Announcement Policy Change: Trades with Scammer Policy, End of Life

Rosalina · Jan 10, 2016

Banning bigmac187 from steamrep forums is the real victory here, not the policy changes. I also approve of giving him his own thread. That's actually what I PMd to lava jokingly last night. "Can we get a Best of Bigmac thread." My amusement quota for the day has been satisfied.

Foxyfluff · Jan 10, 2016

It's great to see this change. I feel it's a good thing some of our high profile traders can now get their tags removed and hopefully have their positive sentiments about SteamRep restored.

I realize a lot of details have been requested already, but I kind of lost track due to the amount of posts previously present. Here goes:

From what I understand extensive trading (or partnering) with scammers remains punishable.
Will the amount of items purchased and trades conducted be the only defining factors to determine whether or not a case of this will be looked at? Or could a single exceptionally valuable item being purchased be given attention as well?

Quick hypothetical scenario: A Burning Flames Team Captain is scammed and sold by a marked account for 25% of the price. Is the buyer (not green tagged) potentially accountable or free to enjoy his bargain?

I hope that in the near future we will also see some policy changes introducing some form of alternative expirable SteamRep tag(s). The kind that would automatically downgrade to caution after a set amount of time and (optionally) even get removed entirely after a just amount of time tag without any new offenses. All this according to the nature, count and severity of the offense. This would probably reduce the amount of appeals as well.

SilentReaper(SR) · Jan 10, 2016

A single trade won't be really looked at. It really will need multiple trades.

We've looked at expiring tags years ago, discussed it very long and while feasible to implement, it still would probably in procedure require a appeal for us to implement etc, and that won't differ from what we already had. Along with the appeal backlog we had/have, we didn't see sense in implementing it when such can in practice just be applied at handling the appeal.

You may make the argument that that could be set by the admin handling the report. There where arguments against such as well (at time of handling the report, other reports may not yet be in, not been looked at fully, etc.) At an appeal often more information is known regarding the account, the appeal admins are always the most experienced admins that will be able to review everything. The first ban is just regarding 1 report. The appeal is regarding EVERYTHING (its why appeals take a lot more time etc). Hence implementing a check of some sort to get that implemented meant a full appeal. Its not a feature that would lower our workload, or add anything. If the appeal admin believes it should be lowered, the appeal already took enough time to do it directly.

Outside of that, there was opposition against such by partner and SR admins to auto-downgrade bans. An argument made a lot of times, is that a scammer that will steal a scrap (which is like less then 0.01 cent), can't be really trusted with anything worth (a lot) more... And a lot of other arguments have been made over time.

We do discuss ideas internally. Maybe we should make a FAQ / Synopsis thread with such ideas that we discuss publicly, but truth is... those topics stay open for discussion internally, and some discussions are after months or some even after years restarted again with new arguments. Sometimes this means a change. This policy change is a reflection of such that we where talking about for over a year (since early December 2014, due a Gen. Discussion reply regarding the lower bounds of trading with scammers being outdated...)

Lava · Jan 10, 2016

Foxyfluff said: ↑

From what I understand extensive trading (or partnering) with scammers remains punishable.
Click to expand...

This is not correct. Partnering (on the basis of more than trading with scammers), fencing, or brokering are taggable.

Foxyfluff said: ↑

Will the amount of items purchased and trades conducted be the only defining factors to determine whether or not a case of this will be looked at? Or could a single exceptionally valuable item being purchased be given attention as well?
Click to expand...

Basically, trade history alone would not be sufficient, regardless of value. Single trades with scammers won't be taggable, no matter what the price. I'd recommend reading the following replies:

Lava said: ↑

A clear cutoff on X number of trades or Y value to be taggable is probably not going to happen. It's about intent, and any attempt to draw a black and white line is going to result in people treading closely along it. Setting quantitative criteria like that would open the policy up for abuse from either direction. If we said "X trades = fencing" or "Y value = fencing" then someone would make X-1 trades with a scammer at $Y-1 from each account, then report someone who passed those figures by an honest mistake. Instead, we are giving a qualitative criteria, and only stepping in when a clear case of working with scammers arises, which requires more than a couple backpack.tf trade history links to prove. Without giving an explicit criteria, the case will be clear and obvious or it won't be taggable. There is significant leeway if you trade with scammers, and by the time you get tagged, you're not going to have much of anything except that "black and white line" you're looking for to justify yourself.

