Ask A SteamRep Admin: Questions & Comments about SteamRep

The first video game I ever played was a Pong-clone. I was at my aunt & uncle's house, it was the early 1980s, and I sat on my dad's lap as he helped me play it. We had just gotten a Coleco-Vision for Christmas and I was so excited to play it. To this day, it is one of my earliest memories.
:)


I probably don't have much Skial karma because I'm so busy with SR scam reports that I don't visit other community sites as much as I would like, unfortunately. =(
 
how did steamrep get invented in the first place?
SteamRep actually started as a personal tool for Diego to help him stay away from scammers when trading. There wasn't any sort of database or anything so he threw one together for personal use. He mentioned it to some friends and they thought it was an excellent idea and that it should be opened to the public. So with a lot of help from Jameless, Butane, and DataStorm, SteamRep launched to the public in May 2011. Originally it took all of its reports directly from a SourceOp thread where people could report scammers. When my husband became an admin and launched the forums in January of this year, SourceOp closed the thread and everyone began reporting on our forums directly.

Who was the first person to get a scammer tag?
I honestly don't know who the first person Diego marked on his private database, BUT this appears to be the first guy marked when the site went public:
http://steamrep.com/profiles/76561198041167630
His offense? Impersonating a well-known trader in attempt to scam people.
 
We currently have 904 accounts marked on SteamRep for impersonation. Now, keep in mind that some of these accounts are alts of scammers who impersonated before. One particular person known around these parts who is notorious for impersonating people so he can scam has 8 alts that all impersonate.

Well, I would personally recommend it just to protect yourself. I get reports every day of people who got scammed by someone who was already marked and it's for little trades like 2 reclaimed or a key. I've had 2 crate (yes, normal Mann Co crates) scams. A lot of scammers are doing "microscams" now because they can get away with those a lot easier because a person may not check SR just for a 2 rec trade or a handful of keys. Even seasoned traders have fallen for these.
 
As an addendum to that, a few months ago there was a scammer we referred to as the Gift Wrap bandit. Nearly every person he hit was a fairly seasoned trader. I can't exactly remember what he was selling, but it was a fairly good item. He'd agree to the trade and ask the trader to provide gift wrap for him first. The trader would trade the gift wrap and he would delete & block the trader. He was marked 2 months earlier for the same thing. He went on his spree and nearly every report I received was, "I know I should have checked SteamRep first but..." No one expected this guy with a valuable item to scam gift wrap. :)
 
Xel'Naga said:
You shouldn't be getting "How to" out of this, as much as you should get "How to avoid scams". :p
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How do I get how to avoid scams if I'm not supposed to be getting how to? How to is part of how to avoid scams, yanno. Two words off.

But yeah, common sense. Be paranoid and check SR every time any trade is about to happen involving trust. Check their profiles, their friends, everything. We don't need to know the method of apparently successful scammers to avoid being scammed.
 
Dave the Manly said:
We don't need to know the method of apparently successful scammers to avoid being scammed.
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No, but making these scam tactics common knowledge is actually helpful. While, yes, putting the ideas out there will incite a lot of otherwise shady individuals to try it for themselves, making everybody aware of how it works helps would-be victims recognize possible attempts.

It's a double-edged sword.
 
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iTrade said:
So you're saying every account that is new is probably a scammer? I don't think that makes much sense. I'd say that one can usually identify who might be a scammer and who might not be one. If the rep thread is wrong or if the profile data is private I usually don't trade with that guy. Why do I now need steamrep? If I have a fishy feeling I don't do the trade.. I don't want to go offtopic here so if you want you can make a new thread of out of this to keep this thread ontopic.
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If you don't need SteamRep, don't use it. Just because you know the telltales signs of a scammer doesn't mean that the other several hundred thousand traders out there share your knowledge.
 
iTrade said:
So you're saying every account that is new is probably a scammer? I don't think that makes much sense. I'd say that one can usually identify who might be a scammer and who might not be one. If the rep thread is wrong or if the profile data is private I usually don't trade with that guy. Why do I now need steamrep? If I have a fishy feeling I don't do the trade.. I don't want to go offtopic here so if you want you can make a new thread of out of this to keep this thread ontopic.
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Depends on what you're trading. If you're trading a very high value item from a new account, it's going to be suspect. I think this is more of a discussion for the SR forums anyways.
 
takethepants said:
Depends on what you're trading. If you're trading a very high value item from a new account, it's going to be suspect. I think this is more of a discussion for the SR forums anyways.
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Yes, exactly. He had like a key, 2 hats, and a smoking killer exclusive in his inventory.
 
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