Hello there everyone! I hope you enjoy the video and learn something about some of TF2's most dangerous scams. Some of these methods, particularity the last few, are scams that not many people know about, so I am excited to get these out to the more general public! Also, the intro segment is 100% a joke. If you get scammed and want to talk to me, I'm all ears. But just know that I won't be able to get your items back and probably won't make a video on one specific scam method, as I'd prefer to clump multiple methods into one video like this one :) EDIT: Yes I have been made aware of the spelling mistake and the pronunciation error in the video. Thanks for bringing these to my attention! :^)
I hate scammers. since my backpack is pretty valuable in unusual hats/australiums, almost everyday I logon, someone invites me trying some dumb scam method that I've already about 100 times. If it weren't for your videos, I probably would have been scammed at least a few times by now.
@@ryanduffy6089 they tell you to add a person that's gonna be pretending to be an admin, they'll send you fake gifs of them banning people and then say you need to verify your items by sending them to a "bot". It's pretty funny to mess with them
@@ryanduffy6089 the one i encountered was my friend msged me saying "bro i accidentally reported u im sorry give me ur login and password and accept on mobile auth so i can tell steam admin". i later learn my friend fell for this. rip.
The second scam was actually attempted on me just these last few weeks. Pulled a Sunbeams Dancing Doe and had the only one in existence for a good week. Three separate people hit me up because I only had ~300 hours in the game at the time. Too bad for them I was already very experienced withscammer because I had also pulled a StatTrak MW Asiimov AK in CSGO a bit over a 3 weeks before the Doe hat so I was very familiar with being bombarded.
I hate scammers that go for the same method, I would honestly love to meet a scammer that doesn’t want me to promote their gambling website, or a scammer that “accidentally reported my steam profile”
I fell from the i accendently report your account i was playing very late i wasnt thinking straight cause i just wanted to play from a long day of practice i lost everything but im getting all of my stuff back in christmas cause how my mom doesnt give me gifts and just allows me to use her credit card
I replied to "I accidentally reported your steam account for duped items" with "oh shit, I'm so, so sorry... I fucked up" >"what?" "I accidentally reported you as well on purpose" and then he blocked me, but I had already reported him, *flexes* also, the best way to avoid scams is something nobody ever seems to talk about, just don't trust anyone who randomly adds you for trades.
PayPal chargeback scam can be negated by making sure the transaction is a “Friends and Family” charge instead of a “Goods and Services” charge, which can be charged back.
But, as it's usually the scammer who pretends to pay _me_ money for _my_ item, not the other way around, how can I control if the potential scammer I am trading with via Paypal actually labels the transaction as a “Friends and Family” charge instead of a “Goods and Services” charge? I can ask them to label it as that, but how can I confirm they actually did?
CrunchyFrog ask for a picture with payment confirmation. if they’re not a scammer, they shouldn’t bother with just taking a picture to prove its a “Friends and Family” transaction.
I always open a tab specifically for steam so I can log in. If the site has a real steamcommunity login page it'll just update and say you're logged in, and if it's fake it'll still say you have to sign in.
@@rocketpg_9532 You're welcome! I've actually fallen victim to the exact same scam years and years ago so I tried to figure out how to get around it :)
This isn't always true, if you haven't been to the Steam community page in quite some time it'll automatically log you out, but it'll partially remember you and will give you something like "You have this account signed in, would you like to sign-in with it to continue?" and will give you a Steam Auth Login Code you have to enter from the Steam Authenticator App.
I still remember getting an all-class unusual hat with one key and one crate only in the beginning of the invasion update. The hat was worth, at the time, about $500 since it was the beginning of the invasion update, and it was very rare. Someone ended up trading me an unusual scattergun for it that was worth an extra $100, and then I sold that for about $600 USD, and bought myself a new all-class disco beatdown hat, I unboxed more crates including a great scattergun, and I got the batsaber off the market for $20 (It's now rare, and costs around $80). It was the best time ever to be playing TF2, and then I gone and got myself scammed of all my shit through a flimsy middleman scam where I believed the person talking to me was a Steam admin, when I was gullible, and 13. Shittiest experience of my life, and I still get shame and guilt for being stupid to this day whenever I remember it.
I know this is 3 years old but i wanted to reply because i feel a lot better knowing someone had a similar experience to me. I lost an 80$-100$ unusual grenade launcher that i unboxed first try (i had no clue how lucky i was) and some guy who i didn’t know was impersonating someone tricked me into giving my grenade launcher to his smurf account pretending to be a bot… i still feel guilty about it to this day
My friend got messaged by a classic illiterate scammer pretending to be an admin. But the twist was that somehow he remotely changed my friends profile, deleting all the custom boxes, description, profile picture, background, etc, changed his name to a random set of numbers and the description to something along the lines of "this profile is under investigation". He even added himself to my friend's friends list. Both of us have expensive stuff and avoid phishing sites like the plague, but the disturbing level of control this dude had was scary. My friend is fine, he reset password and revoke the .api
That happened to me too some months ago. Sadly the scammer used an alt to scam me, so only his alt got banned. His main account is still up. Luckily a friend helped me with that, else I would have lost everything.
No, his friend just entered his steam details into a fake steam community page, but fortunately the scammer didn't have full access to the account, max he could do is reject trades, create new trade offers (but not confirm them) and edit his profile
I remember getting scammed, _A moment of silence for a Gaelic Glutton, Mr. Quackers, Strange Festivised Grenade Launcher, Cloud 9 Snowcapped, Nuts & Bolts Climbing Commander an Orbiting Fire Crack Pot, and a Genuine AWPer Hand_
I got scammed by number 5... lost 55 keys worth, made me stop playing the game for months. I'm glad that these scams have attention being brought to them though.
