SteamRep & Solaris (v4)

A SourceOP Trusted Sellers Group member (Solaris32) was given the choice of a SR CAUTION tag by SteamRep or told he must resign being a Trusted Seller member (or the group must remove him) for (unknowingly) making a reasonably small item-for-item trade with a scammer's alt account, even though he had made no prior mistakes his trading career.

With this decision, SteamRep is claiming the power force communities to remove Community Admins (or other "green text" community members) or suffer the consequence of a damaged reputation via an SR CAUTION tag, even on the *first time* a reasonably small mistake is made, and no harm was intended (see Note 1).

I believe it is important for the communities to understand this about SR and the new authority they are claiming. If community leaders wish to grant SteamRep this authority, so be it, but I would not, and I do feel community owners should be aware of the risk of losing good community admins, and admins in particular should be aware of this risk of the extensive penalty to their personal reputation should they choose to continue to hold their position.

Thank you,
Commander Schwegs
SourceOP Trusted Seller Group Manager
SteamRep Moderator
MCT/UTC/UHC Admin
HG Admin
2-time playing server admin

===== Details

The trade in question was for the other person's 31 TF2 Mann vs Machine TOD tickets (a very common item) at 2.22 refined metal each (backpack.tf price) -- an equal value, item-for-item (no cash) trade at backpack.tf price. The user added Solaris along with many other people from his TF2Outpost trades. The total value of the trade was reasonably small, ~11.5 TF2 keys (~1/2 of an earbud, see Note 2). There was no unordinary amount/value/incentive to make the trade (for comparison, Solaris' backpack value is 1,350 keys, 61+ earbuds, or 8,096 refined, with over 150 MvM tickets alone).

- SteamRep did not deny it was an honest mistake.
- SteamRep did not deny that no past history or other events were involved.
- Solaris was fully cooperative with all SteamRep and SourceOP investigations.
- The alt account in question was not marked as a scammer on SR at the time. However, a glance at the profile could have revealed little or no hours of TF2 played, which it seems SR is defining as an "obvious scammer alt" (see Appendix 3).
- While Solaris did check the user's SteamRep status, he fully expressed the oversight of not also checking the profile.
- After nearly a month, hours of conversations and investigations by multiple parties, and an expedited public appeal, a head admin gave him a first and only warning, and removed the caution tag for now.

===== Notes

Note 1: This FAQ/"rule" was rewritten 2.5 weeks after the incident and after the SR admin applied the caution tag, specifically to include the statement that SR has the generic authority to take this kind of action towards "green text" community members -- see Appendix 1 & 2.

Note 2: I was informed in 2011 by SteamRep that no trades under a bud require background checks, and neither myself nor the TS group (via announcements, etc) were notified of this requirement since, though many TS members and community admins, such as Solaris, do so anyways, because they do not wish to assist scammers. In talking with other community admins and owners as well, many also are not aware of this requirement. It greatly concerns me that myself or many others could have fallen into Solaris' shoes even worse than he did, so word of this requirement should be spread to avoid even worse incidents.

===== Documentation

<~45 Screenshots and Transcripts unlisted. Though I do have screenshots and transcripts of all conversations and communication between SteamRep, Solaris, TS Group Admins, etc, I do not wish to break confidentiality or cause public slander toward specific SR admins. It is my hope that using them does not become necessary.>

Solaris' appeal:
http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561197990705923-solaris32-sr-caution.40703/

==== Appendicies

APPENDIX 1: ORIGINAL TRADING-WITH-SCAMMER TEXT
(or close to it, as of today, this is still posted at the primary FAQ on http://forums.steamrep.com/pages/faq/)
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What are the penalties for trading or buying from SCAMMERs or obvious scammer alts?

If you knowingly trade with scammers or obvious scammer alt accounts (with extremely low hours), you are putting your reputation at risk. SteamRep's policy is to be understanding when an innocent trader makes a mistake or when the monetary value is relatively low. Yet, we cannot encourage scammers to profit from their theft.
New traders: New traders who are unaware of SteamRep will not receive penalties to their reputations, but will receive a one-time warning.
First offense:
Item/Game trades: You will receive a one-time warning for any high-value item or game trade with a SCAMMER or an obvious scammer alternate account. (This warning will be a temporary CAUTION tag that will be removed when you contact SteamRep admins.)
Cash trades: You will receive a CAUTION reputation tag for cash exchanges for high-value items with a marked scammer or obvious alternate scammer acount. Helping scammers profit is not something we can encourage.
Second offense:
You were already warned: You will receive a CAUTION reputation tag.
You already have a CAUTION tag: You will receive a SCAMMER reputation tag.
Third offense: You will receive a SCAMMER reputation tag.
Important Notes:
Anyone has the right to one appeal. You should appeal if you feel the evidence is incorrect or you feel the penalty is too harsh.
Ultimately, if it's very clear you were purposely trying to profit from scammed or stolen items, you deserve a SCAMMER tag at admin discretion.
Even if you disagree with someone else's SCAMMER reputation tag, trading with them is still considered "Trading with a Scammer". Just because you trust them not to scam you, it doesn't mean they aren't selling stolen merchandise they took from someone else.
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APPENDIX 2: NEW TRADING-WITH-SCAMMER TEXT
AUG 18
(taken from: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/expanded-faq-recommended.7263/page-2#post-120656)
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Q: What are the consequences for trading with a scammer.
A: Well, that varies, on a lot of conditions.

