Archived Report: 76561198045552709 - ([Other] Other game items)

Scam Report

Report Type: [Other] Any other fraudulant behavior
Virtual item type involved: [Other] Other game items

Accused profile: 76561198045552709

Victim profile: 76561198011437632

What happened? Description:

Source: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php...-the-largest-charity-failscam-in-tf2-history/

"Hi Reddit/members of bp.tf,
I bet that no one will ever read this post, since I don't have a fancy SFM or teamfortress.tv airshot frag clip, but if you want to listen, I got a story for you. A story that will make you think about TF2 charities yet again. This is the story of Charity.tf, the largest charity failure/scam in TF2 history. How big are we talking? We are talking over 800 dollars in items, and a unknown amount (RIP puu.sh evidence you will be missed) in actual U.S. Currency, over 700 dollars more than the peak value of the Flares That Care bot.
So what was charity.tf? This site/group was set up way back in 2013, by Alex From Security and Waylandwanderer (who goes by Korrasami now). The event was a huge deal, with various celebrities from TF2 signing cosmetics to have in the main raffle. In-fact, it was one of the first solely raffle-related charity drives in the TF2 Community, and frankly, the most expensive with 1000 dollars in both Mixed cash and paypal being donated within the first day. The best part was that it would all go to charity, and help out help out cancer research and the ASPCA (via donations gathered from ). As the event went on, to quote Pixelated , (YouTube guy who made a video showcasing the event) "and as the hype built within a month the jackpot of prizes reached over $2000 and the money planned to be given directly to charities around $1000, this was all before the event had really begun."

However, as the days leading up went on, some unknown trader (I could not find his/her name in my research) started to call out the event as the "Largest scam of 2013", which led to various groups, such as bazaar.tf and tf2warehouse, to withdraw their support. This also led to some sort of legal action, and the account was forced to go and refund the entire amount from the paypal accounts. This finally led to Wayland to put the drawing on hold, and work on a way to make a donation system for JustGiving.com, a fundraising site, which was to help ease the problems that people were claiming.

Then, out of nowhere, it stopped. The updates for the development site stopped straight up. The main site, charity.tf hasn't been updated since 2013, and the main group's donation bot has kept the main raffle items since October of last year, with over 800 dollars in items locked away, lost in time. Alex has moved on from the event, and Wayland, according to Pixelated, has moved into the "George R.R. Martin" zone of persuading him the items/charity are still happening. Which leads to right now. No items, no charity, no conclusions.

These are the facts that I've found over the last few days. I’ve heard rumors of participants that were blown off, major amounts of events being buried under the rug, and a lot of general money related things. However, this is absolutely unacceptable for a head admin and developer of a trading site, and the fact that he hasn't given back the items, even when he (According to Pixelated ) has a f✿✿✿✿✿✿ list of the people who gave items, from the bot yet is absolutely despicable in my eyes. Knowing that some guy or gal who wanted to help out a child with a rare cancer find a treatment maybe even a cure, or a dog being abused by a owner who doesn't give two s✿✿✿s for it, is being denied the ability to do so because some admin either got bored and/or bailed out from a scheme on awry makes my blood boil.
Thankfully, you can still help those two organizations, via these two links (American Cancer Society Donations) (APSCA Donations), which go directly into the organizations themselves, rather than a backpack forgotten in history. However, we cannot forget the items lost in time. We need to find a way to get Korrasami to return the items, instead of just asking nicely and hoping for a response. This is a time of action, and a time to either help people get their items back, or to help out a family/animal in need of more help than some rich blokes abandoned donation bot.
And Yeah, that's all I got. Thanks for reading.

