i am open for anyone to suggest adding/updating anything on the guide feel free to drop a comment here on the guide or on my profile
(comment on my profile if i'm not online anything you would like to add anything including any photos/videos) any contributions that anyone makes will be credited to the person who suggested and/or added any information

Fake Items (suggested to be added) by Diamond jozu(S>1/1 rare unu)
Backpack discussion [forums.backpack.tf]
There's a game called Abstraction on steam where you can get an identical version of an item like the one in Team Fortress 2. Take a look below:

Quick switching scam

This method is extremely ineffective now with the trade hold and additional verification. Once both parties have agreed upon a fair trade and they are happy, the scammer instead offers a similar item of less value, and hopes that the victim won't notice the difference. Fortunately, this method is much harder to pull off now because extra verification is needed before the trade can be completed giving the victim an extra chance to notice.

Fake spells (information added by) Diamond jozu(S>1/1 rare unu) (Suggested to be added) by juju

its same as quick-switch scam but they use a description tag and out the spell name and list it on the SCM and put it on a high price
things to look out for in spells
blue is when halloween is active
red is when its not halloween

Fake bot scam
This is a type of impersonation scam. Fake bots are accounts that send you offers for items in exchange for nothing, usually to 'deposit' them into a site, which after being deposited, cannot be withdrawn. The Scam usually goes like this:
A Scammer adds a user to their friend list
they lead the user to a well-known trading site (e.g., Opskins, Marketplace.tf, etc.) (or they can lead you to a fake trading site made just for scamming)
they get the user to list their item but not deposit it
a fake bot sends the user an offer for your item for nothing in return
the scammer tries to convince the user to accept the trade
once the user accepts, the scammer blocks the user and the deposited items cannot be withdrawn.
Fake middleman scam

This is another type of impersonation scam. Some traders use middlemen to be a mediator when trading highly valuable items to make sure the items go to the right people and prevent most types of scams. However, middlemen can be impersonated and take the valuable items without giving it to the respective users. A lot of the time the fake middleman will be working with/be an alt account of a scammer to take your items. It will usually go down like this:
You have a valuable item that you wish to trade.
You meet with someone who is willing to trade and they insist on getting a middleman.
The middleman and the person you are trading with are friends or the middleman is an alt of the scammer.
The middleman takes all the items and gives it to the scammer.
or it can go down like this:
You are trading valuable items and you want to get a middleman involved.
The other user agrees and you trade your items to the middleman.
The middleman takes the items and leaves.
The middleman will most likely block you.

Fake YouTuber/streamer scam

This is another type of impersonation scam. An account impersonating a popular YouTuber/streamer will add you, and tell you that they need your items for a showcase video. Once you have given your items to them, they block you. Checking the YouTuber/streamer's actual Steam profile can help you identify if it's a scammer, as the "Add Friend" button should change to "Send Message" if you are already their friend. Also checking the scammer's inventory to see if it is private can help.

Festive/Festivized
This scam is more recent than others, as in the Smissmas 2017 Update Valve updated Festivizers to be able to Festivize more weapons than previously (including Stock weapons). The scammer sends you a trade offer proclaiming the item to be an original Festive weapon or Strange Festive, thus upping the item's worth. (Example: you have a 12 Key item, you list it for that price, you get an offer for a Strange "Festive" Scattergun, when you hover over the item it shows as Festivized.) Note that original Festive weapons have a different backpack icon than Festivized weapons, use this to distinguish whether it is a Original Festive or a Festivized one.

