PSA: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...

We've seen this kicking around and just to make sure people are not falling for this scam we want to point it out. Apparently there is a link that scammers are posting that promises to enable you to change the quality of items in your backpack.  Details are in a safe link here.  As with anything, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is.  Even if this were possible, once Valve found out, your account(s) would likely be banned and you would lose everything.  And seeing as this isn't possible and the scammers are just pointing to a phishing program, if you were crazy enough to install it you would likely lose all your items or some trojan would be installed.  Either way you lose.

Stay safe, don't download anything like this.  Duping is over and these schemes aren't even worth attempting.  If you want to make a profit at trading take the time to understand prices and earn it.

update: a few people have wrote to us and tried to equate duping with Valve replacing stolen items.  While the result of both are indiscernible to anyone outside of Valve, it is not the same.  Duping was the uncontrolled copying of hats via the old steam strading and in-game trading glitch. This is fixed.  The other issue is when a player has a stolen/hacked account and items are replaced by Valve, effectively creating doubles if the offender is never caught.  This has always existed and is a smaller scale issue.  It is controlled by Valve and is not "duping".  If this practice upsets you tell Valve about it.

PSA: steam phishing sites

We've known people to be burned by these sites.  No matter how obvious a scam entering your email username and password may seem like, there will be people who fall for it.  When a site looks like the one you trust it's sometimes easy to be fooled.  That said, always check the URL before putting in your steam information.  This goes for logging into Steam, signing into your bank accounts, email websites, whatever.

Here's the latest one making the front page on Reddit.

PSA: don't give me your uncraftables

Just a word of warning to all those traders out in TF2 land: mouse-over all items in your trade window.  Many trades in our experience have people putting up "uncraftable" (ie. dirty) items on unsuspecting victims.  It's very common and easy to stop.  You just have to pay attention.  That is all.  Carry on.

PSA: Don't trust. Verify, verify, verify.

It has come to our attention here at TF2S that a well rehearsed scam going around whereby multiple scammers prey on an unsuspecting player to rip him/her off.  The game is called "Trust" ironically, and the scam involves a player claiming they are quitting TF2 and want to give away valuable items but only if they play the "Trust" game.  This involves other people in on the scam who supposedly also trust the "quitter" and give him items which the quitter then quickly trades back.  This goes around until the victim actually gives something valuable to the quitter and then the scammers all disappear.

Simon1123 on SPUF describes and documents the scam here.  Obviously with a game like TF2 where items translate to real money, use your best judgement.