Takamei same man happened to me, I lost an Aussie wrench because I traded t to marketplace and then when someone went on my account they deleted all of my unusuals for keys
That happened to me too, but instead of trying to steal my items the scammer just sold (or gifted) my account to a cheater, which got me VAC banned. :(
i almost got naenaed by that one until the guy said "give me all your items or i'll ban you" and then i googled what this guy was doing and i instantly started fucking with him back, now anyone who adds me and says this i ask them for the other account just so i can report both
Surprised so few people have brought it up. Only noticed it like two thirds of the way into the VIDEO, but once I did I couldn't STOP, hearing it constantly like a rhythm. It made it hard to focus on the CONTENT, when emphasis was added every couple SECONDS, and I kept looking for a pattern. As I scrolled through the COMMENTS, looking for anyone else who NOTICED, I couldn't stop reading COMMENTS, with the same unnatural emphasis.
Merp btw used tf2 trading as a front to launder his drug money. My guess is that he fucked with the wrong dude and needed fast money hence he scammed and burned bridges. I'd rather burn the bridges with TF2 trading than get mauled by the Cartel.
I have a special trick up my sleeve: Have your wealth scattered across many items. This way the more items the scammer demands, the more suspicious he will be.
I get the "Is your item clean" "let me get a steam admin to make sure" or when I got a crazy unusual 2 of my friends said "I reported u for duped items".
I think it's important for new traders to realize the difference between strange festive and festivitized items, I got scammed once when a scammer tried to give me a festivitized item claiming it was a festive one, and if you didn't know, festives are far more expensive than festivized, you need to look very closely at the small print since there isn't any way to tell the difference visually.
Oh yeah. Some guy two months ago scammed me, but I knew beforehand what they were trying to do, so I changed my password before they got into my account so they were shit out of luck trying to trade my items for 15 days. They claimed to have a program to "block steam support" which is total bullshit lol. They had this nice little program that made it look like they could log into your account and change shit, but it's just a template of a steam page that swaps around your ID and PFP to make it look like they're in your account. Onto the juicy stuff, they change my email to something weird, but they fucked up real bad doing that, because that leaked their IP to me cause when someone else changes your email it'll say something about someone from this IP address changed it. I told my friends about the IP and one of those guys had a PC with 32 gigs of ram and a ddos script that ran virtual pcs to constantly ping an IP over and over with garbage info. Apprently the program also displayed the dudes router statistics and data from the service provider, guy had limited data, around 500 gigs. The fun begins. They start the program and soon enough it goes over the cap, waaaay over. Every gig of overages costed them 5 bucks I believe. In the end I believe we charged that scammer 2k-5k of overages. Don't be a scammer, kids. Quick Edit: Steam support to everyones surprise wasn't blocked, about 2-3 days into it they got my account back. They're nice people.
@@lelop2770 I didn't suggest it. I just sent the IP or more accurately a screenshot of the IP to show them how dumb the scammer was, and they took it from there, even if i said no I doubt they'd stop.
I was scammed. When competitive first came out you needed a pass to play. These were given out to a few players and a player came on a trade server and offered me one. I traded him a professional killstreak cow mangler and he said he would gift me a comp pass. He then un added me and disappeared.
The brokering trade HAS to be the most fascinating example of TF2 being a metaphor for the real world. Those brokers sold their morals, reputation, friends, integrity, and internet presence for a few thousand dollars. Crazy. Imagine having to live with that guilt forever. TF2 scamming gets dark quick.
There's a scam, where people threaten you to give your items or the acc will be stolen. They sent screenshots, where it looks like that they change the password of your acc. I was in this situation and came out perfectly fine. But a steam friend has given them away, which makes me very mad, because those scammers abuse the fear of the victims.
you can't be afraid of such things when you've already been through more dangerous ones outside of tf2.. this same method came at me, and even tho i was quite at a state of despair, i held it together and proceeded to mess with him, he kept on his threatening and told me that he'll steal my account info if i don't accept his scam.. i just continued mocking him and he just went offline without saying any proper thing..
I NEARLY got scammed a similar way once But thankfully, I have a trader friend who found out they were an impersonator of “Muu” so then I sent them a typosquatted link to yotube I think they won’t be coming back for some time now!
this video brought back so many bad memories. When I was younger I got scammed, I had never really traded and someone sent a request, a 200 dollar hat for a $6 taunt. I gave him my info and got scared and told my dad. He managed to get my account back and I was so scared I never traded again.
remember when u log in to unpopular site, on most browsers there should be green locker next to URL with "Valve Corp." next to it (that means site is legally registered by Valve) also check URL's, when logging-in
The one that got me even had the lock... I have no idea how it worked. Often times they will have a popup on the screen that looks like another window, but is actually just some stuff on the screen, but I was able to move mine around and even outside the webpage. I have no idea how they got around all that. Even the url looked identical to an actual steam url
I got scammed out of like $50 worth of items though that one... Somebody else said to log in to steam on another tab before going to a fishy website, as cookies will keep you logged in, so a legit site won't need to ask you for your info again. Don't let what happened to me happen to you
This guy actually help not a shity scam ironicly or a clickbait but actually tells you is it active then tells if he cans if you can get them back that's what I love
Recently almost got vac banned for having "scammed items" because some random dude friended me and tried to do a scam where they say they "accidentally" reported your account and if you do what they say they will take your items. And luckily my account is clear for now. If you have unusuals either make your inventory private. Or just be careful and aware of these things. If your a trader with unusuals then you don't need to follow these steps. If a guy with many hours on tf2. Maybe like 900 hours or more but has no items. Don't accept it. They clearly want your items. Also make sure they are random people because then you know its a scam. If someone adds you and says your account accidentally got reported. Don't fall for it they will get your items by trying to make you friend a guy who "knows" how to fix your ban. This person is someone who will take your items so don't accept it, find the right people who are real employees of valve. Now I haven't seen the scams showed in this video. But these ones are things that are pretty easy to fall for.
probably should add the 'quick-switch' scam.usually involves the festive and festived weapons or craftable and uncraftable ones.this scam is quite active everywhere.usually when im at the bp.tf scam section,i see a report of this scam atleast thrice a week
A form of scamming that I've noticed lately has been one where someone adds you just to tell you that they "accidentally" reported you for having duplicated items. They then give you a link to a Valve "admin" so that they could friend them and have their items verified via a "trade scan". I've been getting these for about 3 months straight.
