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Sunday, April 22, 2012

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.

11 comments:

  1. Duping is over? Says who? I see duped hats constantly I'm looking at TF2 Outpost right now with a trade of 10 obviously duped hats.

    Duping isn't going anywhere these bastards keep finding a way.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Duping was am issue when there was steam and in-game trading. It cannot be done anymore. Read more here:

    http://sourceop.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=102905&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

    ReplyDelete
  3. If someone's been hacked, valve replaces all of his lost items with duped ones. That's why new duped items are coming out to market.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Some of the duping is actually Valve's own doing. When an account gets hacked and Valve customer service replaces the stolen items, the replaced items have the same original ID as the stolen items.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, its not not the right topic, but what about a Strange Your Eternal Reward price?

    ReplyDelete
  6. He's probably referring to support granted hats. When someone has their account hijacked, Steam Support will usually recreate all the stolen hats, so there ends up being two identical copies of each of those hats. The hijackers have one set of copies and the original owner has one set created by Steam Support. Same item ID numbers, same levels, same everything.

    That's probably the "duped" hats that Lavitikaz is seeing everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  7. i hear people are losing interest in the max's head
    but they're still selling at old price...:(

    also..., pretty sure duping is still going on
    saw one awhile ago...? :/

    http://www.tf2outpost.com/backpack/3498

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don't think you guys have been looking around enough.
    Duping is STILL very much an issue.
    The issue was always with the item server it has nothing to do with steam/in-game trading I've emailed Valve about this. They are 'looking into it.'
    Just take a look at any of the major trading sites it wont take but a few minutes to a find a new duped hat.

    I'd hate to see someone screwed over because they think it's all safe now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Call me ignorant, I know duping and hacking and such are wrong, but what is different about a duped hat than the origional hat? Like how can you tell?

    ReplyDelete
  10. The prices of strange Ambassadors are way up, I can't find one for less than about 2.33 refined to a key. Degreasers continue to rise, exceeding 3 refined easily to more like 3.33-3.66 refined at this point. Along with those degreasers going up I see the crate 31 being sold for a scrap or two each as well. May want to look into that.
    Anything new I've missed?

    ReplyDelete
  11. LunarWarrior: use the sourceop link above, page 3 describes how to tell.

    ConfusedCactus: right on both ambassador and degreaser, changes made. Although 31 is still widely available for around a weapon. Feel free and email me directly with these from now on.

    ReplyDelete