Bottiger

Administrator
I am please to announce Skial Middleman. Skial Middleman is a system that let's you buy and trade items in Steam Trade from other people using US dollars and/or Bitcoins.

Skial middleman is now in semi-private beta. It is now fully operational, but will be going through a testing period to ensure there are 0 problems.

Why use this instead of a "Trusted" Middleman
  • Paypal is subject to payment reversal. If you are paid with an account that happens to be stolen or the user files a charge-back on their credit card, Paypal will remove the money from your account to cover the loss even if you already traded your $1000 unusual.
  • No need to gamble that a certain middleman is trustworthy or hasn't had their account stolen.
  • No need to wait for a middleman to wake up when both you and your customer are awake.
  • The bot will be online 24/7 and have your items available for sale 24/7.
  • Pay or buy with bitcoins, a free and secure, 0-signup p2p currency.
  • Upcoming support for other currencies supported by Mtgox such as Euros, Russian Rubles, Canadian Dollar, British Pound, Australian Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, New Zealand Dollar, Japanese Yen, etc.
  • Other currencies that you receive is automatically converted to the main currency you chose at market rate +2.5%. You may disable this setting at your mtgox.com account.
Disclaimer
  • There is a tiny $0.25 fee per USD withdrawal from our payment processor. There are 0 fees for withdrawing bitcoin.
    https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/MtGox#Withdrawing_Funds
  • Valve may still remove items bought with a stolen credit card or account. This is also a problem when using human middlemen, but people should know this in case there is an assumption that Skial Middleman is flawless.
  • You may not trade Spiral Knights items due to their terms of service.
Commands
All commands work only when you are typing in Steam trade chat. Words in brackets indicate something you should type without the brackets. Available currency is currently USD or BTC.

remove [tradeid]
Remove one of your trades.

price [a number] [currency, defaults to USD if unspecified]
Sets the price of your current trade.

trades
Display your unpurchased tradeids

buy [tradeid]
Puts someone's trade on the screen and shows you the price.

pay [currency]
Buys the trade currently on the screen. The middleman will accept the trade once you've paid.

deposit [mtgox code]
Deposits mtgox code into your middleman balance.

withdraw [currency]
Withdraws all you have in one currency into a mtgox code.

balance
Shows how much money you have.
 

Roman

Banned
Contributor
I am a tester and can vouch for this system.

If someone would like to trade/buy/sell something from me using the SMM, let me know and we can arrange something.
 

ViperStriker

Banned
Contributor
I am please to announce Skial Middleman. Skial Middleman is a system that let's you buy and trade items in Steam Trade from other people using US dollars and/or Bitcoins.

Skial middleman is now in semi-private beta. It is now fully operational, but will be going through a testing period to ensure there are 0 problems.[/quote]
Sorry Bott, but Steam Trade has been extremely buggy for me everytime I have used it for trades that include more than 8 Items for TF2. One thing is that it'll pop up saying that an Error occured about 70% of the time. Either Steam Trade is being fixed, or this Beta is an inprovement to the original. Either way, this sounds like a excellent idea and I hope it'll fix any bugs with Steam Trading.
 

(cYs) Del Piero

Notably Dangerous Demo-Knight
Contributor
A 0.25$ fee per 1$ is actually a lot.
Lets say you sell an unusual for 300$. 75$ would be the fee you pay just to receive them money right?
 

Bottiger

Administrator
A 0.25$ fee per 1$ is actually a lot.
Lets say you sell an unusual for 300$. 75$ would be the fee you pay just to receive them money right?

No there is not a 25% fee. No one would ever use a 25% fee system. There is a $0.25 fee per withdraw from mtgox to Dwolla which allows you to transfer to your US bank account via ACH. There is a 2% fee for withdrawing to an EU bank account via wire.

These fees are lower than the Paypal credit card fee, and a lot cheaper for you in the long run because of 0 chargebacks. If you want completely 0 fees, you can either leave your money at mtgox.com or you can accept bitcoins and find someone willing to exchange bitcoins for paypal and risk a chargeback that way.

I am not collecting quarters from people.

However I may add a small fee in the future for maintenance costs and the cost of buying games like TF2 and Portal 2 for the middleman account so it can store those items.
 

Roman

Banned
Contributor
To address Viper's concerns, this is still a beta. However, Bottiger has worked pretty diligently to find any loopholes or problems with Steam Trade in order to try to vanquish this. He found Steam Trade to be the most reliable (i.e. least likely to lead to scams) so that's what he went with. That, or it was easiest. Either way, I can vouch that it works. I'm transferring money to Mtgox for trading to show that I have faith in the system.
 

ViperStriker

Banned
Contributor
To address Viper's concerns, this is still a beta. However, Bottiger has worked pretty diligently to find any loopholes or problems with Steam Trade in order to try to vanquish this. He found Steam Trade to be the most reliable (i.e. least likely to lead to scams) so that's what he went with. That, or it was easiest. Either way, I can vouch that it works. I'm transferring money to Mtgox for trading to show that I have faith in the system.
Thanks Roman. I needed some reassurance. I've just had so many Bugging probs with Steam Trading.
 

swarƒega

Notably Dangerous Demo-Knight
Contributor
I am a tester and can vouch for this system.

If someone would like to trade/buy/sell something from me using the SMM, let me know and we can arrange something.

If you have buds, Id be interested in buying them from you using this system.
 

(cYs) Del Piero

Notably Dangerous Demo-Knight
Contributor
How can someone become a tester of this system. I've gotten already used to the fact using PayPal now.
It got announced almost one Month ago...
 

Bottiger

Administrator
The only requirement is that you need to sign up for a mtgox.com account. All you need is an email address.

To add or withdraw funds to and from your bank account, you will need a bank account.

We will face adoption problems because most people use Paypal. But we have the one thing that kills Paypal usage: no chargebacks.