keep in mind these people are aware of the backpack.tf prices that people in the community vote on as fair.

We're not in the position of trying to enforce prices on others, nor is it something we want to do. Opinions of Backpack.tf aside, they do not set what prices are and how "fair" an offer is. Anyone is allowed to ask for whatever they want and offer what they wish to other people for items.

The case of people attempting to get an item for a refined or so less than what others want is not what we'd consider an extreme amount to the point where we'd act on it.

but on the more pricey items, people are goign as far as taking a good 90% off the actual market price, thats almost the quivalent of a trade scam.

im not asking anyone to enforce prices, im just asking for there to be a limit on how hard people can scam new players for their items. because newer players might not know the value of thier items, people using "quickbuy" as an excuse to get items for dirt cheap could easily shark the items from people. my point is, these trades are never goign to be accepted, no-one is going to sell to these people. the only time these people are going to get the item is if a newer trader sees it, and assumes that the price listed is a decent one. Its a dirty way of scamming without breaking rules.

We already close unrealistic trades, doing what you suggested is enforcing profit margins, and like Currier said we have no interest in regulating items' prices.

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/15337915 this is my point blue screen of death. the unrealistic trades aren't being closed. This trades been up for 7 months now. hes lowballing pretty much everything there for ~50% or more. obviously no-ones selling to him, and when someone does, it'll be someone who doesnt know their values. im asking for a report trade option for people who are going above and beyond your market freedom. because some people are taking complete advantage of the freedom.

Let the fact that the person has not had a trade in 7 months be their message that they're offering too low. It is not for any one of us to decide if that trade is worthy or not to stay on the site.

Those prices on the listed trade are also nowhere near what I could consider unrealistic. On top of that, I can see messages from people asking them to be added. This person is doing nothing wrong and is trading how they wish. Anyone is allowed to accept the offers they put on the table or move on, and they are free to as long as they follow the rules.

And please stop throwing the word scam around in this discussion. Nothing here is considered a scam and using the word like that makes real scams less clear for others to identify and worries people who have done noting wrong, like this person:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/tf2outpost/discussions/0/540744936647550563/

There's nothing wrong with quickbuying and quickselling, even with larger margins, although I also have a line that I draw, and it's not decided on a whim. I don't like people who are deliberately trying to rip people off, however, it's usually a matter of opinion when this is actually happening and some complaints are just about normal resellers doing their thing in the marketplace.

Some people have the idea that anything more than a 1 scrap profit is a ripoff or scam, but markets just don't work like that.

I know from experience that Stranges are not the easiest items to move. They are a set of items where listed prices do not match the volume of trade (imo). Iow, for as hard as it can be to move them, the prices are unusually high (based on rarity, I'm sure). Because of this, people like myself will only buy at deeper discounts, to compensate for prices fluctuations while the items are held in inventory, as well as the hassle of having your metal tied up in a slow moving stock.

Think about it like this: It may take a week to move a particular 2 ref Strange at a 2 scrap mark up, whereas you could have used that 1.77 to buy and sell cheaper and more popular items 10, 20, 50 times over during that week at a 1 scrap mark up. So, 20-50 scraps in profit in one week, vs 2 scraps on that Strange.

Resellers typically need higher mark ups for low volume items. If you price fix, the resellers will quit buying, and trade will either dry up or the listed prices will take a dive down to where the quickbuyers were buying in the first place, and nothing really changes.

Personally, I view many, many different trades on different sites, looking at what many people are buying and selling at, looking at the ranges, looking at volume, looking at how new the item is and how stable the price is, before I set my prices.

One other thing to remember, if you restrict resellers or casual buyers from buying low, what do you say to the sellers who want to dump their item fast and actually want/need to sell low? Do you tell them it's setting a bad example so they can't do it, and so they'll just have to keep their item until someone wants to buy at official prices?

Restrictions have a 2 way effect. It doesn't just restrict resellers, it hurts casual sellers too. The way I liken TF2 reselling and quickbuying, is to a pawn shop. You'll never get anywhere near what your item is actually worth at a pawn shop, but, the advantage is that they will almost always buy anything you bring in, so if you want money fast, you can get it.

While regulations can enforce prices, the one thing they cannot do, is force people to buy at those prices.

If you're not enforcing pricing margins, then why do you close trades like "Buying earbuds for a refined"? Isn't that essentially just enforcing a price margin? It may be unlikely that anyone will ever sell for that, but it's still possible. You can't just selectively close trades based on prices and then leave others ones alone, because you're essentially just closing things on your opinion of what will sell. I know a lot of these refined for earbud trades are spam, but they need to be represented because otherwise you're enforcing a rule that nobody knows the boundaries to and as such is entirely arbitrary.

The issue with refined for buds trades is that the vast majority are in fact spam like you say. When it comes to high volume trades such as earbuds, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that a trade is unrealistic not because we're enforcing a price range, but that it is very likely that the trade listed both above and below it are going to offer at least 1000% more than the trade in question.

Offering low on lower tier stranges is one thing, but asking for some of the most commonly traded currency items for next to nothing when there are countless better offers is just spam.

Originally posted by Currier Bell:

Let the fact that the person has not had a trade in 7 months be their message that they're offering too low.

If you draw that conclusion from tf2outpost itself I would say that it is very innacurate. I use tf2 outpost to advertise my trades but I don't use the rep system unless the person I'm trading with asks it of me. I find it needlessly complicated so I don't bother.

Maybe I'm not understanding it properly, but it' a non issue for me because the only rep system that has any credibilty to me is steamtrades.com because of it's simplicity. Looking at my profile I don't even understand how I appear to others who do know the system, I've got 118 trades, 61 posts, and 1 hearts. Does that mean only 1 person has ever confirmed a trade with me? I don't know. and frankly I don't really care cause I do fine without worrying about it.

That really isn't what I meant at all, but I can see why someone might read it that way.

The heart system was put in place because we actually did have a positive/negative reputation system in place on the site. This was well before I was staff, but as a user I could see how it negatively impacted the site. People would leave negative rep on user's profiles for the slightest thing, revenge repping was a huge issue, and people would just make rep for rep trades. The system was scrapped because as you said, few rep systems actually have any weight to them but the staff here still wanted something nice that users could have to show that they were a nice person or could be rewarded someway for being nice. Hearts are in no way a full gauge of how trustworthy a person is, and are more like the commendation system from Dota 2 if anyone is familiar with it, nice to have but not a true indication of trustworthiness in a person.

When I said that quote, I meant that it isn't our place to police the user's trades for what is a fair deal, but let people who are wondering why their trades aren't getting them anywhere be the indication that they might be going at it the wrong way.

It's because people are idiots thinking they can get what they want for free, like the Economy elsewhere, nobody wants to buy something worth their value.

As much as I find quick buying and quick selling annoying, I don't think the OP staff need to go to these extreme lengths. If the quick sellers/buyers are setting their prices too high or low, they won't get much traffic on their trades. Hopefully showing them that they should change their pricing.

I don't think we should make this bannable, personally :). I've been using outpost for almost 2 years now, and it seems fine to me. Stranges are a very bad business to be in right now bro. You should probably work into a different one.