Bug report: When viewing a trade banned user's steamrep page, they are called a scammer

Just for the record, Helen and I don't watch anyone's inventory history. We don't have the time or inclination. We are busy enough with reports. I don't know any other SR admin who has the time or inclination either. We absolutely do NOT want to be involved in "witch hunts" or anything like that and we are staunchly against SR being used for that purpose.

We are here to help and we are here to prevent scams- NOT punish people. I can't stress that enough. We are all about prevention. We don't want scams to happen in the first place.

I didn't mean it in a bad way.

Yea, that's what I mean. I wasn't saying it was bad or anything.

I would be inclined to say that the annoying vigilantes who have nothing better to do than to watch people are the problem.

Is he the one who reported you and got you the caution?

No, but he doesn't know how to mind his own business.

I'll talk to him. He has been going overboard with his reporting and complaining about users trading with scammers (you, t-virus, etc..) It's a bit much

Aces got a caution? Trading's gone to s✿✿✿

Edit: Posts are censored? Freedom's gone to s✿✿✿

I feel like I need to throw in my 2 cents given my recent experience with Steam Support. I fear that their current activity over trade banning and locking users is slightly more sinister than stopping scammers and protecting the community. After my experience with them, when they provided a number of conflicting responses, and very little actual support, but all generally suggesting I give them more money - I expect that the trade bans and so on are directed at users who make profit, especially through fraud but also even through legitimate large scale trading. These users are making money using methods (paypal) that Valve can't control, and have no stake in, and that don't benefit their corporate interest. All other methods of trading items are controlled and Valve gets a share of any profit. They make a point of generally not allowing users to "cash out" as the only way to do so is through paypal, which they don't support ( I know the reason's why, but my point is they have the market now, but they still have no way to make payments from steam wallet BACK to your personal paypal or bank account).

Valve don't provide reasons for trade bans, nor account locks, and they don't have to, because according to their policies no one owns anything that they haven't bought from the store, and so a trade ban/lock shouldn't cost the user anything as they still have access to this.

Call me cynical, but I feel this is driven more by their profit margin, than it is their wish to protect the community.

Thats bullshit. If cash trading is "banned" then the whole market would collapse, that would cost Valve WAY more then this. They recieve money anyways, by ppl buying keys, using keys etc. They won't hurt their own market, and they KNOW that ppl want to cash out at some point. If they would block that, everything would turn worthless.

So please, stop that, for it cannot be true, Valve invested way too much in trading to let it fail.

this is true, Valve has said multiple times that they belive the TF2 trading second hand market is valued at over 10 million USD a year, if they close down that they would loose way to many costumers, market just made it possible for people to cash thier TF2 items into Games if people wished tbh, however closing the entire TF2 Market would hurt Valve in so many ways that it would be suicide for them to do so.

As long as there is a supply and a demand the second hand market or "open trade" market will always be around, there is TONS of sites dealing with what do you expect Valve to do sue them all. ?
Valve crated and gave the API that a lot of the major sites are using today for trades and for people to know who they are trading with so i am with datastorm on this.

You are way off.

I haven't said that they have banned cash trading... I've said that they're cracking down on the large scale paypal traders because they can't control it and can't profit from it.

The TF2 second hand market may be valued at 10 million US dollars, and they have managed to work their way in to it by introducing the Steam Market out of which they take a percentage, but I don't see them taking a percentage out of all the paypal trades? you don't think that driving these towards the market is a big enough financial motivator for them to find reasons to trade ban a few high profile traders and thus move a larger proportion of trades into the steam market arena?

You mention a number of sites that use the steam API sure, but none of them offer cash transactions out of which valve can take a cut.

As I said I may be cynical, but I've worked for large, remote organisations, and I've been involved in much more sinister scheme's than I imagine this to be to increase profit.