When this rule was first set in place, we had people on sites like Outpost soliciting no-questions-asked quicksells at ridiculous prices. Of course, they seem really really absurd, but to someone who just stole a bunch of valuable items and is trying to liquidate them from an alt before they get trade banned, anything they can get quickly is still profit. They actively encouraged, supported, and shared in profit from scamming. Many of them traded so systematically it became difficult to distinguish from alts; looking at their trade history we couldn't readily figure out if the scammers were the same people on different accounts, or frequent business partners. Do you not see a problem with that behavior? The trade-with-scammer rule by design placed responsibility on the people making those trades with scammers and obvious alts, who refused to check or care where stolen items were coming from. It was intended to curb that practice, but the consequences shifted away from their end goal so it was adjusted with room to tag systematic fences but still not dictating who people trade with. Adding arbitrary cutoff figures to the rule ended up only giving a criteria for gotcha reports from traders with vendettas.

If you buy one or a couple rare items on your wishlist from scammers when you couldn't get them elseware, you won't be tagged.

If you forget/neglect/whatever to check a SteamRep profile in one or a couple trades, you won't be tagged.

If a scammer gets banned from r/globaloffensivetrade for a scammer tag, and shortly after the same items he was trying to sell appear in someone else's account, they're brokering (if not an alt) and that's taggable.

If you advertise "buying quicksells at X% from scammers", or show a consistent and repetitive pattern of trades with scammers, you're fencing and you can get tagged for it.

If you can show you had a reason to make those 10 different trades with scammers other than fencing in the example you cited with absolutely no context, then you should have nothing to worry about. If it's 10 out of 10,000, you're probably fine. If it's the only 10 trades you made in a month, looks more like a pattern of fencing.

What's so hard to understand about this? Instead of looking for loopholes and exceptions, try not brokering or fencing. I realize you, and scores of other people who want to capitalize on the rule change, are looking for a hard quantitative line they can safely tread along, but that's not how it's set up. Every case is different. Some things are more cut and dry than others, but even with our current policies (trade-with-scammer rule excluded) we still run into varying shades of gray. There will always be unclear cases, and generally speaking we give benefit of doubt and heavy weight to behavior of someone accused. For example, PayPal scams seem pretty straightforward - buyer and seller agree to a set price, and if one of them doesn't pay they get tagged - if someone lost their internet connection in the middle of a paypal trade or spycrab, do they still get a tag? What if they actually intended to not pay but after a couple denied trades offered to repay if the victim takes their report down? We put months of debate, voting, staff meetings, and community outreach into this change as it is, and ultimately I believe the newer implementation is overall a lot better for the community. Do you not see this as an improvement? Refining it to the point you're requesting would require no less than an additional year. An additional year we would not be working on other changes, and even then, I guarantee you there would be unclear cases and people would find loopholes in it.
Click to expand...

Mattie! said: ↑

I did notice some prepositions I should include in case someone is confused on the wording (like BigMac pretends to be). I updated it to say:

"No new bans or cautions will be tracked on SteamRep for cases where a normal trader (i.e. not green tagged) trades with, sells to, or purchases from a banned user."

For brokering bans, admins will review the case based on evidence and precedents set with partners' input. While major trades with a scammer are usually a key bit of evidence in such cases, it will not be sufficient for a ban on its own-- more evidence is required to support brokering. Since (a) every case is different, (b) this occurrence is rare, and (c) this is a major fraud offense, we'll be handling it case by case for now.

Anyone reading this thread and seeing 25+ responses from BigMac will see him trying to find "gotcha" quotes in admin responses so he can nitpick them to death in some sort of appearance of helpfulness. This is his way. His motives are to purposefully muddy the waters and make SteamRep appear bad, regardless of the decisions we make.

Don't let BigMac's spam prevent more people from responding. If it continues unabated, we'll have to temporarily restrict him from posting since it's likely preventing other people from providing feedback or asking their own questions. (It certainly makes it hard to skim the thread for valid questions.)
Click to expand...

Foxyfluff said: ↑

Quick hypothetical scenario: A Burning Flames Team Captain is scammed and sold by a marked account for 25% of the price. Is the buyer (not green tagged) potentially accountable or free to enjoy his bargain?
Click to expand...

