Ask A SteamRep Staff Member

Ah, i wasn't going to put up any specific info like that as I was unsure whether this was an issue that SteamRep would look into. Nevermind though... To be fair I now realise I should have checked more of the stickies in the main forum threads as it appears to me that this probably isn't an issue for SR. Sorry.....

Ehm, It is a issue for SR, but due the nature of sharking, its not enforcable with us.
- Proof is near always only the trade history, not original chats or w/e
- when do you count it sharking? how much disparity it must be to be counted as such? And can that be objectively measured? Items vary greatly in their price, and SR doesn't police price on items.

We do dislike sharks a lot. The only thing we can advocate as a action is to report them to Steam Support.

Thanks for your reply, I new here and i'm just reading through the stickies and FAQ so I'm clear on this kind of thing. So if this is an issue for SR, in what way and what are the official channels to report this directly (rather than in a discussion forum). If this kind of thing isn't enforced by SR is there anyone (apart from Steam Support) who does? (By the way what does 'w/e' mean?)

When do you count it sharking? Good question and a highly debated one it seems. My understanding is that sharking is bartering a deal that takes advantage of one parties lack of awareness/knowledge, resulting in a heavily unbalanced trade. Whereas scamming must involve some form of outright dishonesty, i.e lying about value of items, non-payment of paypal transfer, bullying or threatening behaviour. The distinction seems to be one of 'agreed terms', if the trade does not occur as per the agreement then it would be consider scamming, whereas sharking involves trades where the 'agreed terms' are met but on review are not regarded as morally sound.
That seems to me is more or less the generally accepted distinctions, but I'm not an expert on this stuff and often get hold of the wrong end of the stick! (please feel free to correct me)
The variance in current market trends / item value does create a scale of severity in these cases and I don't want to presume to have the answers on how to deal with that, it's a complex issue and respect to you guys for putting in the time and effort to try and ensure it gets dealt with in a fair and just manner.

Anyways enough of my babbling, on a final note I did send a report to Steam support, like I said, not to get the user banned or tagged , but mainly to get the guide taken down. Thanks once again... i'm off to have read of those stickies and FAQ's.

If SteamREP does not recognize profile rep. Why is it that you guys tag users for fake +rep on the steam profile? That seems a bit odd to me.

too many ppl still recognize that as rep. Couple days ago I encountered somebody with such. he had like 8 comments on his profile, 6 of which where from alts of his.

They do this to look legit to others. There is also a difference in accounting rep on a forum where the person having the rep thread cannot delete replies to his topic, vs a profile comment that they can delete at any time. We do not count them for being actual rep towards applications for positions, trust or w/e. However we DO recognize that others do gauge those replies as "rep" towards trustability to trade in money vs items.

We do therefore promote that traders use profile comments for what they are for: COMMENTS, not "rep".

Hi, everyone!

So, I suspect I've had 10 of my Mann Co. Supply Crate keys disappear from inventory. It was 57 keys this morning before I left home and now it's 47 keys. I haven't got any extra trades in trading history and I'm pretty sure that I'm not suspecting this by mistake, because I took notes of the amount of my belongings in a notepad before I left. I've been trading a lot these days so is it possible that one person (or more, but since it's 10 keys being lost at once, it's more likely to be one person) that I have traded with gave me keys that were purchased using fraud method which led to Steam deleting them from my inventory? I've created a support ticket but I'm not sure if they will ever respond to this one since they still haven't responded to my last ticket about a similar problem (items being revoked).

Have this thing ever happened to you guys? If it has, did support help you to get your items back?

do not spam that same question everywhere.

Dear Steam Rep,

I donated 1 month ago and I my Rep Status did not change....
Could someone tell me why I am not a Donator?

I have been really patient for 1 Month !

Here the booking details:

Hidden Content:

**Hidden Content: Content of this hidden block can only be seen by members of (usergroups: Administrative, Moderating).**

Hi,

Did anyone take care of my problem with the 10 USD donation and nothing happened?

The admin in charge of that is still catching up with a huge load.

When will the review for my Scammer Report be made?
http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198066731366-mordekaiser-lord.23238/#post-115711
It's been over 6Month ago, I reported this scammer, I know you guys have a lot of work.... but over half year, very sad.

It will be processed in the order they are placed for reviewing. The oldest are the ones processed first. Each time you posted in your report bumping it, it kicks it back to the top of the stack. That is why it has taken so long for it to be processed. That is also why we ask that you not bump reports as it does not get them processed any faster.

What BBCode do you allow to be used here? I've run into a few problems where it appears that certain codes aren't usable.

Afaik, we only added the hide/STG tags to the defaults that come with Xenforo.

So it might be slightly different BBCode or not available vs other forum software etc. We've not restricted them either... Altho I would sometimes like to remove the text Color tags seeing rainbow colored posts of some...

But in occasion we do use those ourselves... all those needed evils, they spawn from me

Oh i have a question. How long is first trade probation? Im kinda tired of people who think that items im giving will disappear on next day.

There is no "fixed" time, Valve has some formula I think that settles the times of the Trade Ban / Trade Probation. If you filed a ticket, you should be having a reply stating the times.

How long do reports take to get finished? I've been waiting a month for my process to go through and I've seen posts that have been old as february still not go through. Basically can I just know that my report will actually get looked at within at least a year so I can forget about it?

Reports are handled in the order they are received depending on the information that is provided and how fast the administrator/moderator's questions are answered in the process. We have a limited staff size, and as such it takes time for some reports to be handled.

I assure you though that it will be looked at and taken care of in time.

The best advice I can give to anyone reading this, if they want their reports processed more quickly, is to have all the information that they can obtain on the scam when it happens (IE screenshots of the scam, screenshots of the chat, screenshots of the trade history, etc.) and uploading all that evidence directly to SR in the report. Also ensuring that the report is properly formatted the first time goes a LONG way.

For information on reports that SteamRep will investigate go here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/read-before-posting-steamrep-investigative-policy.230/

For information on how to properly format a report go here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/...-look-at-acceptable-format-before-posting.51/

For information on how to provide sensitive information to the SteamRep staff go here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/howto-provide-sensitive-info-with-showtogroups.42504/

For a detailed guide on how to take screenshots to be used in your report go here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/howto-provide-evidence-with-screenshots.3488/

For information on contacting Steam Support in the event of Hi-Jacking reports go here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/how-to-contact-steam-support.35773/

A few questions regarding CD Keys. I've seen reports get marked as archived/invalid because SR doesn't investigate CD keys (an example). My questions are:

1.) If a user is going on a massive key scam (scamming about 20 game keys a day), does this mean you will not investigate the user at all?

2.) If SR doesn't investigate CD-Key reports, why did this user get tagged for CD Key scamming [I think I've even seen a few other reports where people also got tagged for CD Key scamming], while the person in the report I first linked didn't?

Also, yes I know that even Valve states not to trade CD-Keys, as they're risky. But I still don't think it's fair for CD-Key scammers to get away with scammed games.

What to do if a user is already marked as a scammer and tried to scam me? Should you report it, or just block them and move on?