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Archived Appeal Review for 76561198107415526 (Erraddo)

Discussion in 'Archived Appeals' started by Erraddo, Dec 28, 2022.

  1. Erraddo

    Erraddo Banned on SteamRep

    Messages:
    5
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:73574899
    Appeal Review Request
    Reminder: Appeal reviews are not appeals!

    Reason for Appeal Review: Other extenuating circumstance at admins' discretion. NOT USUALLY GRANTED!!!
    Past Appeal: https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/appeal-76561198107415526-erraddo-banned-by-sr.61640/

    Steam profile: 76561198107415526 (Erraddo)

    Make your case:
    Greetings,
    This site has admittedly slipped off my mind the last few years, as I've not been playing much TF2 or other games that heavily involve trading, but it randomly came to mind and I kind of want to clear this up in case I ever go back to such games, and to try and clear my name somewhat.

    Regarding the format, the "make an appeal" page:
    https://forums.steamrep.com/forms/appeal.4/respond
    has a "have you appealed before?" section, but your FAQ:
    https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/faq/
    and appeal guide:
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/appeal-guide.66354/
    say you only get one appeal per person, so I was kind of confused at whether I was supposed to make a new appeal or request a review? The original verdict on this appeal is 100% correct, so calling it a "review" kind of seems wrong? Especially as, unlike the appeal page, there is no "change of heart" option. Please let me know if this is wrong, I'm not really familiar with this forum. It is my understanding that the 2014 appeal was my one and only chance so I should not make another one, so I figured I'd try to use the review function, but it seems this is also frowned upon. I guess this is a shot in the dark.

    My aim is to include all information I have available and go from there.

    The offense was impersonation. The incident, as I remember it, goes as follows:
    Friend (have since lost contact, met on TF2 trade server IIRC, if so AvvogadoArmy, a steam group I am still part of but no longer active in, and was an admin of at the time. He might still be in my friends list, a lot of people from back then still are.) comes up with plan: I make my account look like a steamrep certified middleman (he provided a link to the relevant account), he offers to buy out a guy's inventory, gives my account info, and then doesn't pay the guy.
    Another friend was in the call at the time, i cant really remember his role in this, I think he was supposed to impersonate someone else and go "yeah this is legit" to help the plan.
    Plan went sideways as the victim noticed before any item was transferred. I then noticed some difficulty in trading as people would refuse to trade with me, then I got banned or kicked from some community servers, eventually came across this site. Fairly sure everyone involved in the scam got banned for scamming of some kind.
    The account i impersonated was chosen because its custom URL was, IIRC, "LikeThis", and I set my URL to LikeThls or LikeThIs, which was deemed to be easy to miss. Account was also set to private, which was of course a necessity to make the impersonation look convincing. Looking back, why would a steamrep middleman account be set to private? If it was an honeypot, well played.

    I have an old (VAC banned) account, it's defunct though, i only log into it to access a couple games. I don't think i ever really traded much with it, but it's hard to remember.
    | steamname: erraddo97
    | steam3ID: [U:1:89362840]
    | steamID32: STEAM_0:0:44681420
    | steamID64: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198049628568
    | customURL:
    | steamrep: https://steamrep.com/profiles/76561198049628568
    I think I made at around the time of the VAC ban, but it's too far back to remember, and if so it's not an active account.

    As my old alt account name suggests, I was born in 1997. That account is VAC banned because at... 14? I figured I'd try cheating. This account is banned because at 16 I was dumb, or more correctly a dick. IDK if you can see trade history, but around the time of the SR ban I was heavily invested in trade, and even tricked some newbie into an extremely unfair trade of cosmetics for weapons.

    I did try an appeal at the time, in which I lied about the incident. And used poor english. On that note, 3 Italian kids with poor english trying to scam some guy out of his inventory was a really dumb plan. I suspect I did not read most of your FAQ before making that appeal, though part of your current documentation is more recent than the appeal itself so who knows.

