About the "Payed in advance", does that mean that someone has to pay you 1 weapon only for you to decline their offer? If this is the case, I'd say this is against the rules, based on my experience, however, I may be wrong. Besides, you should never adopt a practice like this, always listen to offers.

For example, yesterday, I was selling an Unusual for about 2 buds 8 keys and was having great difficulty. Someone adds me and asks to offer without even posting on the thread, however, because I decided to listen to his offer, I got a Max head and 10 keys.

the fee is for the time wasted on unwanted offers. I tell the trader for how much I take his items as part of the trade, e.g.

He: "I offer you one haunted executioner for your white bill"
Me: "I only want metal and keys. If you still want me to rate your items it will cost you one weapon".
...one weapon later...
Me: "I will take your haunted executioner for 2.33 refined. They resell slow. You need to add another 26 refined to your offer."

Afterwards I do not care if he accepts or declines.

Again, I do not rate how much his item is worth under optimized circumstances - I tell him how much it is worth for ME and noone else.

A variation of rating fees are blacklists.

Whoever violates "DA RULEZ" written below the trade gets blacklisted. If he ever wants to trade with me again he pays one weapon to get removed from the blacklist. This is not about trading but about trusting and every free man has the right to trust whoever HE wants. And noone else.

Why all this effort?

Sharkers, low ballers and crap ballers have no running costs. They add 100 people and cajole until they find their idiot. Add a running cost and its fair game again. Now think again, how often do you get scams by certified mail? Never. How often by Phone? Often. By Email? Many times.

So basically it is possible for you to receive 1 weapon and give absolutely nothing in return,(other than telling a person he needs to pay more than he wants to). From that perspective, I don't think this would be allowed, either way you may wish to wait for an admin response.

EDIT:
As for the idea of "blacklisting" people, go ahead and do that, you're shooting yourself in the foot. Myself and many other traders make a point of simply skipping over any trade with something like what you have mentioned above. The best policy is patience, and while it may get annoying at times, it's something that we all have to put up with.

honestly I have NEVER received a good "alternate offer" in my whole steam trading time. even those which looked good at backpack.tf where always selling much lower and slower then expected.

Its about 200 "no thanks only keys and metal" and 15 "I took crap and regret". I consider myself lucky I never lost more than 30% of its value, never earned anything.

But on the other hand you gave me some insight. Crap Balling IS effective. I should try it myself sometimes as it seems to be much more legit than blocking crap ballers.

I understand the frustration, but its just a part of life. Patience is a virtue and helping educate people on manners is always a good thing.

But on the other hand you gave me some insight. Crap Balling IS effective. I should try it myself sometimes as it seems to be much more legit than blocking crap ballers.

I dont think anyone would condone this method, and if you choose to compromise your trading habits to something you are frustrated about will only fuel the problem. Dont join in on bad manners, try to get others to have good trading etiquette.

"Be the change you want to see in the world"

You're wasting your time, nobody will pay you in advance anyway. I agree with Champelliot, when I add someone without making an offer on their trade I'll make sure I make it worth their while. I either pay their buyout or considerably overpay.

Once in a while I also get a jawdropping offer just because I listen to everyone. For example I sold a 1-2 Bill's unusual for 1.5 Buds worth in items when my buyout wasn't even close to that.

Right now it is "Strange Huntsman" time.

I get three convos each day "wanna buy my strange huntsman only two white bills" - when the writing is in on the wall that we have 16 key sales open for three months unsold.

A bit earlier it was "Kringle" time.

Four Convos every day about 2011 christmans stuff. Stuff which doesn't even sell for 50% backpack prices.

before that it was Halloween time. and then some... when these rushes show up one can safely assume that items do only sell at 66% backpack prices relatively fast. Btw blast backpack, it is a sellers price list - only sellers vote and therefore its always overpriced.

Saying "wow I got a christmas set worth 15 keys for my bill" is missleading. You will most likely never sell it close to that. Be happy if you get 9 keys out of it. At best you can hope for some idiot who trades it against some other overrated shelf warmer.

Its pretty easy, all items except low-price gadgets (metal, keys, hats, backpacks, paint) and unusuals are highly speculative and not worth the time trying to resell them. Face it, Valve may release any day another crate which drops strange huntsman in high numbers. And who pays six keys for festive weapons if a naugty crate+key costs five refined? If you happen to find one put it on sale as the lowest offer and pray for the best. Even then it took me three weeks to sell a haunted Executioner while being the cheapest seller.

Xile, I think most of the crap ballers intentionally ignore these writings. Why not? They do not risk much but might blabber someone into something stupid.

Too often its a situation like this: a guy got hold of a item worth a lot on backpack.tf. then he can not sell it for its advertised price. So he needs to trick someone to take an overpriced/unwanted item. And thats a lot easier when chatting.

I myself have maybe lost one or two keys in total due crap balling the whole last year. wont care much. but the time to get rid of unwanted stuff is precious.

Therefore whoever adds me without paying hard cash is considered a crook by me. Not a potential crook, a proven crook.

Ik that you want only metal-keys but if i overpay a bit for bills hat like kringle dr.whoa and something stuff worth atleast 1 key

overpaying in items would be ok if people would be following DA RULEZ
1) dont add until offer accepted
2) post offers in trade
3) the items are really worth what the dealer thinks. Kringle is dropping into a bottomless pit and isn't worth much today. Three Kringles aren't worth one white bill today.

With hindsight I must say that all those unwanted-adders, crap-ballers and nasty-kids must have been a unique halloween/christmas problem. After christmas that nastinesses nearly vanished completely.

Edit, I stand corrected, just now I had a kid which offered... no... Demanded.. nah... EXPECTED to get one key per refined. Well, was actually more funny than nasty, "good luck, cu". Not sure though he could read. ;-) its a lot less annoying if you only get this once a day instead five times an hour :-)

Even if it's within the rules, charging a weapon just for rejecting will hurt you in the long run...noone will even trade with you forcing you to sell for a lower value.
You might as well just block these types.