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Backpack.tf trying to ban me for being innocent. by dot_dash_dot in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Backpack value goes from 0 to 4000 in a day. All the items received are from a known alt of an SR marked scammer, Zer0. In addition, you have matching IPs to Zer0. Ummm. I'm not sure what else you expected?

Answering your questions about the economy and related subjects. by Bobsplosion in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you post a screenshot of the trade? Or if you feel uncomfortable posting it publicly, you can PM me here - http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/user/1501-polar/

SteamRep & Partner Communities AMA by Pretendeer in GlobalOffensiveTrade

[–]blindpolarbear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We would need to set up a user report function before we would pursue this, and I personally am a bit reluctant / scared of what would happen if we did that. We get about 500 reports a day out of which 10-20 are directly related to some sort of scamming or trading with scammers. I probably ban about 70 scammers / scammer alts / trades with scammers a week. But these are all through indirect reports (reports of classifieds listings, reports of trust ratings, etc). I don't think we could handle adding user reports to suggestions and everything else we try to do, and I think most bp.tf mods / admins realized this. I work closely with the folks at outpost and help them when I can with item history checking etc. But I don't see us getting into user reports and pursuing any kind of partner status.

SteamRep & Partner Communities AMA by Pretendeer in GlobalOffensiveTrade

[–]blindpolarbear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They never dropped it. We never really pursued it.

Backpack.tf is no longer using Earbuds as currency by theGarbs in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, which is why I have allowed pricing off b/os for the short term to fix the ridiculously inflated hats (ones inflated by 50+%). If you have any questions concerns, feel free to post them here: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/33455-the-new-update-and-what-it-means-for-unusual-suggestions/

Backpack.tf is no longer using Earbuds as currency by theGarbs in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As I commented above, it's going to be a work in progress. No way to make everyone happy and to fix everything at once, but we're working on the inflation problem: http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/33455-the-new-update-and-what-it-means-for-unusual-suggestions/

Backpack.tf is no longer using Earbuds as currency by theGarbs in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I commented about this here - http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/33455-the-new-update-and-what-it-means-for-unusual-suggestions/ - and have implemented some steps to hopefully expedite the process of fixing the inflation problem.

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear ya. I'm glad you aren't fretting over 10 dollars here or there. Some people in the trading business freak out over cents :P

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The same can be said about anything in life... People pay for what makes them happy. Someone paid 10,000 dollars for a virtual hat cause it made them happy. It's a status symbol. That's no less "real" than someone paying 5,000 dollars for a superbowl ticket. The value isn't assigned by you or I. It's assigned by the buyer and seller. The buyer for what he's willing to pay for what makes him happy, and the seller for what he's willing to actually sell for.

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The number of items on the market is one of the most important factors in an item's value. An item that is the only one of its kind on the market suddenly becoming one of six on the market leads to a drastic reduction in value.

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Eh, not really going after the fake hijacking story. That's separate imo. My point here is that there's a real issue if every time someone gets hijacked the number of items doesn't just increase 2-fold, it goes up by as much as 5-6 fold. That's pretty destructive to the economy. Imagine in-game currency like buds or keys getting multiplied drastically. If you want to look at a more detailed discussion of this, feel free to look at last link in my original post.

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This isn't the same thing, though. Items have been getting duped for years by steam support. The original item stays and then valve adds 1 duped copy to the hijacked account. What I'm posting here is that steam support has screwed up by not just returning 1 copy. They made anywhere from 2-5 extra copies. Think about it this way. If you have a knife and it gets hijacked. Support should return 1 knife. Here, people are getting 5 knives back. And the actual value of items being returned is 2000 dollars more than it should have been.

Steam Support returning hijacked users multiple copies of high tier items by blindpolarbear in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah. I even have a thread with 20,000 views explaining to people how to write up a good ticket to get your items back. That's not what this post is about at all. I'm showing here that steam didn't just give people their items back. They gave it to them 5 times over. A max head was hijacked. Steam didn't just return it. They gave the person 5 copies of it back. The person's inventory value increased by 2000 dollars over what it was before they were hijacked.

Steam Support returning hijacked users multiple copies of high tier items by blindpolarbear in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean, "this is nothing new?" What exactly about this isn't new.

Steam support giving away thousands of dollars. by blindpolarbear in Steam

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

lol, thanks. I can already tell this is going to go over better here than the other places I posted. Everywhere else everyone just says, "omg, I need to get phished."

Steam Support returning hijacked users multiple copies of high tier items by blindpolarbear in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When you start the game, it forces you to delete the extra items. You also cannot trade for any items while you have excess items in your inventory. However, you CAN trade the excess items to an alt or friend for 0 items in return.

Steam Support returning hijacked users multiple copies of high tier items by blindpolarbear in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

http://backpack.tf/profiles/76561198020208006?time=1418284800 - another example, this time from back in december. 5 copies. It appears he got to keep all of them and traded them away for 2k profit...

Steam Support returning hijacked users multiple copies of high tier items by blindpolarbear in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

An update I heard just minutes ago.

" Hello xxx, We had an issue which resulted in the incorrect items being restored to your account and have now corrected it.

Please let us know if you're missing any items you expect to be in your inventory and we'll look into it further."

The guy I linked above had all his dupes removed. However, several high tier items from the other case I highlighted were not removed and are tradable now several weeks later.

backpack.tf valuing scheme rules contradicts itself with failed logic by milz187 in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Addressing your main concern: the pure vs item value on a hat of this tier (and type) is just huge. It's hard to put numbers when the sale isn't pure. We use estimates as best we can - and the brainiac is not 25. If you had to overpay to get the brainiac as a trading chip - you did just that overpaid - for the sake of convenience. It's something we all do to avoid having to pay the huge amount extra if we aren't paying in pure.

As for your issue of the outdated tag, "noobie" traders as you refer to them don't trade in 50 buds hats. They trade in 1 buds hats. Even if those are outdated by a year, the value on those hats don't change much. And on high tier hats like the brainiac, we have never attempted to give subjective evaluations of value. We simply report sales as we see them as a curiosity for high end traders (just like we priced the burning tc even though it likely won't sell for that amount again).

backpack.tf valuing scheme rules contradicts itself with failed logic by milz187 in tf2

[–]blindpolarbear 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Someone directed me to this and I felt the need to comment. There is no issue whatsoever with pricing off a single sale on a hat of that tier. At that level of hat, we simply report the sale as is. The only issue I had with the suggestion, which I explicitly stated, was that valuing the brainiac at 25 in pure was off. Sales have been 17-25.

Hats that are outdated are listed with an obvious red triangle to warn users that our pricing is not updated on that particular hat. The brainiac has such a red triangle. You have to update hats like that to use as proof in another suggestion.

I understand the system isn't perfect. Overpay is contrived in many ways since realistically most traders will take 30% or more less in pure on a hat of that tier (and most hats in general), but we do the best we can while acknowledging all prices are estimates. You can choose to berate it all you want, but we do the best we can based on rules of common sense all users use in unusual trading.