1. There is no such thing as a "pending" ban or Steam admin. Anyone threatening your account is a scammer trying to scare you. Read more.

Why do you barley cover any scams?

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by popypoplandpoppopy, Apr 3, 2021.

  1. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    Steam rep only seems to cover a few handful type of scams, paypal, and not upholding trade agreements and a few tinny other scams.

    Why arent scams like "vote for my team bs" "reported for duped items" And entire scam bots themselfs, Not covered in your site?

    The scams you cover are the most uncommon out of the bunch, predated back in the days of 2012, they still happen but not as much as other ones now.

    And more and more scammers are using phishing sites, if not all scammers.

    These bots are targeting many people.

    If you made the case that "we dont ban them because the accounts are high jacked" Then how come these bots have been going on at me for months now? Someone could go to steam support and get there account back in less then 24 hours.

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    itsmewouter likes this.
  2. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    -36 rep on bp.tf and this user still isnt banned because of the limited amount of scams on here.

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  3. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    All of those screenshots you first gave are phishing related/gambling and likely still phishing related in nature - so we do not review those mainly since those accounts may have been hijacked by phishing links themselves therefore all you are doing is reporting a "Mule" account that was stolen. That account or the owner once recovered would have a difficult time already regaining control of the account to start with then they would have to go thru our requirements to prove such happened and that isn't easy now with how you can recover accounts without a steam support ticket.

    So those kinds of things need to be addressed with Valve not us, not any other site just Valve - they have the tools to review and can tell if that situation is what it is.
    This is all covered here in our policy on what we do and do not review.
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/steamrep-investigative-policy.140101/
    ALSO - FOR ANYONE READING - that user is COMMUNITY BANNED AT THIS TIME - BASICALLY MEANING THEY WERE INFACT HIJACKED JUST AS I NOTED AND THE MAIN REASON WHY WE DO NOT WANT TO TAG USERS TO GIVE THEM ADDITIONAL HARDSHIP WHEN TRYING TO RECOVER THEIR ACCOUNT.
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2022
  4. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    All these accounts where created on the same date, feb 18th of 2020, the owner has now had a year to contact to get there account back, that clearly isnt the case because these bots where not highjacked, and where only created for scamming people.
  5. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Doesn't matter still applies regardless.
    You could have 1000 bots all made today and send you the same phishing links - bot or no bot they are still phishing you with a phishing link therefore the policy applies.
    Valve needs to address the situation, they can also block the site name from being sent in messages. So you can see where this is essentially their task to deal with not ours.
  6. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    There not going to do anything about this, they have been reported multiple times, your the biggest line of defense against steam scammers cant you do anything about this?
  7. a Gentleman

    a Gentleman SteamRep Moderator Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    Anyone can always search for a user's ID64 on our forums to see all archived reports associated with the account and make a decision whether to trust an account themselves. We maintain a high standard of evidence and can't accept reports unless they meet our requirements.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  8. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    Theres zero point of this if your not going to even let reporting on clearly valid scam accounts in which im complaing about in the first place. Previous reports wont even show up on places like bp tf and other websites, i know this is more of the users fault for not checking, but still my point stands.

    Yeah because taking just steam screen shots is so trust worthy and totally cant be just edited at all. Not that theres a place where you can view previous steam chat history with users, and steam chat logs themselves.
  9. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Sorry, but we can't control what Steam does. They do review the reports you send them. But like reports here I'm sure they have to review what is going on and make a determination on their own.

    Our policy about not taking reports that deal with hijacking/phishing attempts won't change. The reason they won't change was already given to you and in the link for policy also.
    Valve is and will be the only ones that can address those situations properly.

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    a Gentleman likes this.
  10. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    Then this site is going to be useless to half of the scams that exists, and isnt serving the purpose of being a scammer database. Gusse its time to start a new one.
  11. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    It isn't useless at all, see we've had this policy about hijacking/phishing attempts for years and has been pretty successful in avoiding innocent users caught up in a mix of issues trying to recover the account from Valve then get a tag removed by us.
    You are welcome to create anything you like that is entirely up to you.
  12. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    The little amount of innocent users still wouldn't had made it up for the amount that still couldnt had lost this. Not to mention they still could just come to you and appeal it, showing the evidence in your standards isnt too hard. Time have massively changed in the last past 2 years since 2019, with multiple different scams. This might had worked in 2018,17,16,15, but manit isnt working now.
  13. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    It is working fine now, in fact many just this week alone were hijacked accounts and reported also, soon there after recovered their accounts.
    Our appeals process takes time and requirements to prove recovery of account and not many users use those methods which Valve gives various ways to get this done.

    Either way we are not altering our policy with regards to phishing/hijacking reports any time soon so if you wish to create something of your own then by all means you are welcome to it.
    Always open to ideas and suggestions and open to seeing others do things to help the community.
    Remember though in those situations its always best to make sure you report the user to Valve asap to ensure Valve reviews the situation.
  14. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    Again not going after the fact, that these accounts clearly shown are only created for the sole reason of scaming. I dont know how much on in terms of proof it goes for how successful not taking these type of scams due to the reason "the account might be highjacked"

    :rolleyes:
  15. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    BP.tf had the bit of smartness to actually cover these types of scams and will ban the user, but for some reason it is different here.