Item roulette scam/withdrawing of items from a site


This scam involves a TF2 gambling website that the scammer supposedly runs. Some of these websites fake the entire process.Typically a scammer adds a TF2 player over steam to their friends list. If the TF2 player accepts, the scammer asks the player to advertise their item roulette website and promises to "fix" (guarantee the TF2 player to win a round) some roulette rounds in exchange for their help. Alternatively, a scammer may "fix" a round so that a select roulette player (which sometimes may be a fake player/bot) of the would-be victim's choosing is guaranteed to win as proof to the would-be victim that the scammer is in fact capable of "fixing" rounds. Items can be scammed from a would-be victim in three ways:
Sometimes a "fee" is required to play the roulette game in the first place.
By entering the game, a would-be victim's items are simply pocketed by the scammers involved and are never actually given to a "winner" (sometimes fake player)

Short Changing
This occurs more frequently when trading a game a large amount of TF2 keys, metal or a similar items, but beware small amounts too. The scammer waits until you have placed your game into the trade window, then quickly puts all of their keys/items in their half and clicks "Ready to Trade" hoping you won't closely count everything.
Take your time to count everything up properly. If you're trading for a large number of keys and cannot see them all at the same time, make your trade window smaller which will reveal more of the items. If your math is bad, pull up the computer calculator, or do anything needed to make sure you aren't being misled. Take your time! ( sometimes this can be done by accident by ether party in the trade)

Phishing links are links to websites usually impersonating Steam or other well-known websites and require you to sign in to steal your account credentials, and hijack your account. In some occasions simply accessing the website may download malware and do harm to your computer and potentially steal your personal information.
Examining and not clicking on suspicious links will prevent you from getting affected by this type of scam.

the latest and newest form is a Fake trade where if you look the url is of course different from the original on steam and a few other things are also different the video below better explain and also shows an example

competive team scam (a variation of the phishing scam) (suggested time be added) by JayFeather
(information taken from reddit)

Trusted friend scam

This is another type of impersonation scam. The scammer will ask you to trade your items to a trusted friend of yours who the scammer will impersonate to decieve you to trade the items to the fake account. It usually goes like this:
The scammer adds the victim.
The scammer and the victim agree on a deal for a trade.
The scammer says to make sure the promised items are 'legit' that the user has to temporarily trade it to a friend they trust, then they can complete the trade.
The scammer's alt/friend impersonates the friend you said you would lend your promised items too.
You give your promised items to the scammer's alt/friend not realizing its not your real friend.
The scammer and the fake account block you and the items are scammed off of you.

Hacked crate scam

In this particular scam, a scammer adds a user to their friend list, they tell the user that their crates in their inventory are hacked and that they will 100% unbox a Unusual when opened. The user pays the scammer for the crates unboxes them and gets nothing (although there is the normal small chance they could get an expensive item) and realizes that the scammer was lying when he said the crates were hacked and that they were just normal crates.

Fake Valve/steam employee
This is another type of impersonation scam. The scammer will impersonate a Valve employee (e.g. Robin Walker, Drunken F00l), and will proceed to ask you to trade your items to them for various reasons. Note that Valve employees will never contact you personally for your items, even if they are glitched.

https://youtu.be/D2ZNqPUO6-c (video done by blueberry that’s shows the scam in progress)

If someone is saying they are donating items for free and they link videos of them apparently donating items of anything you want take a look at there profile look at there inventory and see if it is private if it is then they can most likely not give you items for free. And the video they showed is fake to lure new suspected victims into there grasps below is a specific user’s techniques that they try to scam people.

They spam in chat they are donating items and to add them for trade.
You add them for trade and they look at your inventory for anything of worth (taunts,cosmetics unusuals) and will check to make sure that you have seen there video or rules on there profile and will then preceded in 2 ways.

1 they see your a new player and don’t have items so they just unfriend you and block you

Or 2 they see you have items of worth and will state that some/all your items will be contained in the trade window and when you go into Tf2 you will get what you asked for. When you look at the trade they will be nothing on the scammers end of the trade but on your side of the trade they will be anything that the scammers values and wants to steal of course if you accept then the scammer/s have succeeded in scamming you because when you load Tf2 you will get nothing. They may show photos of trades when they “donated items” these are trades between his accounts or his friends accounts ( also scammers)
Videos I have see on this scam are linked below ( each is a video done by the scammer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSXlUw_C4WI#action=share
https://youtu.be/0PvHs14Evkk
https://youtu.be/iKOAZo72KeU

