I've been raffling for months now and I've noticed many people doing not-so-smart things, so I decided to write up this short guide. Who to trust? Never trust anyone on a random trade server Never trust anyone who is marked on SteamRep or trade banned Never trust anyone with a private profile/backpack Never trust anyone with under 300 hours on Tf2 Never trust anyone who doesn't own the item they claim to be raffling Never trust small Steam Groups with no reputation unless you know the raffler is trustworthy Trust people from raffling groups owned by people you yourself trust or have reputation Trust administrators or moderators of SteamRep communities Trust people with valid reputation, not just on their Steam profile How to know if I've been scammed? Typical raffle scammers will have an alternate account or a friend as the winner. Always follow the item on backpack.tf or another site to make sure the item isn't traded back. Also watch for payments from the winner. Sometimes the prize simply isn't claimed, so it's usually not a good idea to report someone just because they still have the item. Sometimes scammers simply just take your entry and run for it. It's a good idea to save a link to the scammers profile so you can report them if necessary. It's also been known for scammers to simply not list your name and pretend to forget about you. Don't enter something which doesn't have a list of the entries. There's also the old middleman scam, were someone will impersonate a middleman from SteamRep or the server. Always double-check the middleman's legitimacy if you're using one. Who should I go to if I've been scammed? Go straight to SteamRep and report them. If it took place in a group, report it to the owner or an administrator as well. Use your common sense. Remember, if something seems to good to be true, it probably is.
Raffles should be done by Admins and using server plugin. Bottswana (of former JAG, server now under temp hood of HG) made a custom one I believe where raffling was fully automated on the server.
We run a custom server plugin that I've perfected over the course of 1.5 years now and is integrated into controls of the map as well which is also custom at WickedAfterlife. Not only does it control each person when added and generates the winner at random thru the server itself but each person entered is logged via time/date and steamid along with the winner on the back end for not only our records but for anyone wishing to see them can be presented as explained on our raffles information page: http://www.wickedafterlife.com/raffles.html As Datastorm has already posted - raffles should only be done by Admins and using server plugins as it removes the idea of others scamming people out of items for a so called "raffle" being run and they run away with items placed into the pot. It has happened so much on so many servers over the years I wouldn't recommend anyone allowing this being done on their servers by any regular player as it opens up a huge can of worms/problems. While you "Gamma032" have run them in the past I can assure you that you are still liable when it comes to running these...lets say you crash right in the middle. Well now you have so called "run away" with all those entries and you have no way to tell people that you didn't and now chaos ensues, reports filed and people in general pissed off so I suggest you stop.
I don't run them on servers. I run it on my group, so I can still come back and draw it even if people have entered are now offline and not many people have access to those kind of things
I would advise against it, so many have done this or tried this as a way to get more value out of items and yet there are too many problems that result in the unexpected. Nobody knows how really a winner is picked and I've seen people sign up alt accounts to join and have them win therefore the winnings never really leave the one making the raffle so again I advise against it.
I'll have to agree with Horsey here. its too easy to fake the raffle otherwise, without ppl being aware.
I know this is true partly because Gamma is admin on a tf2 trading group http://steamcommunity.com/groups/TFTRGCommunity Trustable information
Our group is currently working on a website which will automate our raffles. I only heard about this today but it seems it's been under development for a little while already.
Keeping that in mind i will devlope a error Proof ip Secure which would help keep 2 id's signing through one IP address means i will save IP address and steam id in a database server and Check on every login keeping scammers away and some more suggestions thanks for you help
i Can guarantee that our community checks every admin once in a week that if they are scamming and thanks to our members they keep up informing about admin's statistics and soon ill make a automated raffle website with a bot support (Bot Support seems to be tricky thats what is taking long ) is there an another way to keep SR scammers away from our website (Without taking the SR API)
Best bet: Don't participate in raffles. There's no secure way to have one with the SteamUI the way it is. Plus it's against the SSA to even mention raffles, much less have one. (probably because there's no way for it to be scam-proof since you're not using the trading window as it was intended). EDIT: Ahh, sorry for necroing the thread. I didn't see the date there.
