As the name states, quickswitch(or quickswap) is when the scammer quickly swaps items in the
trade. mostly for a significantly less valued item, this is particularly common when trading for strange items as the scammer will mostly likely quickswitch the strange for a normal. quickswitch scams involving unusuals can be very annoying, a lot of the time the scammer quickswitches it to the same unusual hat but with a cheaper effect. the effect is only displayed if you hover over the hat.








a quickswitch scam normally looks like this.



how to avoid: ALWAYS hover over everything in the trade before clicking the make trade button, check the chat to see if any items have been swapped around.
remember that once they have readied up, they cannot change items without unreadying.

This scam technique isn't only used in TF2 trading, it is also all over the internet and is a criminal offense(so is scamming in general) it involves the scammer sending a link to a fake site to a site that Is disguised as the real one, when you get to the fake site, you will be asked for a username and password, if you type it in then you will not log in, but the info is sent directly to the scammer, who is likely to hijack your account and steal your items. this actually happened to me once, but I was had very few items at the time, so all the scammer stole was a few weapons :)
(phishing link scams are common if you use tf2 trading post, tf2 outpost or any other trading website)

phishing scams generally look something like this:
Scammer: hi
Trader: hello
Scammer: my friend wants to trade his unusual with you, but he can't add you because of error
please add him: {LINK REMOVED}http://steamcomunity.com/profiles/76561198043902971/

notice that in this link there says steamcomunity, where there is only one "m"

How to avoid:
if somebody sends you a link, always check it for hidden or missing letters, if you cannot tell, find the actual site and compare the links, are there any differences?

now when you click on a phishing link: it should come up with a notice saying



so remember; look out for that fake letter!

This only really applies to high value items, such as unusual hats, for some reason, nobody likes duped items, simply because the reduce the value slightly and they're hard to sell.

the annoying thing about this is: it is impossible to tell if an item is duped without using a site such as backpack.tf

How to tell if an item is duped:
1. firstly, you will need the URL address bar enabled.





if you don't know how to do this,
1. click "steam" in the top left corner and then click "settings"
2. go to inteface and check the box that says: "display steam URL address bar when availbible"


back to duped items.
2. you need to copy their profile link and past it into www.backpack.tf
3. you will be on their backpack
4. hover over the item that you want to check, then click history, if the item is duped, it will say if it is duped.


There is nothing wrong with duped items and half the time, people don't know that their item is duped, it only become scamming if people lie by saying an item isn't duped when it is.

Sharking is when people target new people with valuable items and lie about the prices, this happens a lot to me in CS:GO, I haven't played much and I have a knife. meaning that they target me a lot.

Sometimes, this can pretty much consist of extreme lowballing, some people would argue that Sharking isn't as bad, since people believe that a trade is fair if both traders are happy, but once people learn what the real price is, they normally feel bad.

A shark may say something like this:

Sharker: Hi
Trader: hi
Sharker: can I buy your strange australium scattergun?
Trader: ok, but what are you offering?
(strange aussie scattergun is around 2.5 buds)
Sharker: 5 keys?
Trader: ok, that sounds like a lot.



When the trader gains experience, he will probably realise how much he lost with that one trade.



how to avoid:
1. ALWAYS check the price of an item that they're offering. backpack.tf or trade.tf is a great price checking site.
2. if someone sends you a random trade request, you can decline it.
3. increase your hours. some people look up profiles and check how long people have played a game.

These type of scams are become a lot more common on places like tf2outpost, but scammers can impersonate people to try all sorts of tricks. People have impersonated server admins and threatened to ban people if they don't give them free items, people have impersonated trusted friends in an attempt to get free items from them, or to ask if they can borrow something and pay back later.(and run)

Impersonation method:

1. A quite common trick is where the scammer will add a person selling a high value item like an unusual hat. they will make up some story saying something like: can I make a precaution to check if your hat is duped or something like that. you can see an example in the picture, if you play along with this and you send your iitem to a friend, the scammer will impersonate by creating a profile that has the same name and profile picture. once the scammer has said to your friend that you can trade back, the fake account will send your friend a trade request asking for the item. your friend will most likely fall for it and send the item to the fake account.

the really annoying thing about this scam method is that it is not just you who is getting fooled, even if you are a professional trader and don't know this scam method you may still get scammed as it is your friend who is giving the item to to the scammer, the only way of protecting yourself from this scam is by knowing what it is, if you see someone asking you to send your item to a trusted friend, they're a scammer and do not hesitate to report them.






2. people have impersonated trusted friends in an attempt to get free items from them, or to ask if they can borrow something and pay back later(and run).

3. People have impersonated server admins and threatened to ban people if they don't give them free items.

4. If you ever get into paypal trading, spycrabbing or anything else that requires a middleman(person who arranges trades, such as one where items cannot be exchanged at the same time), be careful. some people try to fake being a middleman by impersonating a real one. you can get a list of them here on steamrep. http://steamrep.com/list/M
an example of a steamrep middleman is "wuv"

if doing something like a paypal trade or spycrab, the scammer will convince the victims that are trading that he/she is a steamrep admin by getting the link to the real middleman's profile, once the fake middleman has the items that the victims will be trading, the scammre will run, leaving both the traders with nothing.


How to avoid:
if somebody sends you a link to their profile and says that they're a middleman, copy their profile

then copy it into the steamrep.net search bar

As you probably already know, using a name tag and discription tag, you can change the name or descrpition of items. However, sometimes scammers rename items to make it look like a higher quality item, so they might rename a normal kritzkreig to "strange kritzkreig". remember that renamed items will always have the double quotation marks "" around them


If someone adds a renamed item to the trade, it will say: (user's) "Engineer piss-off device" has been renamed, Original name: Red Tape recorder. it will also have an exclamation mark next to it.







When using gift wrap, the item that is in the gift will be shown in the tags. although if it is renamed it will not say that It's renamed, all that will be shown is the double quotation marks

Some people claim that they can offer you steam wallet funds for an item that you have. they're lying, you cannot trade steam wallet funds! except using the market, I guess that counts as trading steam wallet funds. This scam method is most common when using trade offers, the scammer might send you a trade offer for an item that you own. In the notes section, they might type out a very legit looking message that makes it look like you will actually recieve money.
they normally look like this.

If someone tries to scam you, play along, gather up as much evidence as you can. More evidence means higher chance of the scammer getting in trouble. you can report scammers to steam by going on their profile and clicking "report violation" or you can go to steamrep.com and click "report fraud".
Normally I do both, but if it is a phishing scam, you will not need to report it to steamrep.




Steamrep says that there are three key things needed.
1. Proof of the initial trade agreement.(e.g. steam chat screenshot)
2. Proof of the broken agreement or scam attempt. (e.g. inventory history screenshot, disconnect without exchange, or paypal screenshots)
3. Proof that you verified the identity of the person (e.g. screenshot after clicking user's name from inventory history, or loading their profile from the chat discussion)





so get some screenshots! a good program for taking screenshots on the desktop can be found here
https://gyazo.com/

If any more scam methods get introduced, I will learn about them and make a page on them here.

Thanks everyone, and happy trading! :)


and thanks to T4ctic4lDuck for helping me with the quickswitch scam example.