I don't have any input but I thought this deserved a bump
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I didn't want to make a pool because my options would be too restrict... but i think more ppl would input info... =/
Thanks for the bumps though...
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Maybe, I just don't have enough experience in trading or steam in general to have an informed opinion :)
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haha I'm not complaining about your lack of opinion on the topic... Many people don't care about trading... and many others don't care about ppl helping scammers indirectly...
I'm just regretting the way i've created it =) (while bumping :)
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I'm not into trading, so my experience is not representative ... have a bump instead
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I believe that even if you don't trade with them, someone will, so why worry about it? It's beyond your control.
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Thanks for the nice giveaway. For your questions I don´t have answers. I think that I even don´t understand them. But I do not trade on steam, because I also don´t know why I should do it.
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some people manage to have huge profits....
For once, I don't spend money on steam for a while now... because of trading...
Just too boring and too time consuming... not worth for anyone with a proper wage (or a job that doesnt bore them to death) haha/
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b) You set up a trading bot to help others create full sets instead of gathering the sets for yourself. If it is done in an automated way, it means somebody is either levelling up pretty big or tries to make some small buck. Since even full set prices are pocket change for most users, I don't think it should be a problem even if it is done in larger scales. After all, you made the bot so others can profit from the full sets in one way or another, no? I mean, if you really are worried about who gets the full sets, you could switch to just manually check every trade.
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have highter prices, eventually give back when your sure it's not a bot.
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What i understood > your bots might have helped scammers to lvl up their "i'm going to scam you with this account"-accounts.
In that transaction alone nothing non legit happened ... you got something, they got something.
You or your bots aren't responsible for anyone or anything that exceeds your boundary of control ... best disregard it, scamming isn't legit, getting scammed is stupid and shouldn't occur if measures were to be taken. Even if they don't get cards from your bots, they will elsewhere. In the end they will get around it anyway if that is their ambition, that and there will be always users foolish enough to get ripped off badly.
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but in such thought...
The bots that are knowingly helping scammers couldn't be blamed either.
However, fencing stolen items (keys) is trade banneable by steam. (and it was on steamrep as well... i think it is not anymore)
This kind of brought all this together to check how the community sees it.
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I see ... thought you were referring to bots that help users completing their card sets by exchanging cards.
If the users sending your bots CSGO/TF2 Keys for your cards that will later on be "invalidated" as they were bought with stolen credit cards exceeds an amount that is harmful to your trades (which i have no doubt it could be) then i'd simply wouldn't operate such a bot > accepting only bitcoin might be a solution ... even if it restricts the users and your purpose later on.
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I don't have any bots that sell cards for keys... But it is usually more complicated than that.
AFAIK, they usually scam items, not keys... (i wanted to use keys for my argument be easier). They trade those to another accounts, then trade them for keys (most common source of quicksells on csgo)... then send keys yet to other account. In such way that it is never only 1-2 accounts involved (steam doesnt track everything then).
In this way, keys are usually not revoked (they were not purchased on store).
And this would not affect the profit of card selling bots. Just a matter of moral compass how bad is it to do that or not.
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I think fighting with bots by blocking them sounds like a tiresome battle you will not win - if you block one scammer, other will come anyway.
So really, it's like you have two options here - either kill your bot and make lots of legit users sad, or don't kill your bot and keep people happy, even if it means some scammers will get slightly easier life.
Also, I'm pretty sure I've done a bunch of card-trades with you(r bot), so big thanks and cute gif for that.
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A bit of a messy situation, I use the services of trading bots to complete sets (archibot mostly) so I get how useful they are to the average card farmer but I never stopped to think that the sets could be used to make "scamming accounts".
The only easy fix I can think of is to limit the trades to the people in your bot's friend list, that way you can manually pick what people you think are legit and avoid scammers with a thousand accounts.
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That's stupidly common... On my time too many ppl were buying just enough sets to get to lvl X because there was a csgo reedit mod that would participate in trades as middleman... Took me a while to understand that and start blocking the ones that requested it.
My moral stands exactly on that. I know the bot helps a lot of ppl.. but i know lots of ppl (even though usually stupid to get scammed), gets screwed because it indirectly helps scammers...
So I put it into numbers... In last week (since 03/13) i blocked 75 accounts because of that....