    I actually forgot to mention a very valid point here, if your saying that you wont ban users for the reasons above because they might possibly have there accounts highjacked, then why is it that this isnt taken into account for the handful of scams that you cover?
  16. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    BP.tf is a partner here - they can ban for whomever they wish from their services. Tags are a different thing thru our system and we follow policies for a reason.
    As for your other question - if we get any indication that we feel that an account was hijacked per the evidence provided or the OP that made the report notes such that may have happened then it will fall within that policy of not reviewing reports that are related to hijacking/phishing in anyway.
    We prefer users take this under consideration and NOT make the report to start with since it takes time away from those other valid reports that can be worked on.

    Any site such as BP, google, whoever can ban whomever they wish at any time from their services however they want...when it comes to tags here and what goes thru our database we have a policy to follow and that is again not changing anytime soon.
    You are however welcome to create whatever you wish to create on your own to handle what you feel will help the community but I again advise you to let Valve handle hijacking/phishing issues thru their system/steam.
  17. Jamayy

    Jamayy New User

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    It is a waste of time, I submitted a report and within seconds he declined the report and removed it. I had all the evidence required and he simply seen the word "discord" and removed the file. Laziness and a meaningless service as you have stated they rarely do support us who have lost literally hundreds in our currency (£400), I am not seeking vengeance or asking you to wipe my tears and hold my hand... I am similar to the rest (who are in my shoes and have experienced this loss) and I am simply trying to stop these cruel and sick minded individuals from doing further damage to others who might be vulnerable and lose out on so much more (than money itself) due to the scammers. I uploaded twice and you removed it within seconds again due to it being duplicated. Do not take the claim the reputation to support us who have lost a lot of money and often leading to financial impacts (I needed the money) and show little remorse, time and care with your cases.

    I have found other ways to try combat the trap I fell into and I hope other users can do instead of using then service you offer as it seems to be a dead end or coin within 10-30 seconds of uploading a case. I will attach my loss, as you can see it wasn't cheap and it has played a financial impact (due to my own actions) but I came to this support service to seek support in which I was turned around and simply told to go somewhere else.

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    popypoplandpoppopy likes this.
  18. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Nothing is a waste of time - but you are supposed to review our policies before submitting a report here and you did not do that or you would have seen the requirements as they were noted.
    We do not and can not review anything outside of steam chat screenshots. Your report was Declined for a reason and the reasons were clearly given along with links to our policies and requirements for reports. Had nothing to do with what we thought did or didn't happen - without proper evidence the report won't be reviewed.
    Please do not come to other threads or the General forum to complain about a report that wasn't accepted either - that is in violation of FAQ #3
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/general-discussion-faq.132723/
    Last edited: Apr 7, 2021
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  19. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

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    We cannot investigate all scams. We'd love it if we were able to, but that's simply not possible within the scope of what we have access to as a 3rd-party group of volunteers. The best we can offer is keeping reports, which we cannot prove or disprove, as a public record. If something in there is provable beyond reasonable doubt, then we make it much clearer that the accused scammer is a threat, but otherwise it's up to you as a trader to take those into account before dealing with someone.

    We do not accept reports involving phishing or other account hijacking for 2 reasons:
    1. Very few people are going to look someone up on SteamRep before clicking on a malicious link or giving someone their password. If they're that diligent, then they probably weren't going to fall for the phishing link in the first place no matter what the reputation status said. It would make more sense to use your browser's built-in mechanism (or a reputable extension) to block phishing sites.
      • As a third-party, unaffiliated with Valve, and without any special access to Steam beyond that of a regular user, we can't actually stop or block someone from mass friend requests or spamming forums and chat messages. All we can do is flag the account in our database, and trust the community will check our database before doing anything that requires trust. That simply doesn't happen with phishing link, it never has. It may prevent someone from signing into some trading websites, but the hijacker is usually only interested in more accounts and won't bother with that in the first place. This is something only Steam Support can address, and contrary to popular belief we don't actually have an open line of communication with them to expedite that.
    2. The vast majority of accounts sending phishing links or asking for passwords are themselves stolen. Once the victim recovers their account, they would still be BANNED in our database, and the status would continue hurting the reputation and ability for innocent scam victims interact with the community. That's not what our site is for.
    I'm sorry if that means the guy who sent you a phishing link wasn't already "banned", or your hard work collecting screenshots of phishing links went to waste, but knowledge that someone sent a phishing link 2 years ago (hypothetical example), while still shown, is of little benefit to the community as a whole and not worth warning people away. Unfortunately, there isn't an account we can actually single out hijackers with to stop them. Just as there isn't a single account (or group of accounts) Steam Support can single out to curb phishing links. That's part of why account theft is such a popular method scamming - there's simply nothing anyone can do about it short of stricter spam filters in the forums.

