Stung- A vent.

Best time to start using SteamGifts.

Trading is difficult with randoms. Scams are always a possibility. As far as region locking goes, I own two games that are region locked for me. I can't even see the store page, but I can install and run them. I got them from keys. So it's the key itself that is locked or not, even if the game is locked in the store.

Barter has recently been cracking down on resellers who spam unfair value offers in mass. Either way, I wouldn't leave steamtrades just because of one bad apple.

If you think steamtrades isn't full of people trying to nickel and dime each other to fill their libraries with games they will never play and sell keys on the side, well I have some ocean front property in Arizona.

As far as I can see there are only two versions of Ultra Street Fighter IV - ROW and Europe. Yours was for Europe so you should've made clear to him that this key only works in Europe. So really, it wasnt his region that is heavily restricted since ROW keys would work worldwide, your key was heavily restricted.

Dont be discouraged from this one experience. Learn from it: if you go in the deals section of this site and type in the bundle name, you will find a thread discussing it and listing all the region restrictions of the games. So you can always mark when one of your keys is restricted, which is rare for europe but it does happen.

I've always had a rough time with trading. Untrusting on strangers who always seemed to take advantage over me. Maybe I didn't know a game I was asking for was more valuable because of X, or maybe I didn't know my key was worthless because one month before some site flooded the market with free keys. But in the end I'm so naive, I often ended offering more than I thought was fair, and expecting they'd do the same, then or on a near future. OFC never happened. And then you bump into the usual idiot that not only tries to scam you, but also reports false facts and I do have to fight for "looking clean" in a place full of scammers and sharks?
Until one day I just stopped trading. I preferred to give the keys here or trade with people I know. But SteamTrades and Barter.vg were out of the equation. Trading simply gave me more headaches and bad feelings than anything else.

That was my experience. I've read yours. It's your experience, your opinion, your decision. Just think what's best for you: peace of mind, new games, the thrill of making a good exchange (at the risk of bad encounters)...

First, after getting added by him, I couldn't get a response from him for 8 days, even though he was online and in-game. Always DOTA 2. That should've been a red flag right there.

Does that game turn people into scammers or what :x

I am also using ST and SG for like 12 years. I follow only one rule. If someone got less +rep than you never go first and don't trade with people with -1 rep. Fortunately never got scammed.

Hi again Aigo, hope you're well! :)
I personally use Barter for 80% of my trades, usually they're very focused on profit and price or H:W matching at all times but sometimes people just trade based on personal interest. Just an hour ago I had a person trade me a game worth 2.5 times the price of mine. Takes time and some patience but you can make some sweet trades if you find the right person :) I'd say regularly update your list and make lots of offers with the "match" feature and you're bound to get lots of games. I think ever since I joined Barter I've gotten about 30 or 35 new games from my wishlist for games I really didn't want so much so take that as you will.
As a response to your concern: I feel like one negative review doesn't sh*t on everything good you've done, same as everything in life. I've traded with plenty of people who had false / even non-false -reps and have all gone swimmingly and most people will do the same if you have over 50ish completed trades (or +reps, which you do).
I feel like SteamGifts is a much better and healthier space than SteamTrades or Barter ever will be or have been, if you feel burnt out and see barely any benefit from trading anymore I think this is a good place as any to distance yourself from it and actually enjoy "game transactions" so to speak. Join a few groups, engage in the community, do some puzzles, give and receive! :D
TL;DR I'd say try out Barter a bit more in depth, maybe go on SteamGifts if it tickles your fancy and stay on SteamTrades as a secondary thing.. That's what I personally do and I've been enjoying my time 95% of the time :)

You shouldn't be scared of -rep because steamtrades doesn't care to remove them most of the time...
It's clearly stated in rules that you can't -rep someone for being rude or something trivial like that... Except when you ask that -rep to be removed people don't remove it for some reason...
I also got -rep from a random user who I didn't even chat with... And also known thing by other people but it also didn't get removed...
So I am amazed how lucky you got to not have -rep on your account...

So you only have 1 negative rep? That's not anything to get mega upset about really.

After reading the screenshots the other trader posted, I'd say you were a bit hasty in your remarks. Keep in mind if they're from Philippines there might also be a bit of a language barrier. I believe HB only shows region lock info when you're creating a gift link. It doesn't show it when revealing the key because HB assumes you're revealing it for yourself. If you had known this you could have clicked the gifting option and seen the region lock info and probably would have prevented this incident from happening but you didn't know.