Credit to pyrojoe scam patrol for the video

A user will add you stating that they are sorry and they made a mistake and will then proceed to state that they reported you accidentally and will then state that you need to contact an admin to have the ban revoked before it’s to late. The admin you add will be aware of the scam and will be working with the person who added you in the first place.

https://forums.steamrep.com/forums/steamrep-guides.22/

Item verification is a scam!
There is no such thing as "item verification" or "item checking". Anyone coming to you saying you need to do this is guaranteed to be a scammer. There are no "Steam admins" who get involved in trades either, and if you do what they say you'll lose your items. Please confirm who you are dealing with any time someone says they're an admin: https://steamrep.com/tips/pretrade. Don't trust any links in Steam or screenshots of anyone's "reputation" or "certificates".

There is no such thing as a "pending" ban.

Trade bans and other actions against fraud are immediate. If Steam Support thinks you're scamming, you won't see the ban coming, and it'll happen instantly. Scammers will sometimes claim that you have a "pending" ban that hasn't taken effect yet to scare you. If you don't already see a trade ban on your account, it's not happening; that's just something stupid scammers made up because they know they can't prove they're banning you.

There is nothing wrong with your items, and more importantly, no item, regardless of its status, would ever require review by an admin. No, your items won't disappear, and no you won't get banned for having "illegal" items. That's a common ruse or social engineering pretext to make you do something unsafe. A little extra background for those not familiar: Dupes (or duplicates) exist, and to a lesser degree some glitches (usually more expensive collectors' keepsakes if they really exist), but those are not "hacked" or "illegal". Long ago, when Steam Support used to restore scammed items for hijacking victims, they duplicated the stolen items because it was impossible to reverse all the subsequent legit trades and market transactions carried out after each item was stolen. These "dupes", granted by Steam Support itself in recognition of innocent bystanders to fraud, will not get you in trouble with Steam Support. Some people devalue dupes for one reason or another, and I'm not going to get into the specifics of why, but any "checking" process to verify if an item is affected can be done without trading the items, using a website like csgo.exchange or backpack.tf with an item tracker.

There is no such thing as a "Steam admin".

The only people with admin access in Steam are Valve employees (Valve Inc. is the creator of Steam and CS:GO/TF2) and to some significantly lesser extent Steam moderators. SteamRep admins are not a part of Steam, and therefore don't have any special access in Steam. That said, what does a Valve employee's profile look like? Here is an example: real valve Employee's and here's what you should look for. If you don't see the Valve Employee badge on their profile, they're not from Valve. SteamWorks Developers are not part of Steam either, and should not be trusted any more than another stranger on the internet. You can also confirm Valve employees by following these 3 steps for confirming admins, as Valve employees are recognized in SteamRep's database. There are no "certificates" or "licenses" for middlemanning or admining, and anyone presenting one is most likely a scammer.

SteamRep is not a part of Steam or Valve.

SteamRep.com is an independent 3rd party website, with a scammer database, but scammers love claiming to be "SteamRep admins" to make people trust them. In truth, SteamRep admins don't have any more special access in Steam than you do, so anyone using that to threaten you is lying. This also means SteamRep admins can't do anything special for trading (though you should read about middlemanning). If someone says they're an admin on steamrep.com, or even a Valve employee, follow these 3 steps to confirm. Then follow them again during any trade you commit as well in case a scammer inserted an imposter into the trade after you confirmed (it happens). If at any time you follow those steps, and you don't see an admin tag, you are 100% dealing with a scammer. Side note: If you have fallen for this and think you were scammed by an admin listed on SteamRep.com, follow these instructions.
Valve never conducts official business in Steam chat.

