Trade Scamming

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The world will thank me for this, you monster! Click to listen — The Spy reporting a scammer to Valve

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A trade scam is when a user convinces another user to make a deal under false pretenses. Scams usually involve deception in order to convince a user that they are getting a good or fair deal when in fact they are not or cheating a user out of their items for (usually) nothing.

There are many different ways of being scammed, some will just trick you out of a few items while others could hijack your Steam account. The methods we know will be listed down below:

Quickswitching Scam

This method is extremely ineffective now with the trade hold and additional verification. essentially once both parties have agreed upon a fair trade and they are happy the scamming party quickly switches out their promised item for one of less value and readies up before the other user can react/notice. However, this is much harder to pull off because extra verification is needed before the trade can be completed and gives the user who is being tricked an extra chance to notice.

Fake Bot Scam

A screenshot of a fake Opskins bot scam

Fake Bots are users/alts/bots that send you offers for a users items for nothing, normally to 'deposit' them into the site, which after being deposited, cannot be withdrawn. The Scam usually goes like this:

• A Scammer adds a user to their friend list
• they lead the user to a well-known trading site (e.g., Opskins, Marketplace.tf, etc.) (or they can lead you to a fake trading site made just for scamming)
• they get the user to list their item but not deposit it
• a fake bot sends the user an offer for your item for nothing in return
• the scammer try's to convince the user to accept the trade
• once the user accepts, the scammer blocks the user and the deposited items cannot be withdrawn

Fake Middleman Scam

The Fake Middleman Scam is pretty self-explanatory, people use middlemen to be a mediator when trading highly valuable items to make sure the items go to the right people and prevents most types of scams. However, middlemen can be fakes that take the valuable items without giving it to the respective users. A lot of the time the fake middleman will be working with/be an alt of a scammer to take your items. It will usually go down like this:

• You have a valuable item that you wish to trade.
• You meet with someone who is willing to trade and they insist on getting a middleman.
• The middleman and the person you are trading with are friends or the middleman is an alt of the scammer.
• The middleman takes all the items and gives it to the scammer.

or it can go down like this:

• You are trading valuable items and you want to get a middleman involved.
• The other user agrees and you trade your items to the middleman.
• The middleman takes the items and leaves.
• The middleman will most likely block you.

Phishing Link Scam

Phishing Links are links to websites usually impersonating Steam or other well-known websites and make you sign in so they can take your account details and hijack your account. sometimes you don't even need to sign in, simply going on the site will download a Trojan virus and hijack your account and wreck your Pc/laptop. Here's how it usually goes down:

• A bot/user will message you asking you to add a friend of theirs and they will send a phishing link that looks very similar to the actual steam website or another well-known site
• There it will ask you to sign in and once you do your account will be hijacked.

Another method:

• A users Steam profile will be private and they will send you a phishing link to "their Steam inventory"
• You will have to sign in and from there they will hijack your account. (sometimes even just visiting the website will download a virus and hijack your account)

Trusted Friend Scam

In a Trusted Friend scam a scammer adds you to their friend list and gets you to give your Unusual to a friend you trust, the scammers friend/alt will impersonate the friend you said you would lend your Unusual to so you can give it to the scammers friend/alt before you realise it isn't actually your friend and you've just given your Unusual to a scammer impersonating your friend. it normally goes like this:

• A scammer adds a user
• The scammer and the user agree on a deal for a trade.
• The scammer says to make sure the promised items are 'legit' that the user has to temporarily trade it to a friend they trust, then they can complete the trade.
• The scammer's alt/friend impersonates the friend you said you would lend your promised items too.
• You give your promised items to the scammer's alt/friend not realizing its not your real friend.
• The scammer and his alt/friend block you and the items are never seen again.

Fake Youtuber/Streamer Scam

In this type of scam a user impersonating a popular Youtuber/Streamer will add you, and tell you he needs your item for a showcase video, once you have given your item to the user, he blocks you and your items are not seen again.

Hacked Crate Scam

In this particular scam, a scammer adds a user to their friend list, they tell the user that their crates in their inventory are hacked and that they will %100 unbox a Unusual when opened. The user pays the scammer for the crates unboxes them and gets nothing (although there is a small chance they could get an expensive item, except its a very low chance) and realizes that the scammer was lying when he said the crates were hacked and that they were just normal crates.

Sharking

Sharking is a type of scam in which the scammer tells the victim that the scammer's item is worth far more than it actually is, or that the victim's item is worth far less than it actually is. This is largely preventable through websites like backpack.tf, as it gives community-decided values of the items in question.

See also

Trading