot accepts it.
  
• Bot resets trade offer link to make sure nobody can trade offer it.
  
• Bot reports to website which goods are recieved to both.
• Bot then instructs the buyer to transfer the real world money. With the note of: Buying from 7xxxxxxxx (ID64) the following items: *list of items*.
• Bot then instructs the seller to actually check it on the paypal / webmoney website / wallet, and not rely on "mail" for that. With some additional checks (make sure its not a invoice etc).
• Bot then asks both traders: did the payment go thru?
  • If both say yes, the bot asks the buyer for their trade offer link.
  • If either says no, it becomes a admin dispute issue, the bot holding onto the items.
    
  • If BOTH say no, the bot will trade offer the items back to the seller.
  • If no answer is given within a x amount of time, it regards it as a admin dispute issue.
• Bot resets its trade offer link.
• Bot ready for the next pair of traders.

The advantage is: no invites needed. No chat monitor needed, or chat commands. Just trade offering and a web page. That would keep things very simple, and with some checks here and there there is no way that the bot could be exploited. Also some adjustments could be made with the trade offerings etc. Not really thought it completely fool proof out yet.

there should be more pre-checks ofc with the traders, but not going to name all those.

Also: when bot has admin dispute issue, it logs out, different bot logs in. So a admin can look into the traded items.
it can also trade offer the items to the admin and log out. at no point the bot should do multiple trades at same time.

Are you going to announce its 'release', and will it be publicly available for use when it's up n' running?

when Mattie gets around to it, he'll prolly run a beta "trial" , and we'll be throwing the worst at it for a while, testing it & reporting stuff to him etc. It will then be probably left for a little while, and a refreshed look at it after that to find that type of bug that otherwise goes missing. Once it goes "live" it will be a slow "introduction" I think, to not overload it all at once.

Thanks for the fast reply, sounds like a great idea and looking forward to hear more about it.

It's definitely possible and it could work,

Pretty much this. I'm guessing the seller would say a keyword such as "payment received". Then the bot would trade the buyer.

As long as their's no way to exploit the bot, it could work.
I don't know if I would feel safer or more scared at this time.

if the "invite" route is taken, the bot should auto remove everybody after trading. and then accept the next invite. then there is no 3rd party factor.

Just made it more visible

Don't you think scammers may be able to 'impersonate' your bots by publishing 'similar-looking' bots coded to steal items from users? Scammers often come with new ways to steal items from others, and now that this thread exists they might give it a look and be aware of what's coming, I suppose.