Chances are, you will never run into a Valve employee in Steam and chat with them. If someone from Steam Support needs to contact you, you'll receive a clear alert within Steam itself, which will look like this, at the top of the Steam window. If you do end up speaking with someone from Valve, they will NOT get involved in any of your trades. Why? Steam/CS:GO/TF2 or other in-game items are literally just entries in Valve's own database, not something tangible you'd have to give them. Valve employees can, if they have a reason, add, remove, or change items in anybody's account on their own without your involvement. If they truly needed to "inspect" your items, they wouldn't require you to hand them over.
Nobody will VAC ban, trade ban, or otherwise punish you for refusing to follow their instructions in Steam chat.

That's just a scare tactic used by scammers to rush you if they think you'll back away. If you feel uncomfortable with something for any reason, back away. Any legit admin or middleman will respect your decision to back out if you feel unsafe, and actually encourage you to listen to that gut feeling. Scammers sometimes resort to threats if they think they're about to lose a free knife. If Valve needed to talk to you about an impending ban, it would not be through a chat. It would be through either email, a Steam Support ticket, or by putting a big red "Message from Steam Support" banner in your main Steam window.
Once you've traded away your items, they're gone.

No matter what the "admin" told you, nobody but the scammer can return them. SteamRep admins don't have any special access whatsoever, so they can't intervene. Steam community moderators aren't able or allowed to touch any part of Valve's economy, so they can't do anything. Only Steam Support has the ability to do this, their policy is they don't return scammed items. Ever.
If someone tries anything listed in the above points, don't try to trade anyway. No matter what kind of deal they're offering, or how sweet the deal is, there is no profit for you to make. That awesome deal you're trying to finish never existed, and the scammer will rather block you before letting you profit. The people doing this are usually professional criminals who do this for a living, and have been doing it for years. No matter how stupid they seem, or how great the deal looks, the only thing they are really interested in is getting your item(s) for free by tricking you into doing something unsafe before the trade.

A guide to explain how middle-manning works, and what to look out for if you don't want to be scammed.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is whether you really need a middleman. If any of the following sounds familiar to you, then you DON'T need a middleman:

*Buyer insists on checking if your items are "glitched" or "duped", and wants to "inspect" them after being traded, or otherwise insists on them changing owners before making a trade. This is a scam.
*Buyer wants you to prove you are trustworthy or trust a "friend" by loaning your items before making a trade. This is a scam.
*Someone claiming to be a middleman or Valve employee says they need to "inspect" or "fix" your items, claiming they may disappear or cause bad things to happen. This is a scam.
*Buyer is trade banned or "locked" and says a special "admin" or "middleman" needs to handle the items for him. (Trade bans cannot be overridden, and are only given to scammers.)
Buyer or middleman threatens you with any kind of ban if you don't comply.
*Everything traded (e.g. no real-world money involved) can be placed in the trade window. Just keep it in a single trade without added steps.

Asking for a middleman, on its own, is not always a bad thing, but you need to understand what a middleman does, and more importantly doesn't do before using one.

All of the above are situations when you DON'T need a middleman, and if someone still insists on using one in these cases, you're probably dealing with a scammer.

Here are some legitimate uses for a middleman:
Trading for real-world money, such as Bitcoin or PayPal: half the trade takes place outside a trade window.
Spycrabbing or other server bets: having a trusted middleman hold items to ensure neither side can back out of a wager when losing
Trades involving CD keys, Steam Wallet codes, or CSGO Pins (same reason as PayPal/Bitcoin). Not recommended, even with a middleman!
So, what does a middleman actually do? If you are trading for real-world money, such as Bitcoin or PayPal, you may have a legitimate use for the middleman. Because money cannot be placed into a Steam trade window, someone will normally have to "go first" in a cash-for-items trade, and whoever does that is taking a risk that the other person will run with their items. Remember: Once you trade your items, they're gone for good, so this is a substantial risk.