Usually when I get added by a “trader” or a “steam admin” I just mess with them and waste their time for a long time until they unfriend me. It’s pretty funny to see their reaction!
I've come across 2 more scams, 1 of which I personally fell for, one of my friends got hijacked and the person on that account said that he can give me money on steam with a website which needs MY credentials and steam guard code, the other scam is a non-automated message bot that says that your account has duplicate items and that they "accidentally" reported you for it, while that's not possible, and when you call the bot out for it, they IMMEDIATELY unfriend you
Btw, don't fall for the "steam Dev" scam that goes like this: 1) Someone on your friends list (that has been previously scammed by this method will send you a message saying the following: "Hey man, I need to talk to you please answer me... (After talking to him and asking him what's wrong he will say)... look man, here's the problem, I'm so sorry but I mistakingly reported you of having duped items, and they said you have 2 hours to appeal or your going to lose your account..." And your friend will proceed to send you the so called "steam dev" account to you to add them and speak to them. 2) adding the so called "Steam Dev" : this is the most well planned step of the scam, because they even show you gifs of your account and a box below your steam level with something along the lines of "reported user" and the reason. (Wich is crazy) As you begin explaining the situation the scammer will ask you for either your steam password and username, or ask you for a trade link. If the password doesn't work, it will try the trade link method while saying "to prove that the items on your steam account aren't duped, we are going to have to individually check them" and send you a trade offer will all your valuable items. Obviously, this is the step that makes you realise that something isn't ok, but still people fell for these. So yeah, this was out of my personal experience, some steps may change, but still, there's a reason why every time you try to speak with someone on steam the chat tells you "Do not reveal your password to anyone". Be careful out there.
I fell for this once and this happend to me twice cause when i got scammed by this i got my stuff back cause i put money on my account when i got it back and bought everything back like nothing happend and another scammer came again and i was in the part when he showed me the gif and i said "tell gaben to update tf2 and make hl3 and also delete this account now if you are a real dev" he said "i am just hand ove the items or else and i said "do it delete my account now i dont even want this account anyway you dont need to check my items your going to delete my account anyway right And he just block me for no reason
@@antarticstorm7991 i did the same thing lmao, it was telling me that my account was going to be deleted in 20 minutes and I said "Yeah? Cool." And it just gave up, deleting me from it's friends list. Never heard from him again
There's still a method I ALWAYS get these days "Hey why do you have a pending ban report on your account for fraud? You can remove the ban by talking to this Steam Employee! *link to some random dude without a valve badge* "
My first ever scam experience: So I was just doing my normal stuff on gmod the other day, and a “friend” said that he “accidentally” reported my profile for ‘fraudulent items’ (yeah, one of *those*) I wasn’t worried, because, you know it was tf2 items, I didn’t feel like they were worth a steam moderator’s attention. He’s all like “dude please my friend lost his account because of the same thing” and after awhile I’m just like, “okay, fine.” So I talk to the ‘admin’ he linked me and blah blah, sends me a video of ‘legitimacy’ and asks me to provide evidence that the report was an accident, I did that, and then he’s like, we’ll have to verify your items through the steam machine (or something like that.) Then, skepticism kicked in, and I went online to check this stuff up. Sure enough, it was a scam. So I blocked that dude, and blocked the friend who was in on it too. So yeah, be skeptical for when a friend “reports your account accidentally cause he mistook you for a ‘scammer.’ “
I omce had a choice, either dying hijacked or suffer my entire life being scammed... I choose the hijack But i was fast enough to retrieve my account back without losing a single item. "Feels good man"
another thing which happened in history (with csgo but still) is that, a few times in the past someone has been offered to join the server. then the scammer will somehow persuade/coerce the victim into leaving. the playee joining the server causes rhe server ro download malicious files onto your pc which the hacker could apparently use to copy your steamguard files and bypass it, allowing them to just log in to your account and trade away all your items
I lost a circling TF crones dome to the trade hijacking scam, first unbox too. Scammers always find a way to get around the safeguards and it's the worst thing ever. What sucks even more is the hat is in a permanently trade banned account and it has been for a year but steam doesn't restore items.
Glad you enjoy it! It is not something that stands out to most people, but I think it is very important in making everything appear clear and professional :)
@@TheVirtualEconomist yeah. The game play in the background is nice. I remember it fading out and getting annoyed I couldn't see how you handled a 1v1 or something. Good change.
Even when i was trading and was well aware of phishing scams, i still got trade offer hijack scammed out of 3 keys, it would have been 30 keys if it wasn't for them being not tradable for a week and the fact that gell himself helped me out in getting my account back and revoking the api key, i really do respect gell after that one lol, he saved me in a dire situation
@@OwenAsh a really infamous scammer that weaseled away with 10000$ worth of unusuals he worked his way up as a brokerer and earned the trust of alot of well known traders and one day a bunch of traders gave him some unusuals for him to broker and he ran off with the said unusuals
Scammers can hijack accounts if they get a hold of their login information. One of my steam friends did that saying that I could have $200 for being a good friend. Seems odd. I told them that I didn't need the money and then they didn't reply for a day. Later on my real friend logged back on and begged me to tell them I didn't just fall for it. I told them to calm down and I said that I knew about it already.
@@LegendaryCollektor I would be careful doing business with him you could get in trouble with backpack.tf for associating with him but if your transaction with him took place before the event of him scamming everyone then you should be fine it's a damn shame to see well known figures do bad things due to temptation.
Thank god people like you and PyroJoe exist. If y’all didn’t, I would gotten scammed tons of times. I recently bought an unusual Terror-Watt Steel Shako, and boy oh boy, so many scammers.
There is one Scam Method that kinda scared me, It kinda uses the Paypal Scam aswell, If the Scammer is found out on their Paypal Scam, they will send you an Screenshot of them logging intio your Account in the Support trying to make a New Password. The Reason it scares you is because it Shows your username and Steam ID, but You Can easily see through that, You are only in real Trouble if the used Steam ID is actually your real Steam ID and the Scammer will tell you that they will hack you unless you give them your Inventory/High Tier Items, It happens so fast it catches People off Guard and usually makes them giveaway their Items. Stay Safe my Mercenaries uwu
4:47 this happened to me, but without the sign-in scam thing; they told me that if I advertised their website on my profile, I would get a free win on the roulette. Turns out the roulette was fake and there were just bots and no way to get your items back, OR the items you "won". I lost 15 keys worth of stuff...