But i know the profit from selling card sets is big enough that they can just get another alt to keep on trading.
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So, you don't want to help bots because bots helps scammers, but also people.
Do you really want to help people?
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yup. My moral stands in the i want to help only one of them.
I want to help regular users to finish their sets, not other bots (it doesnt bother me to ppl to profit on my bot, it bothers me for the consequences)
For this topic I disregarded ppl that buy sets on bots and are not scammers... Because from what I see, even though there are such users, I can't quite say it is majority.
Sadly, the common profile of users that buy card sets are few hours in csgo with expensive csgo inventories, friend list with tons of banned users and cheap/free games only.
In my time of trading i dont even say that "new account" is a pre req, because there is/was a black market of old accounts exactly for that purpose.
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You could look at it like it is a business transaction. You traded a card for a card. Or a card for money. What happens after your transaction is completed is not really your business. Unless you were a bar in which case you would be held liable for your customers actions once you have over served them ;).
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No input but I use and appreciate your bot very much.
Edit: it takes 1 second to block an alt and it takes 1 week for a new alt to become mobile authenticated.
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1 sec to block... but to scavenge in 300 trades the ones that might be these accounts.... not so fast haha
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First and foremost I appreciate your trade bot offer. I've already used it several times. The greatest advantage is that the inventory gets synchronized in a few minutes, so you could start the next trades without having fear to offer items twice.
It's even better that you consider which outcome your bot has and if/how it could be abused. But you've already stated that it's difficult to track the bots and then alt bots, therefore this can't be the permanent solution. Steam trading doesn't offer captchas or sth. like that.. and that's also not your fault. So you have to either confirm manually (losing the biggest advantage of it) or invest time and nerves to track and block the bots or setup a special trading platform outside of Steam.
Regarding scamming: that's totally out of your reach here. If they wouldn't get them from you, they get them elsewhere. And it has never been your intention. Also everyone is responsible to check their trading partners for oneself.
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I've used your bot and I think it is a great way to get full sets. That you set it up for free and keep it running a long time after you stopped trading only says good things about you.
As with everything, there are always people that abuse/misuse the tools that are available but I don't think you should feel bad or morally in the wrong because of that. If it is easy to make it more complicated for bots/scammers go for it but I wouldn't worry too much since you've done nothing wrong, quite the opposite :)
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oh :o Hi! I used your bot to complete sets from time to time, so thank you for that. I appreciate it.
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bump, btw menelsbot it's pretty fast I recommend it :)
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Don't have an answer, but I'll give you my bump.
Thanks for the giveaway, and yes, a poll would increase feedback and its visibility
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Keeping up to block individual accounts might be too tiresome in the long run. Guess I'd say just ignore it just cause otherwise it can take a toll :\
Those accounts might be an issue but your bot is also helpful to a lot of people(myself included) so focus on that instead :D
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Hey everybody.... Once more i'm here to bother (not my fault if this is one of the few reliable active communities).
Background story
I quit trading over 1 year and half ago because of the HUGE amount of scammers that wanted to buy card sets to impersonate other users / have an account that look "legit", etc... Was too annoying to filter them out and I got fed up.
It might sound silly that it might work... but sadly, these scammers actually get huge profit to make it worth burning a lvl 100 account on few trades and create a new one.
Back to the problem
I left the trading community and was unaware of this. A friend told me my bot was being used to help card sets bot accounts to close sets and scammers were easily buying sets
Over a month ago I started tracking those bots without taking any action. Regardless of their friend list keep refreshing, with removal of trade banned users / steamrepbanned users... the number was always unusually high.
So... This is to help me out to follow a moral compass.
Helping the bots, i'm helping the scammers to have easy access to it. What is the proper way to go?
a) Block all the bots to trade with Menelsbot... This way I'd not help them (adopted this tactic 1 week ago, but the card set bots are using alts to trade with the bot now)
b) Help the bots to finish their sets... Nothing wrong there.... even though it is a grey area
c) Help the bots to finish their sets... ... The problem are the scammers, not the easy access to sets.
d) other
e) if you stick till here, you deserve this
Edit 1 - So far, conclusion is that I should just ignore that without taking huge efforts, since i wont be able to block everybody (creating an alt is easier than detecting the bot's alt).
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