Sadly, many of us know someone who has been scammed or have even been scammed ourselves. In this guide I will cover as many known scam methods as I can, and hopefully, prevent others from falling prey to them.

Scam - a fraudulent or deceptive act or operation.

For those who are new to the site, it's easy to unknowingly let someone take advantage of you. Even experienced traders can fall prey to scams. Scammers have many different methods of besting you out of your items.




Scammers will want to rush you into going through with a trade before you have time to think it over and realize it's a scam. They'll say someone else is about to accept the trade they're offering you. They may also say they have to go in a few minutes and won't be back for a long time.

Don't let yourself feel rushed into any trade.

In the case of scammers, you can often judge a book by its cover. Here are some things to watch out for when getting friend requests:

○ Often, scammers will have a profile level below 10.

○ Most will have little to no game play in TF2.

○ They will have no friends in common.

○ They have been offline for weeks.

○ Their inventory is private.

○ Their profile is private.

○ They have few to no games on Steam.

○ They will have links in their summary leading to strange websites.

○ They have someone else's trade link or backpack link in their summary. If their inventory is private they'll usually tell you their backpack is through the summary.

○ They don't speak English very well.

○ They're claiming to be an alt (alternate account) of some big trader.

If someone claims one of these things makes them trustworthy, it really doesn't.

○ Having a high years of service badge means absolutely nothing. Some accounts are idle for years until used for scams. Older accounts can be hijacked and used to scam people as well.


○ +Rep comments can be forged easily. Don't judge trustworthiness based off of those, no matter how many they have or claim to have.

○ Being friends with someone popular doesn't mean the person adding you is trustworthy. Big profiles often have hundreds to thousands of friends and don't know every user they have added.

○ If they claim to be an alt of someone, they're most likely lying. Especially if they want to trade on that alt.

SteamRep is a great website to use to avoid some scams. It flags profiles that have scammed before and gives you a warning not to trade with the person.

SteamRep is a website, while Steam +rep are comments people leave on a profile. It can easily be forged so +rep comments mean nothing.

SteamRep Website[steamrep.com]

Copy the link of the person you're trading with:
Paste it in SteamRep's search bar:

It will come up with something that looks like this:
A user has scammed before and been caught if they have this mark:


○ Not everyone is caught after a scam.

○ Scammers make new accounts to scam so their history appears clean.

○ It could also be their first time trying to scam, so be cautious even if it show's they're safe.

You'll get a friend request from a seemingly popular trader, except they're not who they claim to be. The scammer will copy the real user's name, profile picture, and summary. Sometimes they'll go as far as taking a screenshot of the items the real user has and posting it on their profile.

Watch out for this tag if they have a showcase on their profile:

If they actually own the items it will show this tag:

You can place the same item in an item showcase multiple times. Some scammers will do this with a key or other desired item to make it seem like they have more than they actually do. I don't actually own 10 Australium Rocket Launchers, but I can make it look like I do.


Someone will add you and claim they're a Steam admin. They'll want to check your items to see if they're clean or not. To check if they're clean, they'll want you to send them the items in question. Do not ever trade an item away for 'verification'.

They may send you an example image that highlights their items in green saying they're certified. Those images are just photoshopped to make the scammer look legit.

Users who don't have this badge aren't affiliated with Valve:

Common impersonated users: Valve Employees, SteamRep admins, popular traders and YouTubers.

You are not obligated to send anyone anything. Even if they are a Valve Employee.

Check the Helpful Sites section for a tool that can be useful figuring these impersonators out.

Scammers will add someone who is lonely or going through a hard time, talk with them to gain their trust, make them feel a bit better, and then pressure the victim to give their expensive items away. The scammer will make the victim fear that they'll lose them as a friend if they don't give away their items. This is especially hard on the victim when they've put so much emotional trust in the scammer.

A couple scammers will add you over a period of time. One will ask if you want to trade but wants to check your items for something first. They'll ask you to trade your item to a trusted friend. The other scammer will change their profile picture and name to match your friend and then will try to get you to trade it to them instead of your trusted friend.

You can go to your trading partner's profile and click to see their name change history:

Steam will only show up to the previous 10 name changes.

On the trade screen you can see how long you've been friends along with other details:

SteamID[steamid.eu] Gives an extensive history on the user's name changes.

Copy the user's profile link:

Paste it in SteamID's search bar and click the green box:

You will find this section on the page:

This is an easy scam to fall for if you're not paying attention. Let's say someone offers you a Purple Energy Hat to Kill For and you decide to take them up on their offer. Before you accept the trade they will swap it out for a Nuts and Bolts Hat to Kill For. That's a 40+ key loss for you and they walk away with a big profit.

To avoid this scam, make sure you scroll over the items in the trade window. Check that all the item details are correct and keep an eye on the trade chat to make sure it isn't swapped out for a bad item. The trade chat window does not specify the item's effect or details.

This is the trade chat window.
It will look something like this if they changed it out:

Hovering your mouse over the item in the trade is the only way to be sure of what you're getting. When you scroll over the item you will be able to see its details:

The scammer will add you and ask you to promote their website by adding it to your name. They'll say that they can pay you for the promotion. They own a 'gambling' website and say they'll rig the pot so you win whatever is inside. To enter, however, you'll have to put in some items of equal value.