They dont ban paypal traders but people linked to scammers/carders.
SR admins have other things to do than watching every trader, I repeat they have many and many reports to process, hundreds a day per admin, so I highly doubt they care about watching someone.
Others can watch for them though, or report to them people involved in scamming/carding with correct form and with proofs. So stop saying it's big brother...
I still think that this site keeps helping people to avoid being scammed, tagging scammers. I have many friends who avoid that with SR helps and I do too.
Now let's see a day without SR ON, many people would whine and even wont trade, trust me, without being able to check trader's Steamrep, I usually never trade.

I will add another point to this discussion without quoting anyone directly.

Claims that some members are locked for large volume trading? Those members deserve a ban for single handedly helping drive the scammer market when they do not do their due diligence when trading for such a large transaction. Speaking from direct experience, I used to be a volume trader and have had such a warning from Valve. With a CLEAR message stating that the next time it would be a permanent ban. So they DO give warnings before banning large traders. It was just a warning because I was the 3rd or 4th down the line to receive some carded keys. Took me a few weeks and very detailed and organized transaction keeping to prove I was completely innocent. I showed multiple trade transactions, open trades on outpost that I am buying keys for Paypal and how I got involved with those potential carders, as well as proof that I was moving way more keys then the ones I got "flagged" for at the time of the transaction. You see, there are very few ways to prove your "lack" of knowledge as far as being an accomplice to carders and I got a lucky break because I recorded everything including chat logs when trading. Ultimately if you are not taking due diligence in reviewing who you trade with then you are responsible for the consequences and the penalties handed down. Since then, I always did my due diligence and declined random key sellers who have no history and who's keys history is similar on all the keys in the pack. I would check the history of 2-3% of the keys (randomly) in any given purchase. Whenever they all had the same owner past, guess what, I knew I was again directly in the line of washing keys for a carder. Now, I had to choose. Do I save that $0.05 a key over everyone else and take the 500-2000 keys or do I just turn down the $25-$100 profit which risks my $1000-$10000 bankroll (this is the average bankroll of any given large trader at any given time). Also, that $25-$100 would have cost me a secondary income which I was making (i have reduced my trading by like 90%) about $200 - $500 a month depending on how good that month was with new releases in items / unusuals. So no, sorry, I declined those offers (and I have had a few).

Here is an analogy similar to this matter: If you get approached by some guy on the side of the street with a van and they sell you a laptop out of the back of their truck for $100 and you take it home, plug it in and next thing you know you are arrested for theft by the police, how do you plan to claim innocence in this matter. Did you record the license plate of the car, did you contact authorities after declining the stolen merchandise? You can't claim ignorance to a suspicion that it was stolen. After all, it was some random dude from the back of a van offering a high ticket item for a fraction of the proper market cost of the item. They will take the laptop from you and not give you the $100 back. Will you call them big brother? Will you scream lawsuit against the police? Think not.

Bottom line is closing your eyes and looking the other way when someone offers you an amazing deal for the sake of a small profit actually makes you just as guilty as anyone else. Ignorance does NOT equal innocence. There have been MANY MANY cleaner ways to make profit in this game and I switched to those methods much faster and long time ago. I was one of the original backpack buying service providers - that is a much cleaner and more lucrative business if you are willing to work hard. Hat banking (not my idea but jumped on it early in the game) is another slower but clean method. Scrap banking, the oldest brokering method in existence that gives you clean profit (but very little). Many more new ones I would not like to discuss to keep my edge on the market but you get the point. Ultimately you have to work for your money the clean old fashioned way.

Enough on this post. I'll let you reflect on this point for a while.

Can we get this fixed now? I've yet again been falsely called a scammer because of the erroneous information displayed on my Steamrep page.

To recap, as people are fans of not reading the thread:

Trade banned users are erroneously labeled as scammers on the pop-up that displays when viewing their page, as well as in the upper left corner, where it says "Scammer profile overview". It has repeatedly negatively affected the way people view me when participating in trade discussions. I have no problem with the popup, if users MUST be warned about people who have had the misfortune of being trade banned, but falsely calling them a scammer is out of line.

Fair enough, thanks for the help

Since the question has been answered and all the fixes that were ever going to be made, have been, I'm locking this as the thread has run its course now.