They scam because they are greedy, dishonest and worthless as human beings. I'm using the term "human being" very loosely here. They do not give a flying fuck about the person they are scamming which brings to light the fact that they have no conscience. They feel superior and clever after the scam so some of them also resort to such measures for that feeling alone.
I never trade so I never got scammed but this may also happen outside of the electronic world too. Especially when you are running a business. You either need to give up on the trading idea altogether or trade with your friends only. Because even a trader with good rep may be impersonated and you wouldnt know unless you check every possible source. I'm guessing you didnt do that in this case. Frankly speaking, trading games isnt worth all the paranoia and detective work.
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It sucks, man. But life it's like this. Wait until you have a job (or any activity with potential profit), and you'll see how assholes and scammers populate the world.
Also,I'm not a trader, but I know there's a gold rule you should never ignore: "Never trade a gift for a key"
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im sorry for you, but steam and tons of other has been warn people to not trade outside the steam trade.
shit happens
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Ah, I remember the good old days when I got scammed for some coal back in a few years ago.
Traded some coal for Deus Ex GOTY with some guy, which I got previously (like 150 coals, but I gave like 10 for his DXGOTY) by trading, buying games for cheap and then trading them off for coal. A decent amount of money included.
Then later the guy said he had more games in CDkey forms, and sure, why not, he didn't scam me in a 1:1 trade, why would he later on, and he had some rep as well, more than I had, similar situation to yours.
Needless to say, I lost about a 100coal which is equal to 2 Skyrims, I reported the guy, he got forum/trade-banned, and his (mine, actually) coal and inventory cleared out, as well as some games revoked by other people he's scammed, even though he had like 500 posts on the Steam trading forum, a very risky thing, some UK douche.
However, looking back at it, it sharpens your senses, it can ALWAYS be worse, and it can ALWAYS be a much rougher experience, although sometimes people can swindle you for less.
Later on, especially years later when you don't even know it, you get some bonuses in the form of real life experiences and pleasures, you get for instance foils out of card drops in the new System, quite a lot compared to other people, for reasons unexplainable. You manage to trade your hats/items/keys for a bit more than they're actually worth, you find buyers for your bundle CDkeys which no one seems to want, yet you make a good profit, and all in all it adds up and evens itself out.
Not to mention that there's other ways of earning money IRL as well as experience, where you'd be amazed how 20$ is a small amount compared to the experience you get from living out life in the real world doing a real job.
My pop always used to say, if you're gonna steal stuff, don't steal car windshields/wipers, steal cars.
Those people that manage to swindle someone for a 20, 30, even 60$ games only risk getting their accounts which they'll redeem those keys/games on anyway, (i doubt most of them are smart enough to sell them to someone IRL or paypal for money, which, again, requires reputation, which they won't have once they're shown as scammers to the public).
Yes, they'll be stuck with YOUR game, but they'll also never amount to anything, they'll never attempt corporate scams, social engineering, money laundering, racketeering, embezzlement of corporate funds or anything that they can make real profit out of, because they're not the type of person that can amount to something like that and get away with it.
If you look at it that way, you're profiting from the experience, and from the fact that you are better than these people, not because you don't scam, but because even if you were to scam you should find ways of making real damage, not stealing game cd keys for games you'd easily pirate anyway, not to mention put your account in jeopardy.
tl;dr
Karma works when you least expect it, and you won't even know sometimes that good things that happen to you just might be a consequence of God or whichever entity rewarding you for something you've endured in the past, such as this.
Just get over it and stay sharp.
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Try installing Enhanced Steam. Gives you direct links to that account's steamtrades/steamgifts/steamrep, so it's impossible to impersonate and you can check immediately if the person has scammed before or not. It's a pretty nifty and useful tool, it might have helped in your particular case.
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Hey pals...
I've just got scammed... I stupidly believed in a high rep trader, we went gift for key, I gave the gift first, he gave me a false key... and now he deleted me...
As i'm an underage, I can't really work much in where I live, so I work as a redactor in some site, and worked around a month for those damn 30$ I just lost...
Why the hell people scam others... It's just being, assh*les...
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