The only time I have been scammed was once for ~30 keys, it was a Bitskin scam. Someone impersonated a popular trader, I fell for the fake profile and went to Bitskins and uploaded my items to prove that they were "marketeable" as requested by the fake profile, yet little did I know that I was keylogged (a program tracking another computer's keys pressed) for my bitskin logged me and lost about 30 keys, and the impersonator dissapeared. My account was saves due to two factor auth.
My friend got hijacked and attempted scam number 5 and it was terrifying, the only thing that tipped me off was that the Steam Community link didn't open in a new tab.
![[TF2] My Scam Story: How I Almost Lost Over 200 Keys](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dpaZs9-K0-w/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] My Scam Story: How I Almost Lost Over 200 Keys](/img/tr.png)
![[TF2] The Day Valve Broke the TF2 Economy](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/VIGLWpd8Jw0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] Why is Trading So Difficult?](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pDn6Pb-TAKg/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] The Halloween Bubble: When Will it Burst?](/img/n.gif)
Hello there everyone! I hope you enjoy the video and learn something about some of TF2's most dangerous scams. Some of these methods, particularity the last few, are scams that not many people know about, so I am excited to get these out to the more general public!
Also, the intro segment is 100% a joke. If you get scammed and want to talk to me, I'm all ears. But just know that I won't be able to get your items back and probably won't make a video on one specific scam method, as I'd prefer to clump multiple methods into one video like this one :)
EDIT: Yes I have been made aware of the spelling mistake and the pronunciation error in the video. Thanks for bringing these to my attention! :^)
ok
@@quesamo ok
@@TheVirtualEconomist no
TheVirtualEconomist alright
I hate scammers. since my backpack is pretty valuable in unusual hats/australiums, almost everyday I logon, someone invites me trying some dumb scam method that I've already about 100 times. If it weren't for your videos, I probably would have been scammed at least a few times by now.
Can't be scammed if you don't have anything to be taken
Ur so right
I read this in Sakamoto's voice
Pro-gamer move
@@CODMarioWarfare sakamoto is a poor lad
You can't get scammed if you don't trade
No one:
Every scammer I’ve ran into: “Dude don’t get mad but I reported your account for duped items.”
I haven't experienced this scam... how does it work?
@@ryanduffy6089 they tell you to add a person that's gonna be pretending to be an admin, they'll send you fake gifs of them banning people and then say you need to verify your items by sending them to a "bot". It's pretty funny to mess with them
@@ryanduffy6089 the one i encountered was my friend msged me saying "bro i accidentally reported u im sorry give me ur login and password and accept on mobile auth so i can tell steam admin". i later learn my friend fell for this. rip.
I actually wasted the fake admin time
Lol those people are dumb af
I remember when I used to sell 1 weapon : 1 scrap.
My golden years.
must be one of the best traders u seem to be very experienced while being new
I remembered trading 2ref for a key
@@DaddyDanny101 6 refs for a key back in 2011
@@SoulPriezt no back in 2011 it was 2.33-2.88
@@Shadow1177x STOUT SHAKO FOR 2 REFINED!
The second scam was actually attempted on me just these last few weeks. Pulled a Sunbeams Dancing Doe and had the only one in existence for a good week. Three separate people hit me up because I only had ~300 hours in the game at the time. Too bad for them I was already very experienced withscammer because I had also pulled a StatTrak MW Asiimov AK in CSGO a bit over a 3 weeks before the Doe hat so I was very familiar with being bombarded.
Glad you were able to avoid those people. Congrats on the unbox!
Lucky I got my first ever crate the other day and got the unuasualifier for the Boston breakdance and I don't have the taunt is the hat cool though?
I hate scammers that go for the same method, I would honestly love to meet a scammer that doesn’t want me to promote their gambling website, or a scammer that “accidentally reported my steam profile”
I fell from the i accendently report your account i was playing very late i wasnt thinking straight cause i just wanted to play from a long day of practice i lost everything but im getting all of my stuff back in christmas cause how my mom doesnt give me gifts and just allows me to use her credit card
@@antarticstorm7991 ooh ra!
I replied to "I accidentally reported your steam account for duped items" with
"oh shit, I'm so, so sorry... I fucked up"
>"what?"
"I accidentally reported you as well on purpose"
and then he blocked me, but I had already reported him,
*flexes*
also, the best way to avoid scams is something nobody ever seems to talk about, just don't trust anyone who randomly adds you for trades.
I accidentally reported you to my gambling website
@@riolume Oh No...... IQ levels OVER 9000!
PayPal chargeback scam can be negated by making sure the transaction is a “Friends and Family” charge instead of a “Goods and Services” charge, which can be charged back.
But, as it's usually the scammer who pretends to pay _me_ money for _my_ item, not the other way around, how can I control if the potential scammer I am trading with via Paypal actually labels the transaction as a “Friends and Family” charge instead of a “Goods and Services” charge? I can ask them to label it as that, but how can I confirm they actually did?
No?? Imagine having security that easy for anyone to do to not get chargebacked LOL
CrunchyFrog
ask for a picture with payment confirmation.
if they’re not a scammer, they shouldn’t bother with just taking a picture to prove its a “Friends and Family” transaction.
Did he really just pronounce compromised like that
com-promised 6:12
Ben, compromise me you'll never pronounce compromise like that ever again.
and 'accomplices' at 10:25
and he listed things like Pinkie Pie sang in Zekora's first episode
@@benjamimapancake6429 Pointing these things out accomplices nothing since Ben probably already knows about them.