TL;DR Version: Charity.tf was a large charity for the ASPCA and the American Cancer Society that raised over 3000 dollars in mixed items and paypal donations, that fell apart because it was "a scam" and/or developers lost interest, and they have over 800 dollars in items locked in a donation bot which hasn't been opened since 2014. However, you can still help the various organizations at these links (American Cancer Society Donations) (APSCA Donations). "

Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/2jxptz/remember_charitytf_probably_not_but_i_need_your/

"Charity.tf was a great idea. It was one of the first solely raffle-related charity drives in the TF2 Community, and as the hype built within a month the jackpot of prizes reached over $2000 and the money planned to be given directly to charities around $1000, this was all before the event had really begun. I was a good friend of one of the co-creators, and offered to create the video to advertise the event, which still stands and can be found on the site.
Sadly things took a turn for the worse, as a certain high-up individual began to spread rumours about the site being "The Biggest Scam of 2013", a divide occurred in the process. This, combined with the new-found information that the Paypal system set up to retrieve the money was in a law-stricken limbo. Which led to the money being frozen and the co-creators Alex(from security) and Waylaid were forced into legal action, ended up creating a lot of bad press and a lot of angry people. This all built up to an enormous wait, one that we are still in but one that might never be stopped, and that led to more panic and ultimately the event being cancelled. After that, the event died down, as less people brought it up the new head of control, Waylaid, no longer was urged to carry on. Alex moved on, and is no longer associated with it. The development of the site stopped, returning items stopped, and currently there is still over $1500 of real money locked up in items. You can see this on the charity bot: http://backpack.tf/id/charitybot
This is why I need your help, the community, as without a large push to either kick start this or to return the items. The time will tick on, it will continue to leave peoples minds and slowly its existence will be erased, and the thousands of dollars of items will be.... I'm not going to assume the worst, this is no way a hate message aimed at Waylaid, he however is unmotived, which is why simply messaging him won't work - I've tried it, you will get a half-hearted message saying "progress is being made." We need to push this, show that this needs to change, and more importantly that no excuse is acceptable. The items were transferred through trade offers, and a list is present that shows who owns what. Charity.tf was not a scam, but at this rate it might as well be.
Original PSA on Reddit regarding Charity.tf: http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2trade/comments/1mf1ft/psa_giveaway_charitytfs_first_giveaway_event/
Last public reply regarding the site: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/charitytf#announcements/detail/1604698244951880509"

Additional information - Paypal donations were refunded but $800 worth of items have been in the bot since 2013, and the inventory is now private. The promised raffle never occurred, and no items have been sold for money to donate to charity. The gorup's last announcement was in 2013.

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/report-76561198155316177-tf2-team-fortress-2-items.94921/ - a similar but unrelated scam​

Provide Evidence:

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php...-the-largest-charity-failscam-in-tf2-history/
http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/2jxptz/remember_charitytf_probably_not_but_i_need_your/
http://bazaar.tf/thread/2963/1
http://backpack.tf/id/charitybot
http://charity.tf/​

Just checked the bot again and there are still a ton of items in its inventory. If they're not going to be returned than perhaps they could at least be donated to something like hugs.tf (https://scrap.tf/blog/posts/15)

After a discussion with Mattie, I've donated everything I could via scrap.tf to hugs.tf.

Proof: https://hugs.tf/donations-list (screenshot in case the donations get replaced by newer ones: https://i.imgur.com/OuMqhKY.png) - I can also provide other screenshots if necessary.

The last donation made by me, 154.50 GBP (or $200 USD) was via PayPal and is to cover the items in the charity.tf bot (https://backpack.tf/profiles/76561198088101608) currently valued at $111 USD, which I don't have time to sell individually. Just pretend that I bought the entire backpack's worth of items, where I doubled the amount paid to account for variance (items with low craft numbers, etc).

I hope this is a sufficient alternative to the charity.tf fiasco. I would like to close by saying that charity.tf was started with innocent hopes and good intentions (my dog had just recently died and my grandpa passed away from cancer, which was why the ASPCA and cancer charities were on the list of charities). We didn't do things properly then (I was just a 16 year old then who rushed into things), but I hope this makes up for it and closes the chapter on charity.tf's story.

Don't think I can retract this report, but if I could I would. Nice to see the items finally go to a good cause after all these years.