Please use the site if looking for items to trade for.

Please do not use the forums to trade.

I think you've missed the point, Let's pretend here that I was a phisher.

My account is perfectly normal, logged in and ready to view everyone's information. My account will then scrub the site for the information it needs, Steam ID's, Profile links, etc.

I then send that information to alt accounts Currier Bell 2, Currier Bell 3, Currier Bell 4 and more. They are the ones that send links to other users over Steam and never actually logged onto the site.

Even if we banned 2, 3, and 4, they have never been on the site. It was all Currier Bell 1 who did the work, who still looks perfectly fine and is logged on the site.

Originally posted by Kinne - Ask about $1 mousepad:

You could make it so that information only shows on the trade page itself, or so it only shows to people who are logged in (so if they do it, you can ban them and prevent them from being logged in to get that information)

Both ideas are not going to change anything sadly. Anywhere we put that information is going to be able to be mined by bots, even if they have directly travel to the user's Steam page, which is another reason why the popular suggestion of removing the add button would do nothing. And anyone with phishing bots could set it up so that a legitimate account that is in well standing could simply be the one to log in and comb the site and send the information to automated bots to do the actual phishing.

We've done a great deal to remove phishing from our site, and we're actively searching for more things to combat them. We've made it to the point that phishing comments are much more rare than they've ever been on the site and we're fully aware that this is not an issue that is resolved.

However, like I previously said, we're not going to implement anything that segregates our users. We are not going to implement anything that says one person is less human than another and thus needs to be inconvenienced to open a single webpage. Captchas sound reasonable in theory but fall short in practice. You yourself said that if one person of a high enough rank falls victim then they would bypass the ranking system.

Any solution that inconveniences everyone while not solving the issue is not going to be considered.

We've already discussed captchas many times before, and it is not something we will consider.

The most recent being a few days ago:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/tf2outpost/discussions/0/558756256625779255/

We will not do anything to segregate users of the site based on the value of their backpack or level of activity they have on the site. Besides the benefits of premium, we do not wish to implement anything that can change a user's experience.

Also, making captchas appear as frequently as you suggest would absolutely ruin any new user's experience and drive them from the site.

Please do not trade on the forums.

There is nothing we can do on our end. The only interaction between the phishers and outpost is them scrubbing the front page for SteamID numbers/profile links and then adding them directly through the Steam client.

If we were to remove that information, it would cripple the site and do nothing in the long term as that information can be found anywhere your profile is publicly seen.

Valve did take some action not too long ago where they limited the number of friend requests you could send out in a single day, but reversed it for some reason.

Phishers do not need to use the "add on Steam" button at all to get out there to others. They simply need a users SteamID number and can add others directly through the Steam client.

We've taken numerous points of action to lessen the effects of Phishers on the site that phishing comments are now rare. It's just that they've simply resorted to scrubbing the site for ID numbers, something they can get just about anywhere profile is publicly displayed. It's fully up to Valve at this point to implement anti-phishing policies.

This is not the place to appeal a ban, please use the appeal function on the site.

I will say however that we ban users who are marked as scammers, and that is why you were banned. You need to get that appealed and have the tag removed before you will be unbanned.