Can't really get into specifics, but if he didn't actively seek out that 25% bargain to try and work with scammers for such a deal, probably not. It would have to be a clear cut case of fencing, which buying things you know are stolen for 25% of price does admittedly tend towards fencing. Community admins won't be looking at individual trades though; they'll be looking for trends and patterns. If that kind of deal happens repeatedly, and there's other evidence pointing to brokering or working with scammers, you could wind up with a tag.

Foxyfluff said: ↑

I hope that in the near future we will also see some policy changes introducing some form of alternative expirable SteamRep tag(s). The kind that would automatically downgrade to caution after a set amount of time and (optionally) even get removed entirely after a just amount of time tag without any new offenses. All this according to the nature, count and severity of the offense. This would probably reduce the amount of appeals as well.
Click to expand...

This might come up again in the future, but for the time being it's not compatible with how we do things. The tag documents a scam that took place, for the purpose of warning the community that person has scammed. If several years pass, the community still has a right to know about it; it's not there to punish, scare, avenge, or teach a lesson, but to warn everyone else of someone with a history of scamming.

Foxyfluff · Jan 11, 2016

SilentReaper(SR) said: ↑

We've looked at expiring tags years ago, discussed it very long and while feasible to implement, it still would probably in procedure require a appeal for us to implement etc, and that won't differ from what we already had. Along with the appeal backlog we had/have, we didn't see sense in implementing it when such can in practice just be applied at handling the appeal.
Click to expand...

Thank you for pointing that out. I suspected an expiring tag system wouldn't be ideal but I hadn't thought of it that way. Food for thought.

Lava said: ↑

This is not correct. Partnering (on the basis of more than trading with scammers), fencing, or brokering are taggable.
Click to expand...

That's kind of what I intended to say in more vague terms. No sweat, though.

Lava said: ↑

Can't really get into specifics, but if he didn't actively seek out that 25% bargain to try and work with scammers for such a deal, probably not. It would have to be a clear cut case of fencing, which buying things you know are stolen for 25% of price does admittedly tend towards fencing. Community admins won't be looking at individual trades though; they'll be looking for trends and patterns. If that kind of deal happens repeatedly, and there's other evidence pointing to brokering or working with scammers, you could wind up with a tag.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clearing that up.

Lava said: ↑

The tag documents a scam that took place, for the purpose of warning the community that person has scammed. If several years pass, the community still has a right to know about it; it's not there to punish, scare, avenge, or teach a lesson, but to warn everyone else of someone with a history of scamming.
Click to expand...

I understand that is it's true purpose.

SteamRep's popularity amoung the trading community combined with the e-social stigma surrounding scammers in it does still cause the tag to punish (restricted from a large portion of trading abilities), scare (initially), avenge (victims) and teach a lesson (to those who care).

Call it collateral damage, if you will.

SilentReaper(SR) · Jan 11, 2016

Oh, the joy of people understanding what you tell....

DivineChibi · Jan 12, 2016

So there is a person here who is wanting to trade me but they are banned on BP, they are offering a nice deal but will i get marked or anything for accepting?

Tio José das Vacas · Jan 12, 2016

DivineChibi said: ↑

So there is a person here who is wanting to trade me but they are banned on BP, they are offering a nice deal but will i get marked or anything for accepting?
Click to expand...

I would suggest reading the thread. You should not trade with him if he's a marked scammer but you can, and you will not get marked.

Lava · Jan 12, 2016

DivineChibi said: ↑

So there is a person here who is wanting to trade me but they are banned on BP, they are offering a nice deal but will i get marked or anything for accepting?
Click to expand...

We don't issue tags for trading with marked scammers. Just bear in mind a few other trading sites might still ban you for it.

Guns · Jan 17, 2016

I was ban the 11 Novemeber 2015 on outpost tf2 for trading a golden pan with someone have 3 pending report ( 2 for trading with scammer and 1 for ''scam'' 1 unusual hat ''

Here my ban on outpost tf2 : http://www.tf2outpost.com/user/76561198000889832

The problem with the unusual headsplitter is solved and this guy scam anybody.

I make appeal on outpost tf2 for that and told this guy is not mark as scammer and scam anybody but i m still ban on outpost tf2 . I never traded with scammer in 8 years on steam and Thoughsox still continue to think i take part of scammer organisation or sommething like that . Someone can help me ?

The biggest problem is :

This guy tarded my items after with some other guy and they have received nothing .

My deep cover : http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/27417920

My brotherood in arm : http://www.tf2outpost.com/user/76561198087962998 ( no mention on ban)

....

and it s the first time in 8 years i traded with guy have ' pending ' report , he dont have scamemr tag , i make any profit with that deal and i have added like 4 other seller for the pan just wait the answers .

