1. There is no such thing as a "pending" ban or Steam admin. Anyone threatening your account is a scammer trying to scare you. Read more.

Trading with a marked scammer

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by zirune, Mar 7, 2014.

  1. zirune

    zirune New User

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    I'll keep this quick. I've searched on the forums for an answer, but that didn't really turn on much of use.

    I know that it says in the FAQ trading with somebody that's marked can have you warned/cautioned/banned.

    But does this apply if the items being traded are completely scam-free? This line in particular from the un-expanded FAQ:

    > Yet, we cannot encourage scammers to profit from their theft.

    Makes it sound like trading with somebody marked as a scammer would be fine if the trade were even and/or involved only items that hadn't been scammed. Obviously buying a Burning TC for $100 would get you a mark, but I'm looking at a pretty even ~20 bud trade involving items that haven't been scammed with a person that was banned 2 years ago and hasn't had anything reported against them since other than trying to get a friend trade his items on OP.

    I just want a clear answer before I potentially make a trade. I imagine it would be fine, but I don't want to be fooled by my naivety and get a dumb caution.
  2. Thomas Matthias

    Thomas Matthias Retired Staff

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    If you trade with banned users or obvious alts of banned users, you are putting your reputation at risk.
  3. gukingofheart

    gukingofheart New User

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    By trading with a scammer, you're sending them the message that it's OK to scam users.
    If no one ever trades ever again with a scammer, they'll stop scamming.
  4. Mattie!

    Mattie! SteamRep Admin

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    While that's a key side effect (benefit), that's not the core reason it's so problematic that it risks your reputation.

    It is very, very hard to tell who is fencing/brokering for scammers, who is partnering with them, and who is actually an alt of their accounts. After years of all sorts of shady associations, people funneling items to "clean" alt accounts, and outright scammer partnerships, the community has adopted the stance that if you are trading with fraudsters and helping them profit (despite knowing they are banned for trade fraud) you are close enough to being an accomplice that your reputation should reflect that.

    Our guidelines for trading with banned accounts has different stages of leniency because we know mistakes happen, but if those "mistakes" happen enough, or if it's clear you knew you were making business arrangements with an account marked for fraud, we have to assume you're working with them (possibly in many more deals than we hear about).

    Keep in mind that banned users will frequently launder items, or sale/resale scammed items, until they will have items which themselves weren't scammed directly. Yet the value inside those items was built from scams. Helping them profit at all very well could be helping them profit off of their theft or hijacking.

    Hopefully this helps clarify.
  5. Fantomas

    Fantomas New User

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    But if u are on a trade server and u trade with the guy that is banned on diferent trade servers and u dont know that he is banned,not trade banned,what u do if u are new in trading but u buy buds from a site and wanna buy somme unsuals?
    Couse the problem is that steam rep canot prove that u know that guy was banned,also that u knew u are trading with a scammer,also why do we need to prove to u that we didnt know that?
  6. gukingofheart

    gukingofheart New User

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    Fan, if part of this is a question to me, then I guess you're experience and you're trade history(if they see a whole list of scammers in your trade history, won't look good for you).