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 :-)

I like these "0 Stock => no bump" rule.

Now how about those autobump deals which are from stone age and aren't really handled by the seller anymore? Can you give us a rule of thumb when to request to unbump these? One month, three months? I think this should be better done in software, the database knows best when a trade gets orphaned.

Is it ok to report "dead" trades?

I am talking about the typical key trade "buying keys for 2.33, selling for 2.66 refined" running since four months without any action from the seller. These are simply dead and totally disconnected from reality.

More recently there are a lot of "bookmark collectors"... Nearly 80% of all Key sellers - and there are a lot of them - are out of keys right now. Not just for a couple of hours but for days and weeks. When asking them why they bump without anything to sell they often state "collecting bookmarks so I get more buyers after restocking". I call this bullshit, did anyone ever get any bookmarks on a trade lasting several weeks? And if, does that justify 80% dead trade spam?

Report them to unbump/close?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I sell some bills and explicitly write that I only want key+metal and only add when offer accepted. Still I get added five times a day with offers like "my haunted executioner for one bill" or worse. I call them crap ballers because while they are basically low balling they hide behind using unwanted payment items.

So now I have an idea: If someone opens a chat and offers something except keys and metal I charge him a rating fee before even looking at his crap, eg

"payment in refined and keys, exchange rate 3.33:1 other items need to be rated by me, rating fee one weapon, payed in advance."

One random weapon isn't too much. If someone really is serious about his offer he will pay it and accept my rating (usually 10% below backpack.tf price). I am pretty sure this will scare crap ballers away or at least make it worth my time.

Is this within the rules?