Someone is trying to scam me but I have been arguing with him for a day so he doesn’t scam anyone else
big brain plays
Scammer:i reported u for duped items
BONUS DUCKS:. . . Im an admin
Neat
I always open a tab specifically for steam so I can log in. If the site has a real steamcommunity login page it'll just update and say you're logged in, and if it's fake it'll still say you have to sign in.
Yep, that's what you should always do :)
I do it too, but sometimes when I use different browser/pc when I am aren't log in i am starting thinking scrap.tf is scam for a second
I'll make a point to do this from now on. Thank you for sharing this knowledge!
@@rocketpg_9532 You're welcome! I've actually fallen victim to the exact same scam years and years ago so I tried to figure out how to get around it :)
This isn't always true, if you haven't been to the Steam community page in quite some time it'll automatically log you out, but it'll partially remember you and will give you something like "You have this account signed in, would you like to sign-in with it to continue?" and will give you a Steam Auth Login Code you have to enter from the Steam Authenticator App.
I still remember getting an all-class unusual hat with one key and one crate only in the beginning of the invasion update. The hat was worth, at the time, about $500 since it was the beginning of the invasion update, and it was very rare. Someone ended up trading me an unusual scattergun for it that was worth an extra $100, and then I sold that for about $600 USD, and bought myself a new all-class disco beatdown hat, I unboxed more crates including a great scattergun, and I got the batsaber off the market for $20 (It's now rare, and costs around $80). It was the best time ever to be playing TF2, and then I gone and got myself scammed of all my shit through a flimsy middleman scam where I believed the person talking to me was a Steam admin, when I was gullible, and 13. Shittiest experience of my life, and I still get shame and guilt for being stupid to this day whenever I remember it.
I know this is 3 years old but i wanted to reply because i feel a lot better knowing someone had a similar experience to me. I lost an 80$-100$ unusual grenade launcher that i unboxed first try (i had no clue how lucky i was) and some guy who i didn’t know was impersonating someone tricked me into giving my grenade launcher to his smurf account pretending to be a bot… i still feel guilty about it to this day
@@muntthedubious_9308similar thing just happened to me, you’re never alone.
@@drduskbunny that makes me feel better
My friend got messaged by a classic illiterate scammer pretending to be an admin. But the twist was that somehow he remotely changed my friends profile, deleting all the custom boxes, description, profile picture, background, etc, changed his name to a random set of numbers and the description to something along the lines of "this profile is under investigation". He even added himself to my friend's friends list. Both of us have expensive stuff and avoid phishing sites like the plague, but the disturbing level of control this dude had was scary.
My friend is fine, he reset password and revoke the .api
xdude228 Friend probably downloaded a RAT
That happened to me too some months ago. Sadly the scammer used an alt to scam me, so only his alt got banned. His main account is still up. Luckily a friend helped me with that, else I would have lost everything.
No, his friend just entered his steam details into a fake steam community page, but fortunately the scammer didn't have full access to the account, max he could do is reject trades, create new trade offers (but not confirm them) and edit his profile
My bad lmao, it was already late when I wrote that
U see how weak the system is?
Hackers: *is wearing a black suit* o yis
I remember getting scammed, _A moment of silence for a Gaelic Glutton, Mr. Quackers, Strange Festivised Grenade Launcher, Cloud 9 Snowcapped, Nuts & Bolts Climbing Commander an Orbiting Fire Crack Pot, and a Genuine AWPer Hand_
F
I remember losing all my items
F
F
F
I got scammed by number 5... lost 55 keys worth, made me stop playing the game for months. I'm glad that these scams have attention being brought to them though.
Takamei same lost like 70 keys worth😭😭😭😭
I only lost my only unusual that was worth 20 dollars.. so yeah still a rip
Takamei same man happened to me, I lost an Aussie wrench because I traded t to marketplace and then when someone went on my account they deleted all of my unusuals for keys
alien badegg how'd they access your account
That happened to me too, but instead of trying to steal my items the scammer just sold (or gifted) my account to a cheater, which got me VAC banned. :(
Ah Merp, a good friend of mine in the past. Sadly he turned rogue and scammed these other people.
I know, it was awful for everyone involved :(
im very surprised u didnt even talk about the "I accidentally reported u for having duped items" scam, its the most common one
this video is about the craziest scam methods not extremely obvious ones
@@samael5552 and yet he includes them
Oh god..I love and hate that scam
I got fucked by that one ;( never heard of that one before i got scammed
i almost got naenaed by that one until the guy said "give me all your items or i'll ban you" and then i googled what this guy was doing and i instantly started fucking with him back, now anyone who adds me and says this i ask them for the other account just so i can report both
Why does he sound like the younger brother of the burger king foot lettuce guy
I think you mean best trends
Chillz
Is anyone gonna talk about the way he said compromised
Lmao i read this right as he said it
cum-promised
for real
Holy fuck
I was about to write this. If English isn't his first language that's perfectly fine; but if it is, then oh boy
I'm getting a headache from the dude ending with the same note/pitch/whatever xd
Surprised so few people have brought it up. Only noticed it like two thirds of the way into the VIDEO, but once I did I couldn't STOP, hearing it constantly like a rhythm. It made it hard to focus on the CONTENT, when emphasis was added every couple SECONDS, and I kept looking for a pattern. As I scrolled through the COMMENTS, looking for anyone else who NOTICED, I couldn't stop reading COMMENTS, with the same unnatural emphasis.
Eh
THANK YOU. I'm glad I'm not the only one. I was enjoying the video then at like the half way point my brain was like "something is wrong here"
Same thing I notice with RobTheAwsm
Personally I like it, he sounds like LockPickingLawyer
Merp btw used tf2 trading as a front to launder his drug money.
My guess is that he fucked with the wrong dude and needed fast money
hence he scammed and burned bridges. I'd rather burn the bridges with TF2 trading than get mauled by the Cartel.
Old jack
@@diamondjozu4491 again
Id rather piss off tf2 traders than a drug cartel. Cartels kill, traders do not.
Where'd you get this idea. I've never seen this theory back when merp cashed out
@@redwarrior118 i talked to him personally. Like over steam. We played other games together.
I have a foolproof way of not getting scammed, and it's worked EVERY time!