To mitigate this risk, a middleman may be of help. The middleman is a trusted third party who holds items during an exchange where one or both parties do not trust the other enough to go first, but can both agree to trust someone else to hold the items. This is common for very high value trades. In a nutshell, the following steps will be completed in order:
1) Buyer and seller mutually agree on a middleman they can both trust.
2) Seller trades items to middleman (confirm middleman is legit during this step).
3) While middleman is holding items, buyer sends payment to seller.
4) Middleman confirms that seller was paid, or other arrangements (spycrab completion, code activation, etc) have been met.
*If disputes arise, it's the middleman's job to resolve the situation and make a judgement call.
*In event of a scam, or attempted scam, the victim should submit a report. The middleman will add their perspective.
5) Assuming #4 was completed properly, middleman trades items from step #2 to buyer.
6) (OPTIONAL) Both buyer and seller tip the middleman for ensuring a safe trade, or at minimum if you can't/won't provide tips, thank the middleman for their assistance.

There are a lot of advantages and benefits to trading, but there are many dangers you open yourself up to as well.

1. Tradable Steam Gifts
Trading through the Steam's Trading System is the safest method of all as long as there are no items traded outside of the trade window, like CD-Keys, Paypal, or anything else.
A) If the game or items you received were fraudulently purchased or the buyer files a chargeback, they will be removed from your account or inventory. If that happens, you will need to contact Steam Support to restore any of the removed gifts/items. Following this format will help you while contacting Steam Support.

Keep in mind that the person who traded you the game may not be a scammer, the revoked item could have passed through several people before arriving to you.
B) Some games are censored, or even restricted to certain geographic regions. If you trade for one of these games, even if you're tricked into accepting the trade, Steam will not help you.
Always mouse over a game's icon and read its description. That will help save you some heartache.
Look at this copy of Rayman and its icon for a clear example.
region locked Rayman[i.imgur.com]
If a game has any tag next to its name (RU, CIS, ROW, US, DE, or anything else) make sure that you can activate it onto your account, and that it is the version you are looking for. Some tags are harmless, some aren't.

The use of a VPN to unlock restricted games is strongly discouraged. It violates the terms and conditions of Steam's user agreement and has led to accounts being locked in the past.

2. Giftable (non-tradable) Steam Gifts
Some games or items may be marked as non-tradable or giftable only, and those carry a larger danger than tradable items.
Look at the difference between this tradable Portal 2 and non-tradable Portal 2. Most non-tradable items have a time limit until they're available to trade.
Tradable Portal 2 [imgur.com]
Games may not be tagged at the bottom as non-tradable, it may be in the description only. Be suspicious of every item not traded through Steam's trade window.
A game won't be tradable immediately after purchase if the buyer hasn't made any valid purchase from the Steam Store more than 30 days ago, or if Steam Guard hasn't been enabled for at least 15 days. These are usually signs of a new or alternate account, so should be a red flag and your spidey common sense should start tingling.
If a gift you received has been removed from your account for any reason, your only option is to contact the person who gifted it to you. If you were gifted a game first, then traded your item to them afterwards, you will not get your items back. Steam Support will not restore any game you received outside of Steam's Trading System.

3. Activating CD Keys on Steam
A CD Key acts as your proof of purchase for the game - Steam Support may ask for it if you need to establish your ownership of an account. It is recommended that you keep your CD Keys in a safe place to ensure the security of your account.
If you trade for a suspect key (stolen, fraudulently purchased, etc) then it could be removed from your account, or may even result in your account being suspended or banned.
If you trade for a legitimate key, it is now a proof of purchase. In the worst case scenario, a scammer can attempt to hijack your account. He can write to Steam Support and provide pictures of the physical CD Key that you will not have, which may result in a lot of heartache and stress from your end to fight that claim.

4. One-Sided Deals, Trades Involving PayPal/Money
The same rule applies to one-sided deals, as to giftables / non-tradables. Steam Support won't be able to return any games/items if you traded for nothing in return through the inbuilt system.
PayPal trades always involve the risk of chargeback, so be sure to check out our Paypal guide for advice.

pyrojoe for the videos he created ( pyrojoe steam profile ) pyrojoe’s youtube
steamrep for guide linked
Team Fortress 2 wiki page
Diamond jozu(S>1/1 rare unu)
JayFeather
juju