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Should banned traders be allowed to use auctions?


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Should people who are banned from the main trading websites be allowed to use the scrap.tf auction system as a means of laundering their unusuals? 

 

I'm just asking to see if anyone else feels it's a little....odd? I guess....that people who are banned on bp.tf or outpost for scamming/alts of scammers/trading with scammers are allowed to come here and use the auction system to dump off their unusuals.  It's especially a little odd-feeling when you see that in the item history (which they didn't post, so one had to go looking for it) you see that the banned person got the unusual from another banned person, before setting it up for auction.  Passing from scammer to scammer (or from alt account to alt account) before being placed for auction just feels a little skeezy to me.  It actually prevented me from bidding on an unusual I wanted, because I didn't feel comfortable getting this unusual from a scammer who is clearly using the site to bypass the bans from other sites.  I mean there are 2 alts of the same account (all banned btw) actively using the auction system to bypass the bans on the alts.

 

Maybe I'm alone in this though. 

Edited by Ur Grounded
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We utilise the SteamRep API to automatically ban any user who is tagged as a scammer on SteamRep. Claiming that scammers are "allowed to use the scrap.tf auction system" is quite a loaded statement. It misses the unfortunate reality of the situation that SteamRep will always be behind the curve, because it is very easy for scammers to create a new account, funnel their items, and evade their bans in the time it takes for SteamRep to catch up to them. We (the staff) simply do not have the time to be proactive in hunting down scammer's alt accounts, however, we will investigate any account brought to our attention -- which is why, if you are concerned about the legitimacy of an auction, you should use the "Report Auction" functionality and describe in detail what those concerns are. Alt accounts using auctions is not our intention, it is a symptom of the difficulty of preventing fraud.

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Ben, 

I assure you that I wasn't intending to make a loaded statement, but more querying as to why it would be happening, while also wondering if anyone felt the way that I do. With the amount of (to a layperson like myself) amazing programming that I'm sure has gone into this site, it surprises that there isn't a quick/easy way to programmatically check/utilize the ban information from other websites where alts have been tagged/identified/banned.  I would in no way presume what the staff's time constraints are and wouldn't even suggest they should be responsible for "hunting down" the scammers--I just thought there must be an easy way to program such a thing into the site automatically so that once someone has been banned on bp/outpost as a scammer alt that they'd then be prevented from using auctions here. If such a thing wouldn't be possible through the site coding (again, I'm a layperson here) then I understand, I was simply voicing a concern/thought on what I'm seeing going on with the auction system. 

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As Ben said, there are systems in place to ban users marked as a scammer or scammer alt, but it only works when the alt is acually marked on steamrep. Users banned on steamrep can simply make an account and move the items to that account to bypass the auto bans. Its not the software's fault its the fact that scammer alts arnt marked instantly, only when they are discovered

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Barbara, yes I understand what he said and the one source of information being used.  I was simply stating it seems to a layperson such as myself that other sources of information could also be used(bp.tf, and/or outpost as examples), as those sources of information have the already put in the time to "hunt down" (to use ben's phrase) alt accounts and ban them as such. It would seem that using more sources of information, especially on such scammer alt accounts, would be prudent, since, as you've both mentioned, steamrep appears to be easily worked around.  Though, again, I understand if this isn't possible due to technical reasons or for other reasons, it's just something that I was wondering about as it would seem possible to me to fetch the banned information from multiple places. 

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