Don't trade.
Period.
Or don't have anything to trade.
Yes
Bruh just use Scrap.tf
@@sillyfella2009 scrap.tf is a zero sum game nothing ever works cosmetics only get cheaper
@@cursedcliff7562 then backpack.tf
7:08 golden pan is my favorite dota 2 item
I have a special trick up my sleeve:
Have your wealth scattered across many items. This way the more items the scammer demands, the more suspicious he will be.
great trick if you only trade and never start the game
I get the "Is your item clean" "let me get a steam admin to make sure" or when I got a crazy unusual 2 of my friends said "I reported u for duped items".
Nice 'friends'
@@testietfoot411 funny thing is 1 is 13 year old.
@@thefirelord1711 lol
I've never checked my discord so many times to see if someone texted me then i remembered i don't have friends ;-;
6:13
Compromised. holy shit this made me laugh for too long
6:12*
Also “accomplishes” instead of “accomplices” lol
Robot Gore i was gonna say that lol
7:30
*Engineer has came to say yeehaw*
I think it's important for new traders to realize the difference between strange festive and festivitized items, I got scammed once when a scammer tried to give me a festivitized item claiming it was a festive one, and if you didn't know, festives are far more expensive than festivized, you need to look very closely at the small print since there isn't any way to tell the difference visually.
I saw the fake items scam on steam market a few days ago. 400 euros for a golden pan not for tf2 but for other game
Oh yeah. Some guy two months ago scammed me, but I knew beforehand what they were trying to do, so I changed my password before they got into my account so they were shit out of luck trying to trade my items for 15 days. They claimed to have a program to "block steam support" which is total bullshit lol. They had this nice little program that made it look like they could log into your account and change shit, but it's just a template of a steam page that swaps around your ID and PFP to make it look like they're in your account.
Onto the juicy stuff, they change my email to something weird, but they fucked up real bad doing that, because that leaked their IP to me cause when someone else changes your email it'll say something about someone from this IP address changed it. I told my friends about the IP and one of those guys had a PC with 32 gigs of ram and a ddos script that ran virtual pcs to constantly ping an IP over and over with garbage info. Apprently the program also displayed the dudes router statistics and data from the service provider, guy had limited data, around 500 gigs.
The fun begins. They start the program and soon enough it goes over the cap, waaaay over. Every gig of overages costed them 5 bucks I believe. In the end I believe we charged that scammer 2k-5k of overages.
Don't be a scammer, kids.
Quick Edit: Steam support to everyones surprise wasn't blocked, about 2-3 days into it they got my account back. They're nice people.
@@lelop2770 I didn't suggest it. I just sent the IP or more accurately a screenshot of the IP to show them how dumb the scammer was, and they took it from there, even if i said no I doubt they'd stop.
@@lelop2770 play stupid games, win stupid prizes
Everyone is talking about how he said compromised but not how he said nuclear
nucular
TheVirtualEconomist: talks about all the scams
Scammers: *interesting*
I was scammed. When competitive first came out you needed a pass to play. These were given out to a few players and a player came on a trade server and offered me one. I traded him a professional killstreak cow mangler and he said he would gift me a comp pass. He then un added me and disappeared.
The brokering trade HAS to be the most fascinating example of TF2 being a metaphor for the real world. Those brokers sold their morals, reputation, friends, integrity, and internet presence for a few thousand dollars. Crazy. Imagine having to live with that guilt forever. TF2 scamming gets dark quick.
There's a scam, where people threaten you to give your items or the acc will be stolen.
They sent screenshots, where it looks like that they change the password of your acc.
I was in this situation and came out perfectly fine.
But a steam friend has given them away, which makes me very mad, because those scammers abuse the fear of the victims.
you can't be afraid of such things when you've already been through more dangerous ones outside of tf2..
this same method came at me, and even tho i was quite at a state of despair, i held it together and proceeded to mess with him, he kept on his threatening and told me that he'll steal my account info if i don't accept his scam..
i just continued mocking him and he just went offline without saying any proper thing..
I NEARLY got scammed a similar way once
But thankfully, I have a trader friend who found out they were an impersonator of “Muu” so then I sent them a typosquatted link to yotube
I think they won’t be coming back for some time now!
With common sense you should not fall for that.
this video brought back so many bad memories. When I was younger I got scammed, I had never really traded and someone sent a request, a 200 dollar hat for a $6 taunt. I gave him my info and got scared and told my dad. He managed to get my account back and I was so scared I never traded again.
remember when u log in to unpopular site, on most browsers there should be green locker next to URL with "Valve Corp." next to it (that means site is legally registered by Valve) also check URL's, when logging-in
I almost got scammed once by going into a fake steam login. I'm so glad i looked to see if the little lock next to the url was safe or not.
The one that got me even had the lock... I have no idea how it worked. Often times they will have a popup on the screen that looks like another window, but is actually just some stuff on the screen, but I was able to move mine around and even outside the webpage. I have no idea how they got around all that. Even the url looked identical to an actual steam url
*Not the Medic gameplay? Well that`s UNUSUAL*
No.
*Thats STRANGE*
Ueah I lost an unusual to the fake website scam :(
me too
Damn that api thing is clever I haven’t actually heard about that one before.
I got scammed out of like $50 worth of items though that one... Somebody else said to log in to steam on another tab before going to a fishy website, as cookies will keep you logged in, so a legit site won't need to ask you for your info again. Don't let what happened to me happen to you
This guy actually help not a shity scam ironicly or a clickbait but actually tells you is it active then tells if he cans if you can get them back that's what I love
I avoid trade scams in the best way, by not trading to begin with.
Can’t scam me in trades if I never enter the trading scene to begin with.
Is Pricess Rosalina interested in the Team Fortress 2 trade community?
Recently almost got vac banned for having "scammed items" because some random dude friended me and tried to do a scam where they say they "accidentally" reported your account and if you do what they say they will take your items. And luckily my account is clear for now. If you have unusuals either make your inventory private. Or just be careful and aware of these things. If your a trader with unusuals then you don't need to follow these steps.
