This has happened twice to me now. I'm sure this is not new and a lot of people are well aware of it, but this quite subtle scam is quite easy to fall for (especially if you're tired - or drunk! )

You have a Gift advertised, let's say for 3 TF2 Keys.

A direct trade comes in and you see it's the Gift and 3 Keys in the trading window. You're just about to accept when you notice that the gift is THEIRS and the keys are YOURS!

I fell for this, this morning, luckily only for one key, when I had just crawled out of bed.

The first time this was attempted someone actually added me.

I say in the chat window, 'Hello...how can I help?' There was complete silence. 'Hello....' again, silence.

Next thing is a comment on my profile! 'Added you for Payday 2' (so they CAN write).

So, I say, 'OK, shall we trade then?'...again..silence.

Next thing is a direct trade offer NOT via the chat window.

THEIR game copy for MY keys.

Nearly fell for that too. They then removed the comment from my profile and I reported them to Steam for attempted trade scamming. Do Steam actually do anything.

Hope this helps someone.

Well, I traced the key to the last known owner and he checked it and it was marketable etc. When it's in the trading window though it links to a blank listings page.

Originally posted by norby89:

It's a display error, if it wasn't marketable there would be none on the market.

That's kind of the point. No listings. So how would it be possible to list i.e. sell something where it doesn't exist?

I would have liked to swap the 'fake' key to see if it became marketable when transferred, but the account involved seems to have traded them.

So, they are genuine marketable keys?

I mean, how can you sell them, if the URL leads you to the link above?!

@OP

IMHO, the problem is entirely with the greedy buyers. They will come out with all sorts of crap, like, 'I don't pay extra for paint or parts', then go and sell painted/parted items for a lot more than ones without them!

Another example is the card traders who offer you 1 scrap per card, along with the hackneyed, 'Well, it's what everyone else pays for them'.

This is like saying, 'I'm just a rat joining the rat pack'. Mutual rat party. Does NOT make it right though.

My experience with lowballing TF2 item buyers, is that the only use for backpack.tf is to eliminate one redundant round of counter offering i.e. to save them time in you not asking for 'silly' prices. Then they can make their lowball offer at 25% of the backpack.tf price.:)

Of course if you're talking about marketable items, then things are complicated by Steams rip-off 15% selling fee. You have to factor that into account when buying or selling too.

Someone sent me a trade via my trading URL earlier today offering one of these 'Huntsman Case Keys'. Because I wasn't familiar with the key - I normally see standard CS:GO case keys - I clicked on the link on the key in the trading window to check its value on the Community Market.

What I found was, the link to the Market showed NO listings!

This is the link: (not a phishing link)

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/market/listings/730/Huntsman%20Case%20Key

I did a search for 'Huntsman case key' and this is the genuine link:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/market/listings/730/Huntsman%20Case%20Key%20

You'll notice that the genuine link contains '%20' at the end of the URL.

To make things worse, the person offering the key had a private profile! However, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and added them to discuss. They were very reasonable, and insisted that they had just bought 2 keys from the game shop.

In addition, he/she offered the keys up in a live, chat, trading window and I checked them again. Same bad link, 'There are no listings for this item'.

Further, he/she said the 'sell' link on the keys in their inventory was not greyed out.

So, I have NO idea what is going on here?

This is the second time someone has offered me these (fakes?). The previous time was for collateral on a 4-pack opening. I declined them.

Can anyone shed light on this please?

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198147254099/

Tried to send me off to some ^steamcomminity whatever website.

Do Steam actually do ANYTHING about these attempts?!

Originally posted by Nooge:

Don't put those phsing links in please, people might misclick

Sorry...deleted it.

OK about the chat window. :(

Turns out it was in the Steam app cache though! This will probably get removed but this was the guy who as the OP says was called UNASSIGNED!:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561198149254300/

According to Steamrep, he hasn't a bad reputation. Be interesting if Steam actually do something about it.

and the phishing link he sent was:

:removed:

I'd copied that down without clicking first. If you go the phishing page, where you'd normally 'Add friend' that sends you to a false log-in site. Nasty. The rest presumably (as the OP points out) is to get all the verify codes etc.

Hi Nooge

Thanks for the explanation.

Unfortunately, as soon as I saw his/its profile was set to private (does a private profile still have a 'more' drop down?), and the link was 'comminity' or whatever I removed him. :(

Are there any chat logs hidden away in the settings somewhere? So that I can get his user ID etc. then go to his profile page and report him?