Originally posted by Nobel Idle:

This thread needs a lock.

Agreed.

Originally posted by Rico Lambrini:

the problem is not receiving stolen goods but their easy liquidation.

The moment you create an account on Steam, you're vulnerable for that. There's nothing you can do about it. Even if you somehow stopped all scammers from accessing OP, there are tons of other websites and tools to make it easy to find you. In fact more people add me from outside of OP to try and sell me stuff I'm not even buying. I just tell them to bugger off.

Originally posted by Rico Lambrini:

new suggestion - block nigerian ips, they are notorious scammers.

Not sure if serious.

Half the Dota 2 trades are infested with phishing links and the phishers are joining with new accounts every day. Steamrep is flooded with threads of people being hijacked.

Surely losing a whole account is worse than receiving an item that might have been stolen.

It's a plugin that checks a user's account against Steamrep's database of known scammers. Any alts logged in from the same IP will be flagged.

Originally posted by Rico Lambrini:

phishing is a small problem.

It's a bigger problem than you may think. A lot bigger than "liquidating" items, which is an issue you cannot easily fix. The problem doesn't lie on TF2Outpost or the scammer's ability to find potential customers but it has to do more with how the human mind works. I'm pretty sure most traders, when given the opportunity to buy cheap items, won't think twice. That said, nothing will stop a scammer from getting rid of their items. You may slow them down, but they'll find one way or another.

You're talking as if all legit traders have premium accounts. All newbie traders should be limited from using the site then, where will they start? Not to mention there are plenty of Dota 2 traders or game sellers. Why should you force a premium account on them? Either way getting a premium account costs less than 50 cents thanks to the Steam Market (2-3 keys if you're desperate), donator status 1 key. Getting around IP bans, finding someone to broker for you? No problem. Sometimes you have to weigh the good and the bad, and sadly I see only bad here.

Originally posted by Rico Lambrini:

ja, they should do this and that, if they listen to the mother.

thousands of f2p players stay f2p, keep trading but never become premium...
its like chicks kept being fed, but never grow up.

i called those imaginary chicks. they either die or mature

That sums up your post and how childish it is.

You do have a point though that there are a lot of phishers and more should be done against them. Your suggestions will change nothing though other than make a lot of legit users angry, scammers will find new ways and get around it easily while the rest will just leave the site decreasing the userbase. Marked scammers aren't allowed to use the site either way and it's impossible to stop people brokering for scammers since there's no way of checking that automatically.

Greed consumes people. They should learn to think before jumping head first into a deal. How is that anyone else's problem other than theirs? Why would thousands of innocent users have their privileges removed because of a couple of bad seeds?

Originally posted by Rico Lambrini:

i have been trading for a while, i havent not met/traded/talked to f2p on op more than 1 player a month. they are not active, they dont need the function.

The most ridiculous thing I've heard in a good while. Your suggestions are downright terribad.

While phishing is a huge issue lately, punishing the average user is not the right way to deal with it. As for liquidating items, it's your own responsability to check the source of the items you trade for and not to trade with scammers. If a deal is too good to be true, IT IS.

Someone who's on probation isn't automatically marked as a scammer on Steamrep. Of course it's advised to check their Steamrep profile and see what offense they might have commited. You should avoid scammers at all cost but if someone is on probation it doesn't necesserily mean they are going to scam you or that they've commited large crimes in the past (because chances are Valve wouldn't allow them to trade then).

Why do you think Valve would allow people to trade if they wouldn't think it's safe? The probation tag will disappear after a while. They might have done something wrong in the past and Valve temporarily trade banned them for that but it's in their best interest not to repeat the same mistake again. Nonetheless you should be more cautious when trading with someone on probation and check if their items aren't hijacked or scammed.