If a guy with many hours on tf2. Maybe like 900 hours or more but has no items. Don't accept it. They clearly want your items. Also make sure they are random people because then you know its a scam.
If someone adds you and says your account accidentally got reported. Don't fall for it they will get your items by trying to make you friend a guy who "knows" how to fix your ban. This person is someone who will take your items so don't accept it, find the right people who are real employees of valve.
Now I haven't seen the scams showed in this video. But these ones are things that are pretty easy to fall for.
probably should add the 'quick-switch' scam.usually involves the festive and festived weapons or craftable and uncraftable ones.this scam is quite active everywhere.usually when im at the bp.tf scam section,i see a report of this scam atleast thrice a week
Yeah that one a fairly dangerous one, but at least the value lost is small. If I ever make another video like this I'll include it for sure.
A form of scamming that I've noticed lately has been one where someone adds you just to tell you that they "accidentally" reported you for having duplicated items. They then give you a link to a Valve "admin" so that they could friend them and have their items verified via a "trade scan". I've been getting these for about 3 months straight.
Where was this video years ago. Feels like a kick in the knee. And almost a year after I got scammed of my items
Best way to avoid most common scams is at the top of your profile bio add "Comment before adding", that filters out 99% of scammers.
Scammers don't even deserve to have PCs like they are so pathetic to scam in TF2...
They are the definition of scavengers
It's a high value industry... the items they steal can be turned into real money
when i was a kid, i got trade scammed a bunch - thanks for getting this info out there for new players
Scam people watching this
Scammer : I’m going to end this man whole career
Trader: Cry and quit tf2 for 1 year
Usually when I get added by a “trader” or a “steam admin” I just mess with them and waste their time for a long time until they unfriend me. It’s pretty funny to see their reaction!
Ah yes, The James Veitch Method
Same bru, they are mostly dumb and easily get mad at the slightest trllings
ive been waiting for a new one of these for a while!
I've come across 2 more scams, 1 of which I personally fell for, one of my friends got hijacked and the person on that account said that he can give me money on steam with a website which needs MY credentials and steam guard code, the other scam is a non-automated message bot that says that your account has duplicate items and that they "accidentally" reported you for it, while that's not possible, and when you call the bot out for it, they IMMEDIATELY unfriend you
Scammers suck. My buddy lost like $200 worth of tf2 stuff.
Sadly my Pal lost roughly a 2,000$ item. I dunno what it was I just know he was real sour about it.
@@Avarice297 damn, that sucks. Tell him I wish him the best. That is a really heavy loss :(
After getting scammed, I lost all interest in playing TF2. The bots, lack of updates, scams, it got old
But now I'm back and kicking ass
Btw, don't fall for the "steam Dev" scam that goes like this:
1) Someone on your friends list (that has been previously scammed by this method will send you a message saying the following: "Hey man, I need to talk to you please answer me... (After talking to him and asking him what's wrong he will say)... look man, here's the problem, I'm so sorry but I mistakingly reported you of having duped items, and they said you have 2 hours to appeal or your going to lose your account..." And your friend will proceed to send you the so called "steam dev" account to you to add them and speak to them.
2) adding the so called "Steam Dev" : this is the most well planned step of the scam, because they even show you gifs of your account and a box below your steam level with something along the lines of "reported user" and the reason. (Wich is crazy)
As you begin explaining the situation the scammer will ask you for either your steam password and username, or ask you for a trade link.
If the password doesn't work, it will try the trade link method while saying "to prove that the items on your steam account aren't duped, we are going to have to individually check them" and send you a trade offer will all your valuable items. Obviously, this is the step that makes you realise that something isn't ok, but still people fell for these.
So yeah, this was out of my personal experience, some steps may change, but still, there's a reason why every time you try to speak with someone on steam the chat tells you "Do not reveal your password to anyone".
Be careful out there.
I fell for this once and this happend to me twice cause when i got scammed by this i got my stuff back cause i put money on my account when i got it back and bought everything back like nothing happend and another scammer came again and i was in the part when he showed me the gif and i said "tell gaben to update tf2 and make hl3 and also delete this account now if you are a real dev" he said "i am just hand ove the items or else and i said "do it delete my account now i dont even want this account anyway you dont need to check my items your going to delete my account anyway right
And he just block me for no reason
@@antarticstorm7991 i did the same thing lmao, it was telling me that my account was going to be deleted in 20 minutes and I said "Yeah? Cool." And it just gave up, deleting me from it's friends list.
Never heard from him again
@@chicle-_3536 lol sad
"COM PROMISED" 6:10
thanks for all the warnings im just poking fun
6:10, Compromised "Com-pruh-my-sed" And this guy says
"Com-Promised" SERIOUSLY?!?!!
I love how you are talking about crazy scams, and you are sponsoring a website that literally makes the scams.
Tutorial how to not get scammed.
Step 1: Don't accept trade requests from suspicious accounts, or something.
But there are cases where they may disguise it so well you won't be able to tell
oh my god groundbreaking discovery nobody ever knew that!!! 11!!
no fuckin shit sherlock
There's still a method I ALWAYS get these days "Hey why do you have a pending ban report on your account for fraud? You can remove the ban by talking to this Steam Employee! *link to some random dude without a valve badge* "
I got scammed out of $1000~ from a guy who built rep on backpack.tf
@@chadlee3401 Owo
@@boo2593 fuck you
My first ever scam experience:
So I was just doing my normal stuff on gmod the other day, and a “friend” said that he “accidentally” reported my profile for ‘fraudulent items’ (yeah, one of *those*) I wasn’t worried, because, you know it was tf2 items, I didn’t feel like they were worth a steam moderator’s attention.
He’s all like “dude please my friend lost his account because of the same thing” and after awhile I’m just like, “okay, fine.” So I talk to the ‘admin’ he linked me and blah blah, sends me a video of ‘legitimacy’ and asks me to provide evidence that the report was an accident, I did that, and then he’s like, we’ll have to verify your items through the steam machine (or something like that.) Then, skepticism kicked in, and I went online to check this stuff up. Sure enough, it was a scam. So I blocked that dude, and blocked the friend who was in on it too.