    We do not accept reports from other platforms because it's not practical to vet that evidence.

    There are scamming groups out there who name SteamRep specifically (as well as spamming profile reports), and sell evidence doctoring and targeted fake reporting as a service. Kind of like fake review bombing, but targeted against individuals instead of large companies, and only 1 verified claim needs to get through. We follow strict guidelines to keep that in check, and only issue bans in our database for cases where we can prove the scam happened beyond reasonable doubt. Far too often we've seen victims report they were extorted and threatened with having their reputation trashed here and/or elsewhere if they did not hand over their items and account, but generally speaking that doctoring gets caught by our staff before a ban is issued. We are not here to facilitate some Russian's protection racket, so we do absolutely everything in our power to ensure scam reports are not abused, and have for years. That means we have to ask some diligence from reporters. If the evidence is contained within Steam, with every connection to another platform clearly documented in the trade agreement (e.g. PayPal email), we can review it if the authenticity comes into dispute. Once the conversation is taken to Skype, Discord, Facebook, another game, or voice chat, the accused scammer gains plausible deniability. If they claimed in an appeal that's not what they said, messages were deleted or tampered with, or that wasn't their Discord account wasn't theirs - Discord and Facebook are practically training wheels for impersonation scams, with no reliable way to verify authenticity and identity - then it becomes the reporter's word against the accused scammer's, and we have no way of proving or disproving someone's innocence.

    We recommend that when trading in Steam, you keep everything within the Steam platform. If the person you're trading with insists on keeping everything in voice chat, Skype, Discord, Facebook, or anyplace other than Steam, then you should simply refuse to trade. It not only thwarts our efforts, but also thwarts Steam Support's ability to validate claims of fraud if you take the whole conversation off the platform where they could theoretically verify the screenshots against server logs. Scammers do that to cover their tracks, and they always have. Once upon a time, before CS:GO trading was established as it is now, simply asking to move to Skype/Ventrillo/Facebook was a huge red flag you were about to get scammed, and most TF2 traders knew to call shenanigans and cut ties at that point. We still recommend you refuse to discuss trade agreements on other platforms to this day, and those facts have not changed. Unfortunately, against our advice, switching to platforms is less taboo in CS:GO, all the same problems still exist, and scamming is that much easier and more widespread as a result.

    I really hate to blame the victim, who usually doesn't know better, but if you continue to use 3rd-party services to negotiate trades despite these issues, then you do so at your own risk. By giving the scammer this home field advantage, you've tied our hands. Everything that takes place on another platform, which isn't definitively linked to Steam, may as well have not happened because, as likely as it may look in the context you provide, we can't prove it, and we can't trash someone's reputation on your word alone.

    Yes, it's possible to doctor screenshots of things that occur in Steam, just as it's possible to doctor screenshots from other platforms. All of our staff are well-aware of this, and trained to identify and deal with it as it happens. I cannot get into specific procedures, but unlike most platforms, Steam has something of an audit trail and history, so once we have reason to suspect evidence may be tampered with, we have procedures to compare it against other sources and perspectives where it won't be as easy for a scammer to cover their tracks. If you wind up tagged for doctored screenshots, your appeal will be handled fairly quickly. If you were tagged for doctored screenshots in Discord or some other platform, there'd be no way to prove or disprove it was you, or that any of the evidence was tampered with.

    Valve can actually deal with these cases in a way we cannot. Whether they choose to do anything about it is another matter, but we have absolutely no say in it, and we have no means of restricting the account on our own.
    We exclude certain types of scams that are almost always associated with account hijacking, for reasons above, but we still allow appeals for hijacking victims to the best of our ability. PayPal scams are less common from hijacked accounts, but they happen. Valve has been making it harder and harder to verify whether someone is hijacked during a given timeframe over the years, and with that the likelihood of innocent people's reputation is forever ruined because of a hijacking grows that much more. We're trying to minimize that harm to innocent scam victims, but the majority of PayPal scams are not done from stolen accounts, and the majority of PayPal scammers claiming to have been hijacked were demonstrably found to be lying when we reviewed their appeal. Fake betting sites, we happen to know, are usually promoted from stolen accounts, and the concept - get user to click sketchy link and do risky thing for scammer to capitalize on - is fundamentally the same. As it turns out, the concept is so fundamentally similar that one of the most popular phishing kits bought and sold by scammers on the black market today actually has a switch in its admin control panel that toggles the site between "fake betting site mode" and "account stealing mode", likely to help scammers harvest new accounts to promote it when "deposits" start to run low.

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  20. popypoplandpoppopy

    popypoplandpoppopy New User

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    Point and closed. Its time a new data base is created then.

    That might be you and your friends, but i know alot of people that check new traders up on steam rep. Steam inventory helper shows me there status on this website.

    Dont know your proof is for that. Like ive said 1000 times, these accounts AREN'T highjacked, they are created for the sole reason of scamming. There is much evidence to support that too. There called scambots for a reason.


    That was me being clearly sarcastic.

    Ill be dead of old age when valve deal with these scammers. This company doesn't care, and wont care.