First: Limitations...
SR will not look at a items vs items trade or multiple trades of total value less then a Bill's hat worth.
Promo's like Bill's hat, Max head and any Unusual will be checked out with below ruling (even if that unusual is worth less then a Bill's hat).
If cash trading (paypal, webmoney, etc) is involved this will be looked into, no matter what value.
SR will not look for trades for a scrap, refined or a key with item vs item trades. We do not expect people to bother to check SR or someone's profile for such low value. It also prevents "troll-marking", where a scammer would trade some items to a account to get that account marked for w/e reason. Also, most beginner traders won't have that much to trade with anyways, so that acts as a protection barrier.

Second: Various levels of actions can be done, a Warning can be given, a Caution tag, or even on more rare cases a Scammer tag.

Third: There are no exceptions, marked Scammer ppl ask us every now and then if they could cash out their items to somebody without giving those a problem, but it doesn't work that way. We provide no exceptions in that. There may be arrangements in repaying victims in items, as that is a requirement for appeal on SR, those may not be the same as what they scammed, but should be to the value of what was stolen. This is not to say that one can give high value items that are hard to sell to repay their victim as replacement for their stolen items. Preference is the item(s) themselves are returned that where stolen, and otherwise promo's/keys/refined to their value.

"Warning"
If such happens (trade value of bills or higher or unusual), a first offense can be done off with a warning, depending on the circumstances. This is often done in chat with the offender. A note of the warning is stored in private notes on their SR profile.

"Caution"
If the circumstances don't allow for a warning, for it was too obvious a alt, repeated offenses, should have known to check SR etc, then a Caution tag is applied. The caution tag or subsequent Scammer tag (see below) can be one time appealed to lower 1 level. A caution tag will therefore be lowered to a "Private" caution tag that is only viewable by SCA's and SR admins. If at a later date a offense occurs, its upgraded again, and cannot be removed. There are some exceptions, and those are within the freedom of the admin dealing with it. Basically the admin can say: this was accidental or could not foresee or w/e and not upgrade the tag, but it would be recorded also.

"Scammer"
Once its been multiple times, and the above warning/repeat offenses/caution didn't work to prevent the trader to continue to trade with scammers, a scammer tag will be applied.

Conclusion:
The idea is to catch repeat offenders who do it for gain. There is no gain in small items or intent in accidental trades. The reach is also towards obvious scammer alts accounts.

Any designated green tagged group, including affiliate community admins (Such as: Admins, MM, etc.) are held to a higher standard. For those should know better and be able to check accounts out by their experience, and should do so by habit. As those higher standards are always discussed when such occurs, there is no generic rule(s) on those to display. In general SR likes the responsible community to deal with the case, although we may do a recommendation. If lacking action, or SR doesn't see eye to eye with the respective communities solution, SR may choose to override it.
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APPENDIX 3: "OBVIOUS SCAMMER" DEFINITION
(taken from http://forums.steamrep.com/pages/faq/)
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What is considered an "obvious" scammer alternate account (alt)?

Scammers frequently make new Steam accounts (or buy Steam accounts) to avoid bans placed on their main account. An obvious scammer alt is a trader who has a great deal of knowledge of the values of items and the Steam economy, yet has a very recent Steam account or very low hours played in TF2. Trading with these accounts is not permitted.

The following clues help identify an obvious scammer alt:
Low hours of TF2/DotA with a deep knowledge of Steam/TF2 item values
New Steam start date, but eager to trade high value items
Private backpack, and with no rep threads
Quickselling fresh items that are less than a day old in their backpack
Nearly empty game backpack except for a few high value items with very recent history
Note, trading with newbies is not discouraged-- it is only when your conversation and their vital statistics make it obvious that they surpass the trading abilities of a newbie, which usually means they are an alternate account of an experienced trader.

If you have any concerns about a specific account, please ask a community admin for advice.
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