Once you give them some expensive items they'll say you should receive your winnings soon. The scammer will claim the website is bugging out and you must win another pot to trigger the won items to be sent to you.

They'll do that until you're broke or until you've caught on.

Don't add the website to your name. Report the user and move on.

If you use Backpack.tf to price check an item, you shouldn't just accept the price at face value. Unusual taunts are a prime example of this.

Make sure to hover your mouse over the item and click classifieds. You can see what price people are selling their items for, versus the suggested price of the item.




In this case, the item was listed at 45 keys while people were selling it for as little as 12 keys.

You can lose lots of profit giving away your expensive item for an unusual taunt, or an item that has an out-of-date price.

The reverse is in effect too, though. Your item's price could be suggested as less than its actual value. For example, this green energy LeParty Phantom listed at 82 keys:


While people are selling it for 100+ keys



Some people may consider this a shark instead of a scam. Sharking is when a user takes advantage of someone who isn't familiar with trading and uses their lack of knowledge for the sharker's own gain.

Brokering is when you give a person your items in hopes they'll make profit out of it. Some brokers are legit, but more often than not they will try scamming. If they offer the service for free, it's likely a scam. You get what you pay for, so to speak.

Don't trust users who have a new profile or don't have much time in TF2. Even if they have good intentions, it takes a lot of learning before they can trade for profit.

It's better to avoid these types of risks and just trade for profit on your own.

Don't give items away and expect something in return later!

The PayPal scam is when someone offers to buy your stuff through PayPal. There are two ways for this scam to go through.

They want you to give them your items first. They'll often say they have more reputation than you, and will point out their profile +rep comments or years on Steam. None of which equate to trustworthiness.

They'll pay you the money, you give them the items, then they'll charge back. A charge back is when they change their mind on the transaction, get their money back, and it's too late for you to recover your item(s).



Check the Helpful Sites section for a trusted way to cash out.

Festive weapons were originally released in December 2011. Festive weapons could be unboxed from Christmas crates, but it wasn't a common drop, which made them rare and desirable, especially in strange quality. It was also rare to get a specific type of weapon you wanted.

Festivizers first released in December of 2015. Since then it has been updated multiple times so it can be applied to many different weapons. Since you could apply it to almost any weapon you wanted, the rarity of the item decreased.

Festivizers were originally given out to people who activated a Tough Break campaign pass or unboxed a Tough Break Weapons case. They have reappeared during the holidays but are currently only dropped from the 2016 and 2017 Winter Cosmetic Cases. There are still a decent amount of them on the market from previous events.
Backpack.tf and the Steam Community Market didn't list the difference between the two for quite a while. People got scammed from their unusuals for the promise of a few festive weapons which they thought were worth more than their items, but actually, were worth a fraction of what they were giving away.

It's now updated to show the name difference between the two. So, make sure you're actually getting what you're paying for.

So, there were scams going around which made trading quite scary. Seasoned traders had a high chance of falling for for it if they weren't paying attention. Some Steam games that had been posting items looked identical to Team Fortress 2's high tier items. They could copy the border color, name, and picture. They eventually were able to copy the look of the game it was from as well.

Scammer:

Legit:

Although it's patched, it's still best to check the details anyway. There might be a way to bypass the patch in the future. Hover over the items in a trade and make sure it's from the correct game.

Once a scammer successfully steals an item they will trade it away as soon as possible or try selling it on the Steam community market. To put an end to their gain, we can do some snooping to see who exactly is selling the item before buying it.

To start off, right click the user's profile picture and click view image :

From this point copy the characters after /avatars/ like so:
Don't copy the .jpg

Go to this website[steamid.eu]
Paste what you've copied in the url bar:



Don't paste it in their search bar, it has to be through the url.

You'll come to a page that looks like this:


Click the name down below and it will show you the user's information:

From this point, you can check their profile and copy it over to SteamRep to figure out if it's safe to buy from them or not.

Potential problems: You may come across a user who has a common picture. You will find multiple users instead of a single one.
(User IDs, names, and the image url have been changed to protect their identity)

SteamRep[steamrep.com] is a great website to use to avoid some scams.



It flags profiles that have scammed before and gives you a warning not to trade with the user.

SteamID[steamid.eu] Keeps track of a user's name change history and can help you find a user only based off their profile picture.


More information on these are in the Steam Community Market and Fake Friend Scam sections.

Backpack[backpack.tf] is an extremely helpful site to use.



It will give you a general idea of your item's worth and help with trading immensely.

Scrap[scrap.tf] offers a way to check your friends list for potential impersonators.



It focuses on common impersonated users.
You still need to be cautious even if they are who they say they are.

If you're trying to cash out I suggest using Marketplace[marketplace.tf]



Marketplace is owned by the people who run Scrap.tf and Backpack.tf

Update: Marketplace.tf is closing their seller program on December 15th, 2020

Basically, if something seems too good to be true, then it probably is. You should be able to avoid all scams if you're cautious and use common sense.

If you're unsure someone is trying to scam you or not, feel free to add me and I will try my best to help you out. Comment on my profile stating why you're adding me first.

I will try to update this guide as new scams appear. If you know of one I didn't list, please contact me. Thank you.

Trade Link

Stay safe.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756421743
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1942552036