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Steam BatmanThis is quite a long story and I created this blog just to tell it. Rest assured it is epic and you will not regret reading this wall of text. You will learn about the dark side of TF2 trading, how to protect yourself against it and finally, how to scam a scammer!


Some background information about TF2 trading
The game Team Fortress 2 has a virtual item economy. It allows trading of such items via a safe Steam Trading mechanism. Traders like myself use this system to get items they prefer in exchange of items they like less or that are worth less.
The most sought after items are Unusual Hats which offer special particle effects like flames over your head.
Since they can only be unboxed with a chance of 1% using keys that cost $2.50 each, they can be quite valuable.


This leads to the deside to sell or buy these hats for real world money. The catch is that Steam Trading does not allow for monetary transactions so that such a trade is insecure by nature. Either the buyer or the seller has to "go first" by giving out the money or the item without knowing if the seller / buyer will keep their side of the bargain. This risk is somewhat reducable by using an independent, trusted "middleman". The seller gives his item to the middleman, the buyer can verify it is there and transfers the money. After receipt, the seller confirms payment receipt to the middleman who gives the item to the buyer. Aside from possible Paypal chargebacks, this process is relatively safe (using other payment methods).


I will explain how people exploit this process and try to scam others in the process.


Approached by a scammer
After years of trading, I have many valuable items and unusual hats in my backpack. So there I was on an unsual hat trade server, checking out other nice hats people are showing off and trying to sell. Suddenly I get a trade request from a guy on the server, let's call him Skychief. Skychief's first question is "Can I buy the Unusual you are wearing for $120?". This is very odd for two reasons.
He did not even ask me how much I am selling it for
The value of the unusual in question was much lower
This behavior is actually on purpose, the point is to invoke greed in the victim. Sure I want to sell my $30 hat for $120. However for an experienced trader, these points are obvious red flags.
Anyways, I decided to play along because I was curious what he was going to try on me and of course he might still just be a moron looking to spend $120 on a virtual item he loves.


So I ask him some basic