Preventing Scammers With A Dedicated Group

Some would say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of dealing with the consequences.

Reading over SteamRep reports, it is obvious that a lot of scams succeed because of lack of education and guidance from more experienced players. Common tricks such as fake middlemans, fake rep, phishing attacks, etc are easily thwarted by someone who has dealt with them.

Would it be feasible for an official SteamRep group be created and promoted where people could pop in and ask if the deal they are about to go through is legit? It would be great if many people choose to be there for the sole purpose of doing cursory checks for people who may not know what to look for?


Comments, constructive criticism, and ideas welcome.

Any avenue which might allow for a pause before rash decisions are made is always a good idea.

In all honestly the real problem is people get seduced by profit, fail to check anything and worse fail to think. There are Admins on all the best servers and networks who are able to give instant advice on trades, there are Group Chats, IRC channels and all many of such formal means, along with friends and beyond that, on just about any decent server you can ask and people will give you opinions on a deal that looks too good. Sadly most people only start to think after the fact, when it is too late.

Anything which increases user education is fantastic, but we should be mindful that SR has a terrible burden of work which is ongoing and regularly gets backed up, and while it would be great if SR could do a lot more, we should be mindful that we the TF2 community should be doing everything we can as individuals/groups to promote safe trading.

If we have a few hundred more people like you Nobel who cares and have ideas, things will get better overtime. Hrmm, I do like the idea of a central, instant response facility, but I am not sure how it would work, and who could pull it off

Well what I had in mind was a steam group where people who have quick questions about paypal trading/checking rep could get a quick opinion from those who want to help. Of course it would require a dedicated group of people to hang out in the chat and be knowledgeable to answer questions. Its just that I hate seeing people getting scammed when a simple yes or no would prevent it. I understand that SR is very busy but I think working on the front end would benefit the community over all. The issue is getting those who have questions to finding the group to ask questions.


I think that if enough support/people would join the group that are able to give their opinions, it would at least give people pause and reevaluate the situation before being pressured in to trading. I know that myself and others would love to help answer questions and wouldn't mind hanging out in the group chat.

nobel, a great idea but once again, the comment made by venganza is the truth of the matter and why so many reports STILL come in. Most people who get scammed and ask for help find out about this site too late. There is not direct support from valve trading. Perhaps if Valve and Steamrep worked out a deal where steamrep would have some sort of admin only approved "chat forum" linked in the trading window where anyone who has the "tutorial on trading" bubbles pop up, gets a notification like:

"Need help in understanding safe trading, feel free to ask your trading community peers at THIS link"

Or something along those lines, it will reduce the number of reports that many of the admins here can be relocated to preventative measures instead of post crime tagging.

I don't see why Valve won't get more involved with a site like Steamrep which is a non-profit community support forum.

I agree. What we should be done is a campaign to incorporate steam rep into everyday trading as if it were Valve supported.

Why not take the first step and create a Steam group and promote it. I'm sure people would support it and hang out in there to watch over each other.

As Steamrep is partners with the largest trading servers I dont think it would be too much of a problem to ask for reinforcers of safe trading to be posted in the MOTD, periodic chat, Etc. Sites like TF2OP, TF2-T, TF2-B, etc could automatically send a direct message to new players when they first register about safe trading. Having a global message or forum links to safe trading/steam rep available for new players the first time they log in would help greatly.

And even for more experienced traders who want to start getting into cash trades, if sites like outpost could be coded to automatically to send a message to the trader, linking to the forums on what to look for EVERYTIME someone creates a trade with the Real life cash icon. It could also be extended to unusual trading reminding people to not trade with marked scammers.

It may be a hassle for traders initially, but if a toggle button, or a simple 1 click X out were to be used, i dont think it would be alot to bear.

I have stated on many times that it would be great if Valve worked a little closer with Steamrep, and any greater level of trust and partnership between them would be a great thing, even though your idea might be a bridge too far

Not long ago members of SR met with Valve in the States, and from all reports they got on very well indeed. I know for sure that Mattie and others are always keen to work closer with Valve, and time will tell if anything eventuates. It strikes me, that given that SR does a fantastic job on a voluntary basis, that Valve would be barking mad not to try and utilize what SR offers by forming a stronger partnership on whatever basis it deems most appropriate. Even if Valve just communicated better with SR and nothing more, it would serve the community greatly.

We should be hoping they are smart enough to realize a resource like SR costs them not a single penny, and provides them with enormous benefits. Well when I say doesn't cost a single penny, SR members did receive some serious recognition from Valve with Community Items of their choice recently, a very good portent and I must say very well deserved

I think alot of the time mate, experienced players just don't give a s✿✿✿.
That's why steamrep forums are a lively place because it is full of experienced players who do give a s✿✿✿,
Who do stand up for the little guy.
And I think what you say is totally true their needs to be a way for newer players to get to the grips of tf2 and its economy.
Aces gamer make a tutorial series
Lol actually that's not a bad idea
Since the first place new players go when they want to learn more about tf2 is YouTube, so yet a thought to dwell on

Yes few experienced people bother to help newer players, but some still do.

For example here is Bird Of Pray, a Gamers United Admin, my dear friend and one of the most respected people in this game



I recently awarded Bird GU Trade Admin of the Month Award (An unusual hat) and I have to say this guy is one of the 3 people in this game I would loan my whole backpack to, deserves a medal

Sorry mate what server are you on regularly?
Just want to know since I know gamers united from kritzkast
Just may want to be inducted into the community

That is Gamers UN (Euro division), I am admin on all gamers UN servers in Australia, Asia etc (a few hundred) + TF2-Trader. I rarely use any Euro servers, apart from wantedgov and Rawr sometimes.

Like all major networks and servers, all the Admins I hire for trade, are encouraged to be pro-active and teach our users how to prevent scams, since prevention is always the best way to safeguard the community, it is only via education that you can hope to overcome the lions share of scams in this game.

Any kind of mechanism that can reach newer users would be a great thing, sadly most people only learn about SR "after" they have been bitten by the lousy scum out there

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What do you think about this suggestion? I have no server or admin experience so I do not know the feasibility or coding issues.[/quote]

Found this: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/sr_public
Seems fairly unused though. Maybe we can re-purpose that group? It's just collecting dust at this point.

That seems pretty perfect. Already has the head admins as admins :3 .

Going along with the suggestion to add more links to steam rep from Affiliated servers, and big trading sites, I remember that playing on trade servers can automatically send you invites to join their groups. If the server admins would also invite people to the new steam rep group it would be an effective way to reach out and spread knowledge of steam rep.

There are allways experienced traders like me glad to help people and to give advices though.
But the idea of linking Steamrep to Valve would be nice, the hard thing is that it's moderated by its community people, not Valve Employees and they cant be sure that this Steamrep Staff is 100% legit, even if i'm sure they are as i' know some since a long time. But you know I doubt they'll do that easily.
A good thing would be integrating stamrep profile or tag when you trade with someone, you can have his tag and his information directly showed. Taht would be great, i'm just bored when I give advices to people and they dont follow those and then get back to me saying that they have been scammed or ripped-off.


PS : if sr admin/mod staff know me i'd be glad you vouch for me in my app ^^
PS2 : It's going really hot here it's 32°C

I think that some plugin for this should be ok for the time being.
There was already made one for a google chrome and posted on Skial by Skial moderator (takethepants), but it's gone now as it was requested to be deleted - it wasn't fully done.
It looked like this: http://imgur.com/a/Tcqwc

yeah it should be a plugin/script included in steam, even in the trade window ^^