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Xel'Naga

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As I just recently mentioned in the Trade Chat forum, Skial now has the ability to tag scammers on SteamRep. This is awesome because this allows us even more abilities as far as stopping scammers in their tracks, and it also means that our reports are finally being taken seriously by the "standard" reporting system.

As such, we're going to be making a few changes to the way we handle scammer reports. Preferably, right now we're going to have all reports be posted to this forum, instead of to the Trade Chat. This way our reports for scammers and hackers/griefers are all in the same section, and there's less clutter.


HOW TO FILE A REPORT

All scammer reports should be posted to the Reports forum, or sent as a PM to Faron or Xel'Naga. To make things easy, we're going to be changing up our policies and formats for reporting scammers, as of 5/28/2012. We're going to be using SteamRep's own procedures for gathering details and evidence. Mattie!, of SteamRep fame, has put together an absolutely awesome guide for how to get this sort of evidence already, complete with graphics and templates. Please refer to this thread for the templates and evidence-gathering procedures. Or, for quick copy/paste, simply open the box below to get the template if you're already familiar with the procedure.

Subject: 7656119806666666666 (evil_scammers_name)

Victim:
steamID: innocent_victims_name
steamID32: STEAM_0:0:9999999999
steamID64: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656119809999999999
customURL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/innocentname
steamrepURL: http://www.steamrep.com/index.php?id=7656119809999999999
SOP forum account (if applicable): VICTIM_FORUM_NAME

Scammer:
steamID: evil_scammers_name
steamID32: STEAM_0:0:66666666666
steamID64: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/7656119806666666666
customURL: http://steamcommunity.com/id/scammername
steamrepURL: http://www.steamrep.com/index.php?id=76561198066666666666
SOP forum account (if applicable): SCAMMER_FORUM_NAME

Screenshots:
- Pictures of chat (required)
- Trade window if relevant (please keep the practice of chatting in normal chat, and just only trade in the trading window).
- Screen shot of profile page if the offender is impersonating admins, middleman, or trusted traders. (showing steam community link, pic, nickname, friends and groups)

Description: A (short) description of where/how you encountered the person, and the deal, the attempted scam, and the outcome. The pics should tell the full story.

Copy a transcript of the chat below that. For readability: Put the text between [ code ]text here [ /code ] tags, remove the spaces within the brackets and it will show up the same as this part of the text.
For the sake of contingency and privacy, if you have any screenshots that contain personal information, please censor it out. If you are unable to censor out the information, or you feel that it is important to your report, then please send these screenshots privately to either Faron8 or myself for review (do not post it as a comment to our profile, but rather chat us on Steam or send it as a PM). We will not publicly post your private information without your permission. Your private information includes items such as your name, email address, PayPal transaction IDs, Steam login name, etc.

However, do not edit out too much information from your screenshots. We need enough evidence to be able to prove the scammer is who you say they are. Don't edit out things such as Steam names, timestamps, URLs (unless there is sensitive information in the URL), or anything else that could help us link the scammer's account to his crime. If you do edit out something in the screenshot, please state what it was that was edited out.

If your screenshots contain any private information, be absolutely sure that you do not post them in this thread, or anywhere else. Send them as a PM or Steam chat ONLY. This way, we can make sure that before we release the screenshots as evidence, we can have your personal data removed.

It is also advised that, after you have fallen victim to a scammer, that you file a ticket with Steam Support. Depending on the circumstances, Steam Support may be able to restore your items for you, however this is determined on a case-by-case basis, so your mileage may vary. Typically they will restore your items if you can prove that the scammer made some sort of promise - such as to give you X item after you finished the trade, such as with trading CD keys, or trades larger than what Steam trade allows (which I believe is about 255 items per person per trade) - or if the scammer misrepresented an item (by saying it was a craftable hat, when it wasn't, or if they said it was painted White but it was really painted 216-190-216 (a common scam), etc.

Also be warned that Steam Support will not honor any cash trades. If you lost money or items in the result of a cash trade, Steam Support will simply close your ticket and wish you a good day. Don't even bother in these cases.

As long as it wasn't a cash trade, it's always advised that you go ahead and submit a Steam Support ticket. Worst case scenario: You don't get your items back. However, with ample evidence, Steam Support will apply a trade ban on the scammer, which prevents them from making any trades with their account for two weeks (usually), and may prevent other traders from falling victim.

WHAT COUNTS AS EVIDENCE OF A SCAM?

When filing a report, please be sure to have adequate evidence. We will not take copy/pasted chat logs as evidence. You can take a screenshot of your chat session, trade window, trade history, etc.

There are several different tools for saving screenshots. On a Mac, you can press Command+Shift+4 to use OS X's built-in screenshot tool. On a PC, you can press PRNT SCRN, open any image editor like MSPaint, and then Paste the image and save the file.

Or, you can use a tool such as TinyGrab, which works on both OS X and Windows. TinyGrab lets you take a screenshot of an area of your screen, and it automatically uploads the image to TinyGrab's website, and automatically copies the URL to your screenshot to your clipboard, so you can easily paste it.

You can also upload your screenshot to a variety of image hosts, such as Imgur, Roman's ImgHost, or other sites.

Please try to avoid using ImageShack and TinyPic for hosting images, as they both tend to load up a lot of advertisements, and have a tendency to resize images.

On the subject of resizing images, do not resize your screenshots. If it's a full-screen screenshot of your desktop, that is fine. We cannot use shrunken screenshots, as it becomes impossible to read after a certain point.

Please only file reports in English. While Skial has members from all over the world, who speak a variety of languages, the common language around here is English. For the sake of keeping accurate and usable reports on scammers, all reports must be in English.


WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FILE A SCAMMER REPORT?

If the user is not already tagged as a scammer on SteamRep, we will have the proper scammer tags applied to them. Because of SteamRep's very strict guidelines on what can and cannot be considered as evidence of a scam, we will only be accepting evidence in a manner similar to how SteamRep accepts their scammer reports.

Skial server admins and forum moderators may ban users determined to be proven scammers, however this is up to the management's discretion. This scammer list does not promise that users listed here will be banned from Skial servers or forums (however this may change in the future; and confirmed scammers may be banned by procedure from the servers).


HOW TO QUICKLY FIND OUT IF SOMEBODY IS ON THIS LIST

To quickly check if somebody has already been reported, open up their Steam profile, and copy their URL. Go to SteamRep, and paste that URL into the search box. You will be given results with various information, including their SteamID64. Copy and paste the SteamID64 into Skial's search box at the top of any page on Skial. If you get a result that hits on this post, that means they've been reported!

SCAMMER LIST POLICY

We will not add any user to this list without conclusive evidence. This is why it's very important that you take screenshots before you close out your chat/trade windows. Without evidence, we can't do anything about it. Take a screenshot of anything you feel is relevant to the case.

If you have fallen victim to a scammer who is already on this list, please go ahead and submit your own evidence of the scam, as well. The more evidence we have on these guys, the better.

HELPFUL LINKS
 
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