Likewise, they could have asked you which bundle you had bought and then checked if SF4 was region locked in that bundle. But, they probably didn't know SF4 had region locks in the first place, and probably weren't knowledgeable enough to know where to find that info. It's confusing enough even for people who know where to look. And it's a hassle to check every single game for region locks.

So there's some personal responsibility to be had on both sides.

It's true that them not responding for a week is annoying but that isn't proof of them being a scammer or make it more their fault your key didn't work. They said they forgot about the trade which isn't uncommon. Their steam account looks like a normal account with a fair number of decent games and not some throwaway account typical with scammers.

You kinda rushed them into picking another game and threatened them with negative rep which is pretty harsh and rude. If you had politely explained what happened they might have been more understanding that it was a bad situation for both parties. If it was me I would most likely feel the same way they did. Ultimately you're responsible for informing others of region locks for your key because it's your key. It seems like you tried to brush it off because you were annoyed they took so long to reply, but that doesn't excuse you not giving them the game you both agreed upon.

Basically if you had been nicer and patiently explained what happened instead of immediately insisting on a different game and threatening them with negative rep this might have been resolved differently and neither of you having negative rep.

From my perspective, a few things are true.

One: That looks like a lopsided trade favoring your trade partner.
Two: After ten years of trading, you probably should have learned to look at user profiles, wherein you would also see their region. It's part of doing your due diligence.
Three: A cursory glance at his trade threads shows clearly that he is in a different region as well.
Four: If it takes eight days to get a trade done, you waited four or five days too long and should have simply moved on.

The chat logs favor the other user. You gave the dude an ultimatum which he understandably rejected. It's not on him to just select a game he doesn't want because you didn't do your due diligence when setting up a trade. And before that, he was being pretty nice in offering you time to make things right by getting the appropriate key for the trade. Instead of just doing the right thing (like every longtime trader has had to do from time to time) and acquiring a key from the correct region to complete the trade, you chose to be demanding and indignant instead. You made it his problem to correct instead of correcting your own mistake.

My advice. Definitely stop trading.

I offered him any other key from my list, in addition to the key I gave him that wouldn't work for him that he could just trade. He refused, and got very abusive.

In the chat logs you said: "You can try and trade it yourself or pick something else from my list"

I don't really see him being abusive to you. What makes you say that?

My apologies in advance for the length, but as someone who's spent some time trading, I'll be frank about why I think your negative rep wasn't overturned:

• You mention in the chat logs, "Not my problem that the key is region locked." Except, it kinda is. Both parties should always be diligent in checking region locks for keys on both sides of the trade, but ultimately, it's your responsibility to know the region lock for the key you're providing. The other person doesn't always know which bundle you got the key(s) from, and the same game in the same region can have different region locks in different bundles (HB and Resident Evil for example). HB isn't always accurate about region locks, so you can use the bundle discussion posts here on SG and/or check steamdb.

• In the logs, you also mention that the issue was because they were in the SEA region, which comes off as you shifting the blame. If anything, the key didn't work because you're in the EU and had a key locked to the EMEA region. Yes, there are many intances where SEA is region-restricted, but this wasn't one of them, and you were incorrect to make that assumption without double-checking. I don't know which exact bundle your copy of Ultra Street Fighter IV is from, but the only possible case I can see of an EU key not working in SEA would be this one, which matches the key provided the last time HB bundled the game here. Looking at either the linked SG page or steamdb, you'll see that PH isn't part of any region-locks for this game. If the bundle had been purchased somewhere outside of the listed region locked areas, the key would've worked for them.

• If there's an issue with a key and the other trader agrees to swap for a different game, they're the one being understanding and doing you a favour. There is no obligation on them to agree to swap out games in a trade after a deal has been agreed upon, and they are within their rights to want to stick to the initial deal. If that's the case, it's on you to supply the replacement key. I've had to bite the bullet several times in the past for similar mistakes, and while it can be costly, it's why you need to stay on top of your key-management to avoid such issues. This isn't just about avoiding negative feedback; it's about being fair to the other person.

• It definitely sucks when people take a while to get back to you, but that doesn't make your mistake of supplying a region-locked key any less wrong, which is implied in the chat logs.

• Lastly, even though the other person was the first to mention reporting, you mentioning them becoming a young account with negative rep, and talking about you having more positive rep then them makes you look like a bully.

At the end of the day though, this probably won't hinder you in any noticeable way if you wish to continue using the site. You have 50+ positive rep vs 1 negative rep. Some of the largest traders on the site have multiple negative reps that they haven't even bothered trying to fight and are doing just fine. As long as people are getting a good deal, a few negative reps doesn't seem to matter to most if your ratio of positive to negative isn't too bad. Just use this as a learning experience and move on.