It's possible to be a fair and wealthy person without sharking, but it does require making profit which can be done in a safe manner.

This is where the grey line is. Quicksell buyers are buying up to (let me remind you) 70% off LOWER Backpack.tf prices. Somehow this isn't sharking.. Well it isn't. Only one word separates the two though. Manipulation. Then again, aren't you manipulating the prices if you buy quicksells?

Anyways -- A definition of sharking is essentially this: When you lie to, exploit, or manipulate a person that doesn't know the full extent of a price of an item and buying it from them from an extreme outlier lower price with huge profit.

Example: When Underscore sharked that Demonflame Brotherhood of Arms for 2 buds in items when the item is originally worth somewhere in the 50 bud price range.

Sharking is more of a moral issue, and it should/is considered scamming by most but is glamorized by shows such as Shark Tank or Dragon's Den.

When trading, there's huge differences between lying to a person about a price and accepting a low price from a person.

As Shadow had said, the person that got 20 keys for that Beak, was in fact the seller. It's only sharking when the buyer manipulates the price. There's a difference between agreeing to the price and manipulating it. Yes it wasn't right, but it was the seller's set price, not the buyer's manipulated price.

Examples:

1) A new player (about 2 weeks in TF2) has no idea about unusual hats, tries their luck on a Spooky Crate, and unboxes a Chiroptera Venenata Team Captain, and has no idea what it's worth. Mr. Shark comes along to new player after he unboxes it, and offers him a few keys for it saying the hat is not very valuable (etcetc.), and trades him approximately 5 keys for the Team Captain.

This user lied and manipulated the price of the said item and downplayed it and ultimately made about 250x profit (.33 saying buds are 15 keys for example * 250 and you get 82.5 which would probably be the closest price of this item) on this hat, therefore making him a huge shark.

2) A well knowing user who has an unpriced..lets say.. Arcana Brown Bomber on backpack.tf opens a trade on Outpost. Then Ms. Shark adds him and asks if he can buy it off of him for 2 buds because Arcana is a low effect and isn't worth much at all. The knowing user accepts the offer and trades the bomber for 2 buds. Though indirect, this is still sharking as the user made a huge profit margin on this deal.

Sharking indirectly is still sharking. Even if not meaning to manipulate price, if you even lie about an item's value or importance, it's still sharking.

About lamebro, while both parties MAY BE HAPPY, it doesn't make the trade right. He's going to need screenshot proof from the guy that said he was happy with the free downgrade, and didn't in fact manipulate the price. Vinny, you're contradicting yourself when you say you're okay with lamebro who sharked a probably 17ish bud unusual, when other sharks aren't okay.

Hope this helped, have a nice day! :3

Originally posted by Terminus:

Respect works both ways :) If you disrespect people, don't expect them to do you any favours :)

Exactly. If you start going around calling staff members douchebags (etc.)..

1. It won't get you far.
2. Don't expect to have usage of TF2Outpost for a while.

Be respectful when/if you do report a member of staff for misconduct.

Not in all possiblity can you get your hat back from a scam. Valve will restore for hijackings once though.

Yes, they shouldn't have been dishonest, but people are free to raise their price whenever they want for whatever reason.

Why are you naming and shaming? People raise their price all the time for different reasons. It's a free market and people can sell whatever at whatever price.

Yeah they pushed an update on the site fixing the JS, CSS, and Cloudfare problems which sometimes requires a hard refresh to kick it in.

Just click search, and when you see the 'Search for items bar', write what you need, and press enter. Search is different due to the whole new UI update.

Have you contacted Valve or sent in a ticket? After you do that, and if they say you did get hacked, bring the proof over to the appeal section and appeal your ban and tag. Best of luck! =D

Correct me if I'm wrong, but do you mean that you're.. per se, in another person's account? I'm pretty sure someone else had this problem and said they were "logged in to another person's account" and BSoD said it was a problem with Cloudfare I think.

Originally posted by | S.S. | creamy:

Originally posted by Moony♥™:

So what you're saying is if Max Heads are currently 2 refined at a set price, but the buyer didn't know, but the buyer did? If it's a set price, community or not, and it was paid for at that price, or at a reasonable under/overpay, then no it wasn't a shark no matter if the seller didn't know the value of 2 ref or not.

What I'm saying is that the definition of sharking that you gave is lying to the seller about the prices of the items the buyer is offering. Now if the buyer doesnt lie about the prices of the items he or she is offering then, by your definition they aren't sharking, even though they offered a large amount less than the cost of the item and even though the seller had no idea of the set prices of the items

You're not making any sense.. IF the buyer lies about prices just to make a huge profit, then yes, they sharked. If they didn't lie about the prices, and the seller then even if they didn't know before, now knows, and still wants to trade at a huge discount, no that is not sharking.