Would this be considered scamming?

I have a trade up on TF2OP, selling an unusual, a person posts an offer, offering a Craft 23 Professor's Pineapple, stating that he has been offered 1 bud.
Skeptically, I look at the trade, and find he has a B/O of 10 keys, yet someone has offered 1 bud. Upon further investigation, I find that the person who offered 1 bud is a friend of the owner of the Professor's Pineapple. While both has been online at the same time, they didn't complete the trade.

I can only assume that he was using his friend to falsify the value of his item.
My question is however, is this considered scamming. While it is almost certainly deceptive, I wanted to get an admins opinion on this.

Thanks for reading.

this is within the realm of TF2OP to decide upon.

I've seen trades closed for false C/O's before, but it's not in direct contravention of one of their Trade or User rules, AFAIK.

Well, sometimes one learns some new, and new rules may be made up, or old changed a bit to get the new thing also...

Yep, and most certainly the Admins at TF2OP do their best and I do know Pretender works hard to catch fake offers and suchlike. It must be remembered however that this isn't easy. The OP says that the two people are on each others FL, well that isn't a crime, and even if they have been friends forever, it still isn't hanging material without a subjective judgement call. Since there will be zero evidence of anything, about the only circumstantial tidbit of note would be the time the so-called "fake offer" was made, and even then it would be a decision wholly unlike the evidence based calls which SR requires.

Life isn't easy for a site like TF2OP I am sure, but I do know they try damn hard to things above board.

I made that comment, for the situation was too specific to a community for SR to start ruling on. For if SR then adapts ruling for themselves, that might start having problems in other places, or with them for making specifics to their situation, basically telling them how to run it. Also, realms like OP know their territory better then we do, and can make better judgement calls on that.

I would imagine if someone is on a friend list and they make an offer higher then the b/o then its not enough to convict of a "scam" however if one adds you saying they have a craft #23 pineapple and say they want 1 bud for it and you say its worth 10 keys max and then a random adds you asking if you have a low craft # hat and you say "i got a craft #23 pineapple" and the person says "ill give you 1.5 buds for it" and you do the trade with the first person only to have the second person disappear for no reason after you trade for the 1 bud on the first trade then this is a scam. especially if the 2 of them have been friends prior to this whole setup. That is a clear case of scamming. They both "purposely" came after you and made you believe you would profit 0.5 buds above and beyond the overpriced value just to get you to trade off your unusual for a 10 key item, then its a tag team scam which was elaborated only to defraud you.

we call it the "Glimmer drop" scam. With sufficient proof they get tagged.

Agree totally here!

I am sure that just about every reputable site hires Admins who seek to apply rulings with fairness and impartiality in mind, just as SR does. There are always rules and guidelines, but at the end of the day each and every instance where a ban or a tag or similar is imposed by anyone anywhere often involves judgement calls using common sense base on the individual matter at hand.

SR has its own rules, and the rules of other places may differ, certainly in the case of TF2OP it has issues to address which differ from other places.

Rules are required of course, but nothing is black and white and many users can be thankful for this. I have seen Helen give users a warning only when I would thrown the book at them if I were her, and I can tell you that SR (and other places who have Admins of such high quality) do not arbitrarily throw the book at anyone.

The OP asks a valid question, and semantics aside, scamming and deception are just two sides of the same coin. The issue is properly investigating and acting on such things, which can be very complex and we should all be thankful that the Admins of SR and other places work hard to make sure they get it right most of time

Hey VenGanZa,

Ever considerd going into politics? You speak just like a politician (no insult of any sort intended).

The trade did not happen as far as your backpack was concerned. So i think that its not a scam, more like an "attempt" to do shady poop. I wanna see what happens next.

Glimmer drop:
X = Specific item with specific level etc. (Vintage level 35 shine dome hat or w/e)
A = Selling X
B = Wanting X

Trader B is offering way to much for X, like worth a bills. Trader A has X, but doesn't want those items from B. Trader A does want your items for way too much. You trade with A, and trader B goes AWOL.

Result:
You paid way too much for X, like 5 or more times as much, and cant make any with it.

This is a known scam technique, and we mark for this, and we have done so in the past, and will continue to do so. Both parties are guilty of this (often just alts of the same guy).

Real life example:
- you sit on a terrace, and somebody (already) sitting there exclaims that his wallet is gone. He's offering a godly amount of money to get it back.
- he leaves, for he needs to "arrange" things.
- Somebody else comes then along with the wallet "found" somewhere. But he (often a she, to provoke "trust") has to go somewhere.
- You mention to him/her that that guy offered X money, and (s)he responds that (s)he's going to "share" the "reward". But as (s)he has to go, NOW, for some mishap (s)he has to do, (s)he's asking you to claim the reward, and give him/her the half of the money....

Ofcourse neither ever come back, and upon checking the wallet there isn't anything in it, and both of those persons are into this scam.

Known scammer techniques... we had the "pleasure" to learn them by reports.

Here was a big report on this type of scam occurring.

Oh wow, yeah, that's definitely a scam alright. It's like Runescape all over again, so I'm surprised this isn't done more often.

Ah, how I used to love that game, I stopped playing about 4 months ago, when SoF came out, but I'd been playing since '06. I remember the days when people would try and trick you into taking the zammy wine, and close the doors. The hours at W2 Fally, the seperate corners for rares, food and all other items. The game was much better back then, an infinitely better community. Still, it's not there anymore.

Heh, I used to play Runescape as well, though it was a significantly long time ago...I started playing in '04 and stopped in '09. How has it been since then?

and, yes, I remember all those scams that used to happen, especially the wilderness ones...some people practically invented all the popular gaming scamming techniques in Runescape.

Basically the communities gone to CoD. Scamming and try hards everywhere. Clans only exist now for price manipulation, and even then nothing on the scale of what the Wilderness Guardians used to be like. It's main link with TF2 now is for gold, but Jag have been cracking down on a lot of the RWT recently, or at least, they were.

Jagex trying to stop RWT is what effectively killed their own game. The first step to dealing with the problem is to not screw over the entire playerbase.

Luring flax farmers to their death, having actual drop parties and party room parties without every goddamn ungrateful player and their dog showing up was great. Was it really that hard to just detect and silently ban every level 3 member with the stock skin picking flax all day? Advanced macro detection system my ass.