    I can't really say much to my credit other than I'm now 25 and a better person. Which I cant really prove. The only good deeds I can point to is honeypotting scammers: seeing as I'm listed as being in a few TF2 groups, I occasionally get accounts adding me and asking about joining some cash prize ranked multiplayer event, or joining a roulette site of some kind. I just lead them on until they drop links, check those links with Tor, and report them to Steam for malicious links and scamming. I've got a potential scammer in my firends list right now:
    https://steamrep.com/profiles/76561199017752920
    trying to get me to join some tournament. I'll see how it goes but I expect it's a scam. Most of these tend to unfriend and block me after I report them though, and I'm not in the habit of keeping the chat logs so IDK if this can in any way be confirmed.

    If there's any kind of remedial step I can take to make up for what I did, I'd be open to suggestions. If it helps, I am sincerely sorry for what I did, but I have a hard time even remembering what my line of reasoning at the time was.

    Attached is my recent trade history, to explain why I forgot to do this sooner.​

    Attached Files:

    Erraddo, Dec 28, 2022
    #1
  2. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    5,840
    SteamRep Admin:
    STEAM_0:1:46187366
    You can only appeal once, and without an approved appeal review you can't re-appeal. Appeal reviews are meant for rare circumstances where extenuating circumstances warrant voiding that one appeal and allowing a second appeal in its place. If you don't have a valid, demonstrable extenuating circumstance to warrant voiding your previous appeal (examples were shown in the form you filled out), then appeal reviews don't apply to you and you're stuck with whatever was decided during that appeal.
    Claiming a change of heart does not qualify as an extenuating circumstance. Arguing that, or any specifics to your case, was for your original appeal and has no place here. The only goal of an appeal review is to figure out if your alleged unique, extenuating circumstances qualify for a rare exception to the one-appeal-per-lifetime policy.
    Those are usually phishing bots, run from either a completely automated script or a call center following a list of cut&paste replies. And they're usually done from accounts stolen from their victims, who may eventually recover their account. There isn't a lot you can accomplish just by entrapping them, but there are a number of ways it can go wrong - including scammer retaliation if you aren't careful (which can be rather harsh) or falling for some new method you haven't seen yet even when you knew you were dealing with a scammer up front. If you understand that, I certainly won't lose sleep over a scammer's wasted time, but I thought I should point out if you're serious that this activity is high risk and low reward.

    All of that said,
    What is your extenuating circumstance that you claim qualifies you for a rare exception, where we should overturn and void your previous appeal and allow a second appeal, which we wouldn't provide to anyone else?
    Lava, Dec 29, 2022
    #2
  3. Erraddo

    Erraddo Banned on SteamRep

    Messages:
    5
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:73574899
    Thank you for the quick reply and for clearing up my questions.

    I guess with the rules as written I have no leg to stand on. I did appeal once before, it got justly rejected for good reason, and there are no second chances here. It's been almost 9 years, I had hoped I could get this overturned as it kinda sucks that a mistake I made as a minor sticks to my internet identity to this date, but I guess rules are rules. I may not find them fair but that's that.

    "I was young and dumb, i no longer am and wish for a second chance" is the closes thing to an extenuating circumstance I can point to, but as you said, a change of heart is a valid reason for appeal, not for review, so I've got nothing. If I understand correctly, any attempt to appeal again will automatically fail due to the "one appeal per person" policy, so that's that. The only real option left is to make a whole new online identity if I really want to distance myself from this incident.

    Asking for leniency was worth a shot I guess.
    Erraddo, Dec 29, 2022
    #3
  4. Erraddo

    Erraddo Banned on SteamRep

    Messages:
    5
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:73574899
    I did have severe mental health complications in 2019 (the year my appeal was rejected) that made it hard to keep an eye on this, but it'd have been rejected either way so I don't think that counts
    Erraddo, Dec 29, 2022
    #4
  5. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    5,840
    SteamRep Admin:
    STEAM_0:1:46187366
    SteamRep is planning on creating a clemency program (can't give a definitive timeline), so that may be what you're looking for. That would also be once-per-lifetime, but separate from appeals, under different criteria, so having a previously rejected appeal would not necessarily disqualify you from clemency. Re-appealing because you didn't like the outcome the first time is not an option though.

    Since you have provided nothing to back up your claim to extenuating circumstances, I am closing this appeal review.
    Lava, Dec 29, 2022
    #5