So yeah, be skeptical for when a friend “reports your account accidentally cause he mistook you for a ‘scammer.’ “
Why does this guy sound like the lock pick lawyer
when you accidentaly scam someone for kazotsky kick when you don't know it's value
I come in wondering how NOT to get scammed, I walk out knowing HOW to scam.
you're right about the first scam you showed, i had never heard of scams like it and ended up losing my unusualifier that i unboxed
Com *PROMISED*
Speech 100.
If someone adds you and they got a private inventory, block them immediately. unless you know that person irl.
Why keep their stuff private?, it doesn't matter
I omce had a choice, either dying hijacked or suffer my entire life being scammed...
I choose the hijack
But i was fast enough to retrieve my account back without losing a single item.
"Feels good man"
another thing which happened in history (with csgo but still) is that, a few times in the past someone has been offered to join the server. then the scammer will somehow persuade/coerce the victim into leaving. the playee joining the server causes rhe server ro download malicious files onto your pc which the hacker could apparently use to copy your steamguard files and bypass it, allowing them to just log in to your account and trade away all your items
You are alive?!
I lost a circling TF crones dome to the trade hijacking scam, first unbox too. Scammers always find a way to get around the safeguards and it's the worst thing ever. What sucks even more is the hat is in a permanently trade banned account and it has been for a year but steam doesn't restore items.
Anyone else actually check their Discord at the beginning of the video?
They use Festivized Weapons as a replacement instead of Festive Weapons. They even name the item so i couldnt check
Damn.. I miss my do si do I got scammed out of. Rip my friend's gift to me
Thanks for the video though! It helps a lot :P
Thanks for showing me new ways at the art of scamming.
I dont get scammed because I dont give anybody items
I like the editing style with the partial blur behind the words. It's much less irritating now that the game play is still visible.
Glad you enjoy it! It is not something that stands out to most people, but I think it is very important in making everything appear clear and professional :)
@@TheVirtualEconomist yeah. The game play in the background is nice. I remember it fading out and getting annoyed I couldn't see how you handled a 1v1 or something. Good change.
Why did he make this made in 2019
Even when i was trading and was well aware of phishing scams, i still got trade offer hijack scammed out of 3 keys, it would have been 30 keys if it wasn't for them being not tradable for a week and the fact that gell himself helped me out in getting my account back and revoking the api key, i really do respect gell after that one lol, he saved me in a dire situation
There is also the "I'm starting a team"
Another common method is the festivized weapon as festive scam. If you are new it’s so easy to not notice it until it’s too late.
YO WTF
I TRADED WITH MERP
LIKE WE WERE FRIENDS
WHY DID HE DO THAT?!?!?!?!
who's merp
@@OwenAsh a really infamous scammer that weaseled away with 10000$ worth of unusuals he worked his way up as a brokerer and earned the trust of alot of well known traders and one day a bunch of traders gave him some unusuals for him to broker and he ran off with the said unusuals
Scammers can hijack accounts if they get a hold of their login information. One of my steam friends did that saying that I could have $200 for being a good friend. Seems odd. I told them that I didn't need the money and then they didn't reply for a day. Later on my real friend logged back on and begged me to tell them I didn't just fall for it. I told them to calm down and I said that I knew about it already.
@@sudo5140 i actually talked to him and bought some really decent unusuals at insanely low prices.
@@LegendaryCollektor I would be careful doing business with him you could get in trouble with backpack.tf for associating with him but if your transaction with him took place before the event of him scamming everyone then you should be fine it's a damn shame to see well known figures do bad things due to temptation.
Thank god people like you and PyroJoe exist. If y’all didn’t, I would gotten scammed tons of times. I recently bought an unusual Terror-Watt Steel Shako, and boy oh boy, so many scammers.
That intro really hit home
I feel you man. Whatever I have I can only imagine you have it 10x worse lol
'com-promised', 'accomplishes' (accomplices)
honestly classics ben
nice you are back!
:)
I'm waiting for somebody to try one of these scams against him.
*Can’t be scammed if I am a F2P*
*Cries in gibus*
I think you mean
*cries in pyrovision*
There is one Scam Method that kinda scared me, It kinda uses the Paypal Scam aswell, If the Scammer is found out on their Paypal Scam, they will send you an Screenshot of them logging intio your Account in the Support trying to make a New Password. The Reason it scares you is because it Shows your username and Steam ID, but You Can easily see through that, You are only in real Trouble if the used Steam ID is actually your real Steam ID and the Scammer will tell you that they will hack you unless you give them your Inventory/High Tier Items, It happens so fast it catches People off Guard and usually makes them giveaway their Items.
Stay Safe my Mercenaries uwu
Your voice is quite infuriating, but thanks for the warnings.
You can look up if the "Steam site" has a Valve corp certificate,it's as simple as that.
Can't be scammed if you don't have Authenticator. Enjoy your 15 day trade hold lmao
Lmao it really can be helpfull i got scammed tho :/
4:47 this happened to me, but without the sign-in scam thing; they told me that if I advertised their website on my profile, I would get a free win on the roulette. Turns out the roulette was fake and there were just bots and no way to get your items back, OR the items you "won". I lost 15 keys worth of stuff...
Another scam that can be used to trick new traders and one that I almost fell for, is festive/festivitized items. Major differences in price.
now im learning every single method, and gonna go scam some gibus pyros
What are you gonna steal,their *unusual ghostly gibus* ? Oh nvm he cant trade it
TestietFoot 🤔🤨
The only time I have been scammed was once for ~30 keys, it was a Bitskin scam.
Someone impersonated a popular trader, I fell for the fake profile and went to Bitskins and uploaded my items to prove that they were "marketeable" as requested by the fake profile, yet little did I know that I was keylogged (a program tracking another computer's keys pressed) for my bitskin logged me and lost about 30 keys, and the impersonator dissapeared. My account was saves due to two factor auth.
My friend got hijacked and attempted scam number 5 and it was terrifying, the only thing that tipped me off was that the Steam Community link didn't open in a new tab.