Someone can help me

Horse · Jan 17, 2016

@Guns SteamRep has no control over what outpost or any other community bans you for...that is between you and them.

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Goldensliv · Aug 16, 2017

Mattie! said: ↑

For 2016, we plan to remove the policy that calls for bans or cautions in "Trades with Scammer" situations.

More details are below.

What is happening as part of this change?

Not taggable anymore. No new bans or cautions will be tracked on SteamRep for cases where a normal trader (i.e. not green tagged) trades with, sells to, or purchases items from a banned user.
Retroactive. This is retroactive. Those banned or cautioned for this offense should appeal and, if there are no other offenses or issues, the appeal will be granted. If you had no other offenses, you should appeal even if your previous appeal was denied. (Use this reason during your appeal.)

Partners included. This applies to SteamRep partner bans and cautions as well. Those appeals should be granted by partners if trading with a scammer is the trader's only offense. (Obviously communities can still ban whoever they want on their own sites for any reason they want-- this only applies to their marks on SR.)

Brokering still bannable. It is absolutely still the case that SteamRep and communities should ban for knowingly brokering or partnering with a scammer or hijacker. Such a ban should include evidence of active brokering for or partnering with a banned user. Evidence for these bans cannot solely focus on purchasing an item or two from a banned profile.

What was the original purpose of the "Trades with Scammers" policy? The rule's intention was to combat scammer alts and scammer-partners that worked together to fence hijacked or stolen items. A scammer would commit fraud on their alts and then dump stolen goods to a mule account with no conclusive connections other than trade history. Or a different scammer would search TF2 Outpost for quickbuyers to dump/liquidate items before their imminent trade ban at heavily discounted prices. These people knowingly worked with scammers on a routine basis, directly supporting fraud, and then claimed to trade communities that they themselves committed no fraud. Without Valve's knowledge of item transactions and alternate accounts, the trade community has only limited ability to tell when this is happening. As such, this rule placed responsibility on traders to mind their own reputation and to do due diligence before trading for valuable items-- if they were careful, there'd be no mistaking them for scammer accomplices.

Why end this policy?

Doesn't focus on fraud. SteamRep's database is used to alert the community of profiles that were reported for fraud. While trading with scammers can sometimes be a smoking gun to find a scammer's partners, multiple cases have come up where the only offense was buying from a scammer without firm evidence of direct fraud by the user.

Unintended consequences. The knock-on effect of this policy made honest traders fear being banned for everyday trading and mistakes. While we do want people to check SteamRep before trades, the reason should be to protect themselves from being defrauded and not to protect themselves from being banned by a trade community.
Distracts from core mission. Progress is difficult to make in other areas due to responding to the frustration of the community and the regular witchhunts that arise.

Game inconsistencies. This policy is very difficult to investigate and enforce fairly across Dota2 and CSGO, due to lesser awareness and fewer available tools to help. As a result, enforcement / investigations were inconsistent across different games, making policy decisions more complex.

Won't scammers be able to profit now? This wasn't the core purpose of the policy, even though reducing profits for scammers was a nice side effect. For a good while, it did make life harder for scammers to turn their new items into real cash. That being said-- our focus going forward is to reduce fraud through awareness and education rather than through indirect/inefficient economic pressure.

So should I buy from scammers? Obviously not! If you know an item is scammed-- clearly you wouldn't purposely want to get mixed-up with a scammer. Even if SteamRep is not banning for everyday trades like this, it's still putting your items or money into a criminal's pocket-- and making you look shadier and shadier. If you end up doing it repeatedly and intentionally, then it makes you look like a broker, partner, or alt of a scammer-- that's still something markable on SteamRep.

If you have questions or comments, please share them. Ultimately, this is something we felt was necessary as a means of making progress in other areas. Some partners have already started granting appeals and rejecting reports in this area. This policy reversal should be in full effect everywhere as of this week.
Click to expand...

So basically I can now trade with scammers who have ""turned over a new leaf""?

Lava · Aug 16, 2017

Goldensliv said: ↑

So basically I can now trade with scammers who have ""turned over a new leaf""?
Click to expand...

I don't recommend it - scammers will say anything if they think it'll gain your trust - but as long as you're not systematically working with the scammer it won't